I cannot overestimate having a mentor in life. The significance of it is something I discussed before in this article. But finding a good teacher is not easy. In whatever area you are looking at, there is a lot of noise that needs to be filtered. Recognizing what is worth your time is complicated, especially if you have high standards for yourself. There is, of course, a personal connection, but also there is a practical way to determine whether a teacher is capable of providing you with what you are looking for.
It is important to mention, that with the right mindset, it is possible to learn from anyone. This is a whole skill of its own: filtering and categorizing the material, creating a comprehensive map of knowledge, and coherently connecting the information. It is also always possible to learn how NOT to do things, at least. For myself, I set the standard very high. I have a limited amount of time and I cherish every second of it, so I look for the best teachers for me in every area that I go for. It is not always easy on the pocket, but if you are looking for a gourmet meal, you would not expect it at the price of a gas station sushi, would you? Needless to say, the high price of service does not always equal the high quality of it.
One key thing to understand is that there is an important qualitative difference between two professions: teacher and instructor. It does not mean one is better than the other, it means they are different and they seek different outcomes.
An instructor shows you how to do a practical skill, it is a short-term process that is limited to the time of a session. There isn’t necessarily a connection between the various sessions and the process is limited to the time spent together with the one who is being instructed. The instructor provides training during a session and it is limited to that.
A teacher fulfills multiple tasks like education, evaluation, and monitoring. A teacher must have a map of the process that he creates for the students and know where exactly he is guiding them. He provides the connection between theoretical and practical knowledge and must aim to develop critical thinking in the students. The teacher is the mentor, and the student is the center of the educational process. The teacher’s role is to eventually become obsolete, making a student rely on himself in further education. A teacher has a role of an instructor as well because conducting practical sessions is one of his tasks, but it is not applicable all the way around. Fostering the growth of a student across many aspects and creating for them a deep understanding of the subject at hand both practically and theoretically is a responsibility of a teacher.
A good teacher is defined by the capacity to create a process that aims far in the future and guides a pupil in a specific direction (or few of them). The importance of having a teacher is the fact that we can never look beyond the point of where we are at, and it is critical to have someone seeing where is your failure and indicating that. Someone who walked the path already can see where you can stumble and help you through that while keeping your autonomy and fostering your problem-solving skills. A teacher must work with the full periphery of activities that strengthen learning. He must advise, inspire, and challenge.
What are the steps of identifying if the teacher is good or not? Ido Portal has distilled the process of finding a good teacher to what he calls “The good teacher holy trinity”:
Walk the talk: if the teacher does not practice what he preaches, how can you trust this person to educate you about the subject? A movement teacher must be able to move well, a voice teacher must be able to sing, an MMA teacher must have been in the actual fights, a business adviser must have his own successful business, etc. The experience and practical skills in the field are crucial. This is what you want to pay attention to when you are looking for a teacher. If there is no skin in the game – there is no value to be found here.
No bullshit: the theory must support the practice. The teacher must answer the “why” of the things he is proposing you to do. He must have a clear understanding and vision of where he is taking you and how to get there. The education process should not be random, it must provide you with a comprehensive map of what you are doing and why. It doesn’t mean people do not make mistakes or get things wrong. There is not a single person in the world that knows everything. People who are sure of what they are offering should own their mistakes and admit there are some things that they do not know. What shows a good teacher though is that when this is the case – he will admit it and will try to close the gap in his knowledge and find the answer to your question by the next session.
Show me your students: good mentors produce repetitive results. Being able to do a thing and being able to communicate it does not necessarily mean you can create a process that will transmit this knowledge to others, even though it is a pre-requisite for that. Look at what students a teacher have produced. If they are able to perform on a high level and if the result is repetitive over a different demographic (some coaches can only work with talented or previously prepared people). A good teacher will turn a beginner into an expert independent of their background and age. He will be able to meet a person where they are and build a process from this point that will assess and include their weaknesses and strengths.
Following these simple steps, you can usually evaluate with a high degree of certainty if the teacher will be able to help you in your process or not. A good teacher provides an environment where you can learn all the time. The small comments, the situations in the class, the questions he generates in you – there are people who just constantly provide soil for growth and these are the people who make for the best teachers. The human connection also matters, for some people more than for others, but I personally do not give it that much importance. I had the luck of respecting and liking on an individual level most of my teachers, and the ones I connected the most I stayed with eventually and still learn from them. However, there were some that I absolutely hated. Nevertheless, they were good at what they do, they truly knew their craft and they were brilliant in providing education about it. I am incredibly grateful for them as much as for every other that I liked personally better. I look for education from a teacher, not for a friend.
In the world of constant noise and overload of information, finding a good teacher in any field is not an easy task. But there are good teachers, and a search for the right one for you will eventually give you much more than you could ever imagine. Sometimes it is a question of pure luck, sometimes a question of a long search process, nevertheless, when you find a good teacher – stick to them and make sure you pull out of them everything that you can. This is a skill of its own that you have to develop yourself. This poses a new question – can you be a good student? Do YOU even qualify to learn from this person? But this is a whole another story.