Developing a Progression for Education

Judo is an educational system. That’s why it was so successful at the end of the Meiji Restoration. Unfortunately, as an educational system, it has not attempted, in the U.S. especially, to develop instructors to guide students along the educational path.

Imagine if you sent your children to school and there were no teachers. Imagine if you enroll in a college program and no professors are teaching. This is how judo develops students.

With this in mind, I have often wondered how to make it simpler to develop students into teachers as they grow in judo. Some of my thoughts have related to using the USJA’s Coaching Certification Program, requiring my students to assist in instruction, and encouraging them to do research. While these are certainly good things for students, they are not sufficient.

Recently, I started to look at how public education works to develop students and cover the material required. In the state of New Mexico, a book of standards exists which lists all of the items a student should know upon completion of the academic year for every course. Teachers have to develop lesson, unit, and activity plans to complete the standards. The better the planning the easier it is to complete all the standards.

In my case, I decided that having my standards for promotion (available on my club’s website) clearly written was insufficient. The next step was the path for teaching the techniques. I spent the last few weeks working with Visio to develop “fish bone” charts for several ranks (Junior 1-4 and Hachikyu-Gokyu; available here). The next part, well, I guess that will be developing the lesson plans for every step.

While this may seem excessive for some, I think it is the bare essentials for running not just a successful program, but a repeatable program.