Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.
Critique the Poem, Not the Poet
The title really says it all, but because I am a wordy bastard and have more to say, I'll continue. You can stop now should you desire and move on to more important things. Hell, I would.
I teach a number of activities in which the participants have a very real chance of being physically harmed should I not be competent in my instruction and instructions. Because of this I have had to become more cogent of the steps involved in accomplishing and action rather than merely knowing the action itself. Add to this my recent corporate focus as a project manager and I tend to blend teaching with measuring and breaking things down into manageable steps.
At the martial arts school in which I teach I have a lot of students and I do not dislike any of them. They are all people who try hard and work hard and listen and strive to learn. Yet, even with this attitude they sometimes just plain do things incorrectly. Stance, punch, kick, block, whatever. The way they execute it is wrong so I correct them. If they do not listen to the correction, I give them remedial exercises. If they persist in executing incorrectly, I demonstrate, hand-to-hand, why exactly their execution is flawed. This demonstration can be physically uncomfortable.
I like each and every one of my students but I will cajole and lecture and chastise and put them on the ground until they learn the correct way to do something or demonstrate a better way. I do this because, just like parenting, I realised long ago I could concentrate on me or I could concentrate on my responsibilities.
My responsibilities are to teach and demonstrate and give my students and children the tools to be better than I am and to make certain they obtain this faster than I did. Adhering to my responsibilities makes me the bad guy at times. Should I concentrate on me, I'd never be the bad guy. I'd always tell people that they were doing the best of all possible jobs, that my children were without error, that every stance and block and kick and punch is perfect. They would love me up until the moment when they met someone who was actually competent and then they would look at me like I had betrayed them and they would be right.
I would have sacrificed their talent and work to make me look better in their eyes.
As selfish as I am, I am not that selfish.
Plus, while I can always get new students, I'm done fathering children so I have to make certain I've established the foundation to maintain an excellent relationship. Since I extend this to my students, I get referrals, I get new students, I keep old students. I get identified as a desirable teacher not because I will make you feel good but because I will teach you well and you will feel good about yourself.
A critique on a poem, a road-map of why you like it and suggestions of how to make it better, is not an attack on the poet. There will always be those who equate the two but this is beyond your control and should not stop you from offering solid and effective critique.
Critique is the only way we get better. Practicing the same technique poorly 100,000 times only build poor habits, it does not make you better.
No doubt someone will decide this blog entry is a personal attack on them. As this is beyond my control it is also beyond my concern.
I teach a number of activities in which the participants have a very real chance of being physically harmed should I not be competent in my instruction and instructions. Because of this I have had to become more cogent of the steps involved in accomplishing and action rather than merely knowing the action itself. Add to this my recent corporate focus as a project manager and I tend to blend teaching with measuring and breaking things down into manageable steps.
At the martial arts school in which I teach I have a lot of students and I do not dislike any of them. They are all people who try hard and work hard and listen and strive to learn. Yet, even with this attitude they sometimes just plain do things incorrectly. Stance, punch, kick, block, whatever. The way they execute it is wrong so I correct them. If they do not listen to the correction, I give them remedial exercises. If they persist in executing incorrectly, I demonstrate, hand-to-hand, why exactly their execution is flawed. This demonstration can be physically uncomfortable.
I like each and every one of my students but I will cajole and lecture and chastise and put them on the ground until they learn the correct way to do something or demonstrate a better way. I do this because, just like parenting, I realised long ago I could concentrate on me or I could concentrate on my responsibilities.
My responsibilities are to teach and demonstrate and give my students and children the tools to be better than I am and to make certain they obtain this faster than I did. Adhering to my responsibilities makes me the bad guy at times. Should I concentrate on me, I'd never be the bad guy. I'd always tell people that they were doing the best of all possible jobs, that my children were without error, that every stance and block and kick and punch is perfect. They would love me up until the moment when they met someone who was actually competent and then they would look at me like I had betrayed them and they would be right.
I would have sacrificed their talent and work to make me look better in their eyes.
As selfish as I am, I am not that selfish.
Plus, while I can always get new students, I'm done fathering children so I have to make certain I've established the foundation to maintain an excellent relationship. Since I extend this to my students, I get referrals, I get new students, I keep old students. I get identified as a desirable teacher not because I will make you feel good but because I will teach you well and you will feel good about yourself.
A critique on a poem, a road-map of why you like it and suggestions of how to make it better, is not an attack on the poet. There will always be those who equate the two but this is beyond your control and should not stop you from offering solid and effective critique.
Critique is the only way we get better. Practicing the same technique poorly 100,000 times only build poor habits, it does not make you better.
No doubt someone will decide this blog entry is a personal attack on them. As this is beyond my control it is also beyond my concern.