Advice to New Teachers: Learn People's Names

I had a primary teacher for many years who was great with names. Forty  people participated in the  first workshop I went to with him and he knew every person’s name in the group. One year later, over eighty  people  sat in an opening circle while introduced each person by name to the rest of the group.  Actually, come to think of it, he didn’t recognize me because I had shifted so much during that first year of practicing his method, but that is a different story for another day. (And you can read Yoga From the Inside Out for the full scoop on how powerful that year was for me.) As a  fairly  new teacher, I was impressed. I  thought to myself, “If he can remember everyone’s names with as many students as he has, I ought to be able to learn my student’s names.”

Over the years, when I had access to the  behind-the-scenes moments of his workshops, I saw him review the names of the attendees before  workshops started.  And, as his teaching work expanded, he didn’t know everyone personally.  But still, in my opinion, he did an admirable job on this front.

I wasn’t the only person who noticed his facility with names. At least once a year during a Q&A session, someone would ask him how he did it. His reply was always the same: “I link people’s names with something I know about them. I remember the person first, then their name comes easily.”  In fact, when he stumbled to put a name with my face in the afore-mentioned workshop, he said, “I knew you were coming, we have been in touch all year, but you really look different.” My point being, he did remember me, if not my face and my name. 

I make an effort to learn people’s names when they come to my classes and workshops. And, my teacher was right, learning people’s names is easier when I learn something about the person, even though striking up the early conversations of getting to know people is not my favorite groove. If you know me, you know that I do not enjoy chit-chat and, for all of the standing-in-front-of- people-and-talking work that I do, I am no stranger to social anxiety. I make the effort and stay in the discomfort  because I believe learning people’s names is important. 

I would be a yoga practitioner whether anyone came to class or not. I love the asana practice, I enjoy meditation, I like chanting, and self-inquiry is a way of life. I am a yoga teacher because people come to my classes and trainings. And look, I know there are  issues too numerous to name  with the industry of yoga.  After all, I am not new, nor am I blind. I just let other people write those types of  blog entries because, for all of the very real issues present, I love teaching. Teaching keeps me interested in teaching. 

I love sitting down to plan a sequence, to organize my thoughts about a theme, to see if there is some new insight or past lesson  I can package inside the class that might be interesting to me and useful to others. When planning, I feel like I am bird circling in the sky looking down at a myriad of choices. Maybe I will teach this, or that, or put them together and then— like a raptor with prey in its sites, I hone in on the lesson of the day and make a focused dive to the ground.

I love the process of articulating my own  experience in such a way it guides people to their own. I love the way that same process clarifies my understanding, connects the dots between the seemingly  disparate pieces of information I have learned over time, and then becomes a body of knowledge that is both my  own and the group’s. 

I love watching students come to class through the ups and downs of their lives— through births and deaths, pregnancies, abortions, and miscarriages, marriages and divorces, etc. because their commitment to practice strengthens my own and because I have found no ground more holy than where stand as we bear witness to one another’s lives.

I love watching the love of postures become a love of social justice, an interest in psychology, the discovery of a new creative expression, and an increased capacity for living life wholeheartedly.

I love the way that teaching redeems my many mistakes, turning  them into touchstones for compassion, empathy, and connection. On the path of teaching, so little is wasted because, regardless of the subject I teach,  I am  teaching people. Every human experience I have deepens my understanding and weaves me that much more surely into the fabric of our shared human condition.

Like I said, I love teaching. And I am a teacher because people come to class. I get to participate in this great love I am describing because people come to my class— interesting people with fascinating stories and with expertise, interests, and experiences that reach far beyond our shared interest in postural practice. So,  I do my best to learn my student’s  names— out of respect for the vastness of their humanity and  in appreciation for who I get to be because of them.

To be clear, I do not learn everyone’s name in every single teaching circumstance.  I do not always learn quickly.  I make mistakes. My memory fails me repeatedly. But I’d rather suck in the effort than never invest in the process.

And, if you are a new teacher anxious about teaching, learning people’s names may remind  you you are teaching people not just poses, that teaching  is more relational than performative, and that the opportunity to teach is a gift your students give you.