How to be a less nervous teacher?
Some nervousness is good
Being nervous is normal. Is isn’t a bad thing, because it keeps you on your toes and – your attention reaches a maximum. You could even say, that when you are not nervous at all, you shouldn’t teach, because you won’t be able to transmit the excitement necessary to be a great teacher.
If you are teaching for the first time, it is OK to say that you are a little nervous at the beginning. Your participants will appreciate that you are not a robot.
Too much nervousness is distracting
However, there are situations when nervousness gets in the way. Struggling to find words, stuttering, talking too fast or repeating the same thing over and over makes your content harder to understand. Pacing around the classroom or fiddling with items will distract your participants. Finally, being very nervous lowers your ability to solve problems, not only with code, but also – and more severe – building a successful relation with your participants.
In the worst case, you might focus more on your own nervousness than on the lesson, and, knowing that, become even more nervous.
Fortunately, nervousness almost never destroys your lesson, it is just a distraction. Also, participants will notice only a fraction of the nervousness you are aware of. Finally, there are many things you can do to counter nervousness.
Check your biological parameters
First of all, nervousness is a physiological reaction. Whatever triggers that reaction, a balanced body will handle it much better. The ground rules are:
- get enough sleep
- stay away from caffeinated drinks
- stay away from drinks containing sugar
- drink water
- an empty bladder is more important than a full deck of slides
While conducting trainings in remote locations, walking helped me to wash out the first wave of adrenaline. Whenever the distance was below 4km, I got up early enough to have a little activity before the course.
I don’t have any experience with yoga or meditation, but it surely doesn’t do any harm. Neither does Power Posing (it doesn’t do any good either, the statistics behind the research do not hold).
Check your timeline
Being in a hurry amplifies any nervousness. The art is to use your time well.
- if you want to be on the safe side, put up two alarm clocks
- do something you really enjoy in the morning
- arrive early enough
- plan some buffer time just in case
Check your content
Nervousness sometimes results from a lesson plan that is too full. Your lesson is packed with content and it keeps rotating in your head. A related situation is that you don’t feel familiar enough with the subject.
In both cases, less is more! Do one thing well and ignore the rest for now.
- think what you would do if your lesson was half as long
- think about a good title for your lesson. Kick out everything that doesn’t fit
- focus on the aspects of the subject you know well. Remove the others
- skip last-minute preparations. Most of the time they won’t help much
On the other hand the opposite could be the case: You don’t feel you have prepared enough. Here are a few quick fixes for that situation:
- What is the first thing you are going to say? Memorize the sentence.
- Start with an exercise that is fool-proof. Test it yourself. Twice, if necessary.
- is there a program you would like to write . Make a longer coding exercise out of it!
- read the entire troubleshooting section.
Reward yourself
- do something you enjoy when your work is done.