What to do with a teacher in your class?
Recently I was teaching a workshop where one of the participants was an improv teacher themselves. And even a few of their students took the class.
If this is something that freaks you out (a bit), I have a few tips for you.
Give that teacher credit for showing up / taking a class. “I love it when teachers show that we are never done learning”
Remind participants that a workshop is for experimenting new things, not showing off your best stuff. I will often say: “Keep your brilliant scenes for the stage. Here is the place to try out something new and suck at it”. (That includes that teacher)
Many teachers love hearing why other teachers do what they do. If you feel comfortable doing so, give some meta-insights. “I like doing this exercise before we do X because...”
Don’t ask for validation or confirmation from that teacher. If you wouldn’t ask a student whether that quote was right or the explanation clear, then definitely don’t ask that teacher.
I mostly have great experiences with teachers in my class (just the fact that they’re there tells me they want to learn). However, I have had an occasional ‘status battle’, where they didn’t seem to want to give up their leader role.
If that is something you struggle with, let me know under this post in our closed Facebook group for improv teachers. And I will make a post about that some time.
