People don’t always think about the importance of the massage therapy instructor themselves when they think through choosing a massage school to attend.
However, the people who are actually going to be teaching you are a really important part of any training program.
Personally, in many different classes I’ve taken through the years, I’ve had instructors that were fundamental to my success and instructors that made it very difficult for me.
Why instructors matter
It’s not that I was passing off the blame to the instructors, but as I look back through the years on all of the courses I’ve taken, it’s easy for me to see that the teachers who didn’t know the answers to my questions and the teachers who never answered my questions, did not help me succeed in any way.
In fact, sometimes it is really difficult to complete a course if you don’t have access to someone who can actually answer your questions.
Qualities to look for in massage therapy instructors
If you want to become the best you can be as a massage therapist at the point when you are graduating from school, you’ll need to have enjoyed the teaching from an instructor who actually knew the material backward and forward so that it will be easier for them to communicate with you to answer your questions, rather than someone who just isn’t experienced enough to understand the different ways people think and what affects them.
Look for a massage therapy school that has extremely experienced instructors. Someone might be a nice person and you might like them, but if they don’t have years of experience in the field that you are trying to learn how to work in, then they just won’t have the ability to teach you how to learn what you need to know.
It is important to keep in mind of course that your teacher or instructor is there to teach you not only the specific facts and details, but to teach you how to learn the things you need to learn. That means that it is a two-way street.
A teacher student relationship is always best when the instructors guides the student in how to find their answers, rather than always just giving them to them at the outset. Certainly they need to actually teach you the material, but that can happen in a variety of ways, such as showing you where to look and then helping you deeply understand it once you’ve made the effort to find the information and you can have a more informed conversation.
But without a large amount of experience, no teacher can really tell you what it’s going to be like in the real world or guide you in learning and acquiring tools of helping you to successfully face the challenges of your profession going forward.