They call me Mama Kendra...

So I'm in Atlanta again for Princeton Review training. And apparently the way I've learned to teach isn't the way Princeton Review wants me to teach AT ALL. So I'm trying to re-learn a new way to teach that goes against everything I had to do for New Horizons. The main problem, apparently, is that I'm "too nurturing." That's not really surprising... I mean, the guys I worked with at the TV station did nickname me "Mama Kendra" for a reason, but I thought that was because I brought them Cold Eaze when they were sick. But considering it's just my nature to be "nurturing" it's kind of hard for me to figure out how to turn that off to be the "Rockstar Trainer" they want... I asked a few questions for clarification, and what I came out with is that I:

1) Talk too slowly

2) Make sure people are understanding what I'm saying

I understand we have a limited time to teach all the material, so we need to keep moving. But I thought I was explaining things about the same as he was modeling it for us, so I'm trying to figure out how to cut it down... I guess I'm just not giving the class enough credit to know how to do some of this stuff. I just got so used to having to teach with the assumption that people don't know how to open a file on their computer after I've showed them 3 times, so I'm so used to a super-systematic approach to teaching and need to break from it. But the thing I'm having a super hard time wrapping my head around is that I'm talking too slowly. All my life I've heard "Hold on, slow down and start over" when I'm telling people a story. The main criticism I've had in class presentations in school was that I could have spoke a little slower. I mean, when people are nervous, they talk faster. I talk fast in general. When I started teaching for New Horizons, the big thing I learned was that if it sounds to me like I'm talking a little too slowly, I'm really talking at just the right speed. So I really worked at slowing down my speach when teaching, until it became automatic. And I never, EVER had anyone ever tell me I was talking too slow. Usually people appreciated my not going through things at breakneck speed. And now I'm being told that I'm speaking too slowly and I need to speed it up. And this is what they said after I gave a teachback while being super-nervous which should mean I talked too fast anyways, despite my best efforts. I don't understand. I really don't.

So tomorrow I have my last teachback. I will try to speak more conversationally, more quickly, and less nurturingly. If I succeed, I should get certified to teach this stuff and make a little bit of money. If not, I go back to normal life without SAT prep. Stay tuned...