Borrowing, Stealing & Professional Integrity…What’s your take?
The Teaching Craft
Your Wednesday Weekly Dose
Borrowing, Stealing & Professional Integrity…What’s your take?
Giving credit where credit is due. Feeding your curiosity. Learning and staying inspired. Seeking mentorship. Intention and professionalism. Where do you stand when it comes to sharing and borrowing repertoire?
Not too long ago I was reading a blog created by a teaching colleague of mine and came across a topic that sparked a heated discussion. Much like the title of this week’s dose, the blog post: “Is it Stealing? Yes or No?” made me raise my eyebrows.
I was perplexed at first when I began to read only because I have never considered the use of someone else’s adaptation, cue or modification as stealing. I fortunately have matriculated from a learning and teaching atmosphere of generosity and non-combativeness when it comes to the Pilates method.
Reading further into the blog, and then talking to the blog’s owner recently, I began to better understand the situation: When does it feel like someone else is “poaching” or using your knowledge against you or is ill-intended? How proprietary are you with the particular version of Pilates that you teach? When is it a high compliment and when does it feel like disregard?
This week I would like to ask you what you think. What colors your stance on this issue? Do you come from a supportive or unsupportive teaching environment? What are you willing to share or not? When do you need credit or believe giving credit is due?
I find this topic pretty fascinating as I think of myself as being in the profession of disseminating information generously to my students and to my student teachers. And I am not afraid to say that I have no attachment to the work I teach. I honor my mentors and other master teachers in and out of the field of Pilates and credit them for the knowledge they’ve given me. It is how I stay true to my personal ethics and uphold a level of integrity. At home in my studio I often tell my students “this is what Kristen says …” or “I got this variation from ….”
On the other side of the coin, however, lives a person who would be bothered if someone intentionally tried to take credit for something I created. There is a difference I think.
And so, to me, it comes down to professional and personal integrity, ethics, courtesy, intention and open and honest communication.
I am so curious to know what you think about this topic.
Food for thought:
Q: How does it feel if another teacher takes a class or session without introduction and later you find out that they are mimicking your style, repertoire etc? What if they do introduce themselves and disclose their desire to learn from you? What’s the difference for you?
Q: Is Pilates proprietary to you? Do you own and want to control your particular brand of Pilates?
Q: If a fellow teacher asks you for insights, advice or repertoire do you charge them?
Q: Is it ever stealing? When?
Q: As a community how do we expect our novice and student teachers to learn if not through mimicry, informal mentorship, sharing/borrowing from us and other teachers?
Q: Are we teaching the professionalism that coincides with this?
Q: Has the modular education had an impact on how we learn throughout our training and beyond?
Q: Does the environment or teaching community you are surrounded by geographically or philosophically (one of lack or one of abundance) dictate your position on this subject?
There are many directions we could take this, but I’d love your input on whatever floats your boat around this topic. I am preparing another article for Pilates-Pro.com and your feedback would be a wonderful asset. Make your voice heard. Be kind and be thoughtful, and bring your voice to the community.
Share your comments below.
“When you give yourself permission to communicate what matters to you in every situation you will have peace despite rejection or disapproval. Putting a voice to your soul helps you to let go of the negative energy of fear and regret.” ― Shannon L. Alder
Until next time,
Chantill
Notes & Updates
Don’t miss out on the audio version of our latest Teleclass: “How to Make Your Teaching More Powerful: Using stories, themes, and personal experience.”
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – I am collecting stories, insights, tid bits and inspirations about teaching Pilates, yoga or other forms of movement for the upcoming book: “The Art of Skillful Teaching” and for the Skillful Teaching blog.
If there is a topic, situation, challenge or success you’d like to bring to light and share, I’d love to hear it. You can submit in writing or schedule an interview.
Please email me at: chantill@skillfulteaching.com.
How are you showing up? Why are you showing up? Why do you teach? What IS teaching? Why do you care? This is Skillful Teaching: A Whole-person approach to being an expert teacher, not an expert technician. There's a difference. Want to know what it is?
This is in response to this article. It’s certainly an interesting topic. I am much like Chantill in regards to sharing. However, reaching from experience, I had another yoga teacher go through one of my 2-month series classes and I had an “uh-oh” moment when she was telling me how she was teaching some of what I had been teaching her. I thought/felt something along the lines of “what if she uses my hard-work and is more successful with it and doesn’t credit me”. I felt bad for even thinking it, and was even surprised by the thought. The experience I had felt like I was needing credit and worried that I wasn’t going to get it, and also a sense of competition. Luckily, I’m aware enough to catch myself and I reminded myself I would do the same thing if I was inspired by a new movement or an exercise. Besides I was stoked she found inspiration from me, that is an honor. This article makes me realize, tho I give credit sometimes, explaining where I borrowed something is important and I want to make more of an effort to applaud those that taught me what I teach. -Jeanie
Thank you, Jeanie. It’s so true. I think one of the things we often forget to do is honor our lineage, pay homage and give credit to those who taught us. In doing so we are not only acknowledging their hard work but the fact that we are who we are, we say what we say, and do what we do because of every single person who has taught us. It feels like a true joy to step aside, out of the way of our egos, and recognize that teaching is not really about us, we are simply translating our experience and learning to someone else and that comes from the many, many teachers before us. Thank you again. I am reminded of how sweet it is to be a teacher!
I have always felt a little thrill of pride when I hear one of the other teachers in the studio use one of my cues (sometimes I don’t even remember if it is originally mine). To me it means that the teacher thought the cue or my specific way of explaining something was valuable enough to pass on and that means that my ripple is even bigger. In the beginning of my teaching career I was mimicking almost completely, and now that I have my own creative and original take on things, I feel honored to have new student teachers look to me as someone with enough experience to use as a resource.
Ditto. And thank you for your knowledge. I am happy to say that I “steal” from you all the time, darling! And always (almost 🙂 give you credit. P.S. For those of you who might not know, Kristen is my business partner — the recipient of all my strengths and weaknesses and many faces. Thank you for sharing your voice…and always listening 😉
Honestly, Chantill, Aren’t we all borrowing from Jo Pilates, at very least? I can’t say I’ve been exposed to such great variations in the method that one could call it their own, but I suppose there are those who do; i.e. like the Ron Fletcher method (though I know nothing about him). I can imagine if you were packaging something a little unique in focus, it becomes a kind of branding, and you could then, I suppose, copyright the program. It brings up shades of Bikram who capitalized on “hot yoga” by putting together a series of yoga postures that are thousands of years old, and turning the temperature up in the room to a specific degree, and then gets a cut from every studio who takes it on. Well, he didn’t invent yoga! But he choreographed 10 postures and turned up the heat to mimic Indian weather. I don’t know??? I think we’re always borrowing, and perhaps there is an ethical/copyright issue, and just a basic respect to give credit to programs that are designed buy someone else, &/or ask permission of the “author” if you could use it in your program and how it would be acceptable. Similar to copyright law in ideas, in writing.
In terms of you call for submissions, I assume you would give authorship credit to those submitting, if they wanted it?
Thanks for the topic. I will keep it in mind as I plan to develop some focused programs at some point.
Best,
Centa
I do think it comes down to ethics, Centa, and professional courtesy. Hell, common courtesy! If we provide and provoke an atmosphere of learning, curiosity and sharing…and abundance, then sharing, borrowing, inspiring, learning, questioning is what we all do, how we all learn. In the larger community I see this issue as a matter of decorum; a matter of teaching our up-and-coming teachers that honoring their teachers is an integral part of what we do in our profession. Like passing down oral traditions. We give thanks to those who came before us. It is what we’ve done with Joseph’s work and each amazing teacher has added their own beauty and special spice.
Then of course we can get into the real stuff of taking, using and misusing with ill intent or through poor communication and that’s when things get hairy. My hope is that we can all be good examples of the professional and ethical standards we want to see cultivated in our teaching professions. What else is there to do, really?
And yes, of course, I will always give credit for submissions.
I can’t tell you how many times I have taken a class from someone I didn’t know, and who didn’t know me, and felt like I was listening to myself talk. I notice that if it’s someone who has taken my classes, I take the credit and think “Oh, they got that from me”. But then I am thrown through a loop to hear someone online or at a conference say something that sounds like me, in my very own words even, yet we have never met. That makes it is a little harder to take the credit!
I think as entrepreneurs it is recommended that we create our own “brand” and that we protect it accordingly. I think this is probably a good idea AND we should also simultaneously realize that’s a little bit of….baloney??? 😉
Thanks Chantill for a very thoughtful post!
Creating is living. Sometimes when we create it is hard not to hold on to the thing we’ve birthed and want to keep it for ourselves — keep it ours to leverage, hold up high, use as a token of our success and authority. I get it — really, really get it (All the sudden I feel like Gollum — “my preeeeeecious” — creepy 🙂
It’s an important part of entrepreneurship in certain contexts. (Like Centa said, like writing a book). Sometimes though, in a class or learning environment, it can feel like a little bit of baloney — well said, Cori — caught in our own trap of not enough.
I am all for authorship and recognizing the gifts and hard work of other teachers, their techniques and methods AND ultimately try to keep in mind the saying about if your hand is always closed, nothing will find its way in…
Interesting. Interesting.
Thanks, Cori!