Here is my starting point to building guidelines and opening dialog for Dignity, Respect and Civility in my martial arts organization(s). Please share thoughts, comments and resources for moving forward.
10 Guidelines to Dignity, Respect and Civility
Master Instructors (or anyone that is responsible for the atmosphere and temperature of the “culture” of the environment) MUST LEAD BY EXAMPLE!
All Master Instructors MUST:
1: Recognize that students and their families are the most important and most valuable assets and that their actions and behaviors MUST communicate and reinforce the affirmation of this premise.
2: Recognize that everyone MUST be treated with dignity and respect. Master Instructor’s duty to make decisions is not voided in any way, but the method of communicating and interacting with other instructors, students, parents and anyone for that matter must be tempered by the knowledge that all people are valuable.
3: Study acceptable and expected behavioral and cognitive models.
4: Make a search and fearless behavioral and cognitive inventory of his or her own thoughts and actions.
5: Discover the exact nature of his or her behaviors that need correcting. It is highly recommended that this discovery be shared with another person, who can act as an accountability partner for behavioral change.
6: Be committed to on-going and never-ending improvement of his or her civil behavior.
7: Practice and model acceptable and expected behaviors and cognitive processes.
8: Continue to take personal inventory and, when wrong, be prompt to admit it.
9: Have an accountability partner or confidant to offer an objective critique of their progress. It is highly recommended that feedback from other instructors, students, parents and family members be solicited to the extent that feedback is anonymous or voluntary.
10: LEAD BY EXAMPLE, practicing these principles EVERY WHERE and in all their affairs. Master Instructors must also demand that employees treat one another in accord with civil behavior.
—
Education Activist, Peter Liciaga is a senior master instructor at Dinoto Karate Center in Mount Laurel NJ and a member of Tom Callos‘ The Ultimate Black Belt Test and The100.
