New Ways to Teach Old Tricks
How to integrate learning styles in alternative sexuality education
by Sarah Sloane
Kink community education has grown by leaps and bounds over the past dozen or so years, but one thing has remained the same: the consistent divide between how education is produced and delivered in the alternative sexuality communities and how it’s offered in “the rest of the world”.
Let’s face it — in most adult education venues in the US, we don’t have to worry about things like liquor laws, the potential illegality of the practice of the subject we’re teaching, community morals, or even nudity issues. No “concerned citizens” groups challenge the knitting class at the local art studio; politicians don’t create stump speeches around the morality of a group of hobbyists exploring new ways to more successfully rebuild car engines. Yet, for the most part, when we want to teach adults how to enjoy sex more fully, how to bind each other safely, or how to explore their fetishes consensually, we open ourselves up as a target for the surrounding community to aim their barbs and slings at.
As such, our exploration of the art of education has been neglected. There have been very few opportunities for educators to come together & build their skills, and for those people whose desire to teach is not coupled with the financial privilege needed to gain skills from non-kink resources, it’s incredibly challenging. The opportunities that do happen are so far apart, and serve so few educators (and potential educators), that they are like adding drops of water to an empty bottle. Over time, my hope with this column is to offer educators within the leather/bdsm/kink communities some insights to help them raise the bar in their own classes, and help give them some of the tools to ensure that their students learn new skills & concepts in effective, fun ways.
In this column, I’d like to tackle one small part of the equation — and that is discussing the different ways that we can teach so that we can match our class attendee’s learning style.
There are three primary ways that we learn — Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Visual. Each person learns using some combination of those styles, and by tapping into them and ensuring that we create our classes with facets of each learning style in place, we can give students a chance to even more fully learn (and will leave them with a higher opinion of the value of the class, as well as having had an experience that really engages them in ways that they need to be engaged).
Let’s take these one at a time:
The AUDITORY learner absorbs knowledge through sound. The tone of your voice, the music you play, the sounds that a demo bottom makes, the slap of the paddle, the zing of the violet wand — those are all things that they respond to, that they will remember, and that will keep them participating.
The KINESTHETIC learner gains knowledge through the movement of their body. Whether it’s actually practicing the skill, drawing or writing notes about it, or role playing, a kinesthetic learner absorbs information through their body’s movement.
The VISUAL learner gets turned on through sight. They can watch a power point presentation and grasp the concepts you’re trying to teach; they may focus on handouts, or be very interested to watch your demo in order to learn. Their eyes are their key to gaining knowledge.
As educators in the kink community — especially for those of us that have been around for a while — we may find ourselves thinking about breaking new ground to re-conceptualize our classes to allow for all three types of learners. We are used to the way that we’ve always taught, or the way that we’ve seen others teach: some talking, then a demonstration, then question and answer. And while that method works moderately well for many people, challenging ourselves to step outside of that mode of teaching can be difficult. Fortunately, there are some small ways that we can make changes, and we may find that some of them are perfectly suited to our own personal teaching style and help us expand the learning opportunities for our class attendees.
Ask more questions. Not just the “Does anyone have any questions?” style, which only engages the people who feel confident enough to respond, but ongoing check-ins and requests for ideas and information. Your voice — and the voices of the people who answer the questions — will resonate for your auditory learners; your kinesthetic learners will become more engaged as they’re invited to participate in the class by sharing their own experiences; and the visuals of people talking and moving their bodies as they participate in the conversation will help your visual learners to remain engaged. Some great questions that you can use are:
“What kinds of things can we do when this situation happens?”
“Who has had an experience with this? Can you share how you felt?”
“Why wouldn’t this work? What’s wrong here?”
Have a hands-on portion of your class. While this is easy if you’re teaching a how-to bondage class or flogging workshop, it requires thinking outside of the box if you’re unable to have a touch-fest. I often will pass around some of the items that I’m discussing when teaching classes that cannot have a hands-on portion (like teaching a prostate or g-spot class at a public store); talking about the different textures, materials, or shapes of toys and giving attendees the opportunity to feel and hold them can help cement the concept in the minds of your kinesthetic learners. You’ll also be engaging the auditory learners by matching up the feel of the item with the words that you want them to retain, and your visual learners will be able to see and examine items in a way that they will remember more easily.
Move around. Break your class up into small groups for discussions, if possible, or get everyone up & milling about for a mid-class break. Offer pens and paper for notes, so that your kinesthetic learners can keep their bodies moving during longer discussion periods. Have people try something out on their partner. The fact of moving one’s body is actually as much a tie to learning even when we’re not physically performing the target action. I’m very much a kinesthetic/auditory learner, so I often take my knitting into lecture or discussion classes, as I’ve found that channeling my need to move my body through the act of knitting a sock helps me to retain the auditory (and visual) parts of the class in a way that I couldn’t otherwise do.
Consider using visual aids. I know, I know, kinky people aren’t supposed to look at power point slides — and I will confess that I have a hate/hate relationship with them, primarily due to my overexposure of them during my corporate training gig years ago — but the reality is that when we give our students something to visually focus on, many of them will come out of class having learned more than they would have otherwise. A poster of the human body’s circulatory system is a great idea for blood or breath play workshops, of course, but what about having a few slides that show the question & answer steps for negotiating said play? How about using a white board, and having attendees come up & add things to a list of ways that they manage change in their power exchange relationships? A sticky-note flip chart can be a way to add a visual component to even the simplest classes, by grouping concepts together and sticking them to the wall in different places, similar to mind-mapping techniques.
Treat each class as if it’s the first. Rather than make assumptions that the class attendees have a certain level of experience, or that they’ve all shown up to see one particular thing, ask them what they know and what they hope to know at the end of the class. Now, while I’m not advocating the deviation totally away from the class description, it does give you, the educator, a chance to hear what they want. When you hear people saying “I want to see…” or “I want you to show…”, you know you’re dealing with a lot of visual learners, and you can gently change your usual methods of teaching to accommodate those folks. Ditto for phrases like “I want you to tell me…” for auditory, or “I want to learn how to…” for kinesthetic learners. Pick up on their cues as you start the class, and you’ll be able to meet them and make the class more valuable for them. (This is also a great time for you to nip any unmanageable expectations in the bud…a person who wants to get a 301 level of information in a 101 class, or who wants a demo from a lecture-only class, might prefer to know at the start of it that what they’d hoped for is not possible, and therefore make a decision on whether to stay or go — which means you end up with a happier attendee in either case).
You can do a web search on “VAK learning styles” if you want to get more info on these specific types of learning, and how you can integrate them into your own classes — and as an aside, how you can shift your own learning methods to best fit your personal learning styles. You may switch over from trying to practice the skill being discussed, instead choosing to listen to the educator talk you through it. You may even find that your one-on-one teaching & learning opportunities become more productive when you adjust them to fit the prevalent learning styles. And if nothing else — you’ve thought outside of the box, which is one of the most amazing skills that any educator, inside or outside of the leather community, can have.
Have questions for Sarah on the how-to’s of teaching in the BDSM / Leather communities? Want her to talk about other skill-building techniques? Email her at sarah.sloane@gmail.com and look for future articles here on Leatherati.com!
Sarah Sloane is an AOLd Guard leatherwoman who currently hails from Chicago, IL. Sarah came up in the BDSM / Leather / Kink communities in the late 1990’s, and has been teaching passion with a passion since 2000. After being a kink nomad, teaching hundreds of classes in the US, Canada, and overseas for over 12 years (while based in her home state, Virginia), she’s grateful to have found a place in the Chicago community, where she manages The Pleasure Chest and serves on the board of LRA. Sarah is also an accomplished writer, with columns for websites such as Fearless Press and Eden Fantasys, and chapters in books like Tristan Taormino’s “The Ultimate Guide to Kink” and Lee Harrington’s “Rope, Bondage, and Power”. When pressed, she identifies as a queer dominant with a penchant for cigars, knitting, and her family of choice.
