What is a master teacher?

I have been asking myself lately, what is a master teacher? 

Last week, I received several emails from a prospective student who was interested in our koryu jodo practice.  I answered several of his questions about where our fledgling group was situated in the jodo continuum that exists in the US Northeast.  Not the very, very bottom, but not that high up, either.  We are well-connected to people higher up the ladder both here and in Japan.  For a group that has only been in existence for 10 months, we are doing quite well, I think, according to my feeling and the feeling of the upper-ranked people we work with on a regular basis.  Still, Prospective Student wanted to know if I had a beginning certificate of rank.  I said, truthfully, not yet, though it was a matter of time and personal application on my part, both of which were being supplied.  But the email struck me as weird.  The rank he was asking about was not a teaching rank, and it was not very clear to me whether he actually knew that (it was sort of like asking a karate teacher if (s)he is a shodan).  I suggested, not that politely, that maybe our little group was not advanced enough for him.  End of conversation.

On the way home, it reminded me of a tv ad long, long ago, in which Abraham Lincoln goes to an employment agency.  The counselor asks him about his education, and Lincoln replies, "Well, I've done a lot of reading and studying."  Lincoln can't get anywhere without a high school diploma.  The ad ends as the counselor asks him if he has a chauffer's license. 

To be honest, I can't remember the point of the ad overall, but the image of an embarrassed Lincoln, playing with his watch chain and looking at the floor, has stayed with me, obviously.  Whatever the ad's actual final pitch, the overall sense was that NOT having a piece of paper does not necessarily make you unfit to do something.

The idea that someone has been through a battery of qualifying tests through a qualified body, whether a group of yudansha or a dissertation committee, is intended to assure students that the rank-holder has at least a technical grasp of the material to be taught.  However, if the rank-holder has no experience as a teacher, it is entirely possible that his/her ability to communicate could be severely lacking, making whatever material to be conveyed incomprehensible.  A person can be a good technician and not a good teacher.  Moreover, if the rank-holder only understands technique on a physical level, without any underlying understanding of the principle, as the person's physical gifts decline, so will his ability to convey even what he used to know.  If observation is any guide, the students' gifts will start to decline along with that of the person teaching.  That is why university teachers keep reaching for different aspects of their practice - in order to deepen their understanding, both to satisfy their own curiosity and that of their students.

Then there is honorary rank.  Honorary budo ranks are given sometimes out of politeness, or even to attract attention to a dojo or ryuha.  My teacher and I were once talking about a famous writer who was a godan in kendo.  "He wasn't that good," my teacher said, "but he was famous so they made him godan."  In the best-case scenario, the honorary rank-holder probably does not even consider himself sufficiently qualified to teach, but others may disagree.  If, in fact, the person received the honorary rank in Japan and then returned home, who among his juniors or new students here would know the difference?   At universities, famous people are given honorary doctorates from time to time, but no one thinks that person should outline courses for the following year's curriculum.  It surprises me sometimes that US budoka aren't more curious - they might see that the emperor's clothes are not what they appear.

On the other hand, of course, are the people like me who, after many years of informal practice, are finally, if belatedly, moving along a path to systematic improvement in an art form in which I have long had an interest.  I have a wealth of experience as a teacher in general, and as a budo teacher in particular.  Our jodo class is a workshop of like-minded people who need others to practice with.  We don't pretend to be experts because we aren't; and we are having a lot of fun learning together with expert guidance. 

So, I hope the prospective student finds the qualified teacher he is looking for.  That teacher may be expensive, or difficult, or may take advantage of students (I am being hypothetical here), or even fake! but if he has a certificate, why, he must be right.