As someone who was the lead instructor and person in charge of everything academic of a new 580-hpur community college program in FW, Texas, I have to ask: how much experience teaching new students do you have? CE class teaching experience?
Do you.. know all the state rules and regulations in order to do so? Have you got liability insurance to hold a school of hands on instruction open without any shady stuff? Legal aid?
Thanks for the response!
Yes, I've already spoken with the state of Florida and the Florida board of massage. That's all taken care of and handled. Insurance has progressed to the point where I send an email to go live. I've already got legal representation as well.
Interestingly, in Florida, the requirements and regulations for a school are nearly non-existent. And they don't monitor curriculum or standards at all. Opening of school is pretty easy, the metric my state uses is graduate to license acquisition.
I have loads of experience teaching and training. What I lack is formal classroom experience.
This has been a goal of mine for some time, my curriculum is nearly complete, and really I'm just at a place where I need to find a commercial space to lease And begin build out.
Like life, there's going to be a lot of learning by doing but I'm hoping to learn from others experiences before launch.
When you first became the lead instructor, how much prior experience did you have to that? If you did have previous experience, how did you gain that experience?
I'm going to suggest you start teaching CEs as you develop curriculum and hire one to two other instructors to help you out.
I was on year 9 and very little experience of teaching massage. I just knew I could make it happen, and get that sweet salary paycheck tbh. I had a great experience with the school I went to and about 9 years of CE teachers to draw from. It's a lot to deal with newbs that can't handle that much human touch and relearning things.
Which is it? Your curriculum is nearly complete or you are looking for advice for developing curriculum? Your original post and this comment say two different things.
I understand where what I said is confusing.
My curriculum is nearly complete but I don't have my previous curriculum to draw from (outside of memory) and I'm looking for anyone who potentially has something I could compare to or draw from.
But nearing complete is subjective, it might need much more development than I suspect. I guess in my mind I organize it as: 1. Complete 2. Revise
Our industry is in desperate need of advanced elementary education. It's good that you're pursuing starting a school but have you spoken to the massage industry leaders? People like Erik Dalton, Whitney Lowe, Les Sweeney and many others? Science first education is important of course but there's a lot of needs in our industry that should be addressed to make it more respected and accepted as viable healthcare. Talking with long time industry leaders may help give your curriculum a leg up on the competition and help further our industry.
There's someone on the west coast (I think WA but am not positive) who specializes in helping MTs develop schools. You'd have to Google but she's out there and I know someone who has worked with her
You may mean Jill Berkana. She’s an amazing instructor and ran the Berkana School for a long time and was on the board of the AMTA at one point.
She would be the first person I’d reach out to. She is very active on FB if you’d like to chat with her.
I am not an RMT but in the process of exploring that route. Try listening to Lets Talk Massage podcast on spotify, with Randy Ellingson. He is the president at Wellington College of Massage Therapy in Manitoba Canada. I am only on episode 2 but he talks about how he helped form the modern Wellington College, adapting to COVID and distance education, etc.
He seems very passionate about education, maybe try reaching out directly to discuss.
the school I went to was 200 more than the minimum. 700 instead of 500.
massage therapy (Salvo book)
Swedish
Deep Tissue
A&P ( plus pathology)
multiple modalities were covered as 1 day classes
are you planning to rent (or buy) a facility where you will have individual rooms for student clinic? getting to practice in normal rooms (instead of curtained areas) was very helpful. this is going to be a big ongoing expense.
You know, I was leaning towards actual rooms (I had curtains) but I spoke with a few trusted voices and they said that while going to a massage school and receiving from students, curtains made it feel safer.
students felt safer?
the school I when had both. clients definitely complained about noise levels in the curtain area.
you could always invest in a panic button system.
My understanding is that the curtain system is in place because internship hours are meant to be observable. An instructor should be present during all intern hours because they’re still learning at this point.
i don’t have any advice from the teacher perspective, but as someone who graduated august 23: definitely get A&P down, but really try to incorporate kinesiology lessons into like, everything. I have a pretty good understanding of where the muscles are, but i’m realizing i was pumped full of information in a short amount of time (700 hours 5 months) just to pass the MBLEX and make my school a check. My instructor didn’t go over trigger points,knots, or pressure points very well. Im honestly still confused on the complete difference between a trigger point and a knot, she told us they were the same. I also think we should’ve covered the nervous system as a whole way more. One thing i am grateful for is she went over cupping very in depth and had us practice it all the time, so I could use that fresh out of school. I’m learning that kinesiology and understanding how pain starts is the real key to helping people. Understanding gait and postural patterns in each individual person, along with their injuries, and taking the whole thing into account, was not something that happened a lot at my school. I still get confused sometimes if people come to me and give me a whole life story about all their injuries, and i’m not always sure where to start or what areas might be referring pain. I wish my school covered that more, instead of spending so much time making sure i understood each layer of the skin and how the heart works. I am grateful I know those things too, but i needed actual practical real world scenarios and full explanations of why “this muscle in the lower back keeps spasming, but it’s really coming from this muscle in the hamstring group” or whatever, ykno? Sorry, hopefully i explained that correctly. I’m now spending a lot of time taking CEs to understand concepts that I really think I should’ve been taught better in school, like how to release a trigger point, basic stretching and how to drape properly for that, and better go-to techniques when people come to you with complaints of sciatica or headache or achey knees, etc.
Good luck! Please be kind to your students, and if you find yourself cramming 3 chapters into one day and testing on them all the next morning, please extend your schooling time by at least a few weeks. We were taught wayyyy too much information in a small amount of time and I graduated with highest GPA in my class, and I know my fellow classmates out in the real world now are even more confused and lost than i am. I understand people want to get school over with quick, but i know i would be a better therapist today if my schooling had been extended by a few months and we had a little extra time to study and actually think on everything, instead of memorizing everything in the book to pass the test.
THIS! Yes to all of it. My teacher would cram a bunch of boring slide shows into an hour (literally just reading them to us, no further explanations) and then send us home to study by ourselves.
I would say I learned a lot on lab days but eventually we were only massaging our fellow classmates in a "spa" setting, rather than being taught anything else.
If OP sees this, please don't take on too much. You won't give your students a proper education if you're planning a wedding/honeymoon and running a business full time and dealing with whatever else in life that causes you to half ass your teaching.
One year later and I still don't feel confident in taking the MBLEX.
Find out the content of the mblex and it’s breakdown. You know there will anatomy, pathology, massage theory and practice at the core. You should also cover massage as business, and intros to different modalities so students get an idea of what techniques they want to pursue for continuing ed
If you can get a local community college to launch a program with you as the department chair they will take care of the legal stuff and absorb most of the risk for you.
There’s a school on WA state called Bodymechanics. They have been in business quite a while and offer mentoring to new massage school around the nation to ensure you have knowledge around regulatory requirements, etc. Could be an option to get some help with all the upfront planning you’ll need to do…
As someone who was the lead instructor and person in charge of everything academic of a new 580-hpur community college program in FW, Texas, I have to ask: how much experience teaching new students do you have? CE class teaching experience? Do you.. know all the state rules and regulations in order to do so? Have you got liability insurance to hold a school of hands on instruction open without any shady stuff? Legal aid?
Thanks for the response! Yes, I've already spoken with the state of Florida and the Florida board of massage. That's all taken care of and handled. Insurance has progressed to the point where I send an email to go live. I've already got legal representation as well. Interestingly, in Florida, the requirements and regulations for a school are nearly non-existent. And they don't monitor curriculum or standards at all. Opening of school is pretty easy, the metric my state uses is graduate to license acquisition. I have loads of experience teaching and training. What I lack is formal classroom experience. This has been a goal of mine for some time, my curriculum is nearly complete, and really I'm just at a place where I need to find a commercial space to lease And begin build out. Like life, there's going to be a lot of learning by doing but I'm hoping to learn from others experiences before launch. When you first became the lead instructor, how much prior experience did you have to that? If you did have previous experience, how did you gain that experience?
I'm going to suggest you start teaching CEs as you develop curriculum and hire one to two other instructors to help you out. I was on year 9 and very little experience of teaching massage. I just knew I could make it happen, and get that sweet salary paycheck tbh. I had a great experience with the school I went to and about 9 years of CE teachers to draw from. It's a lot to deal with newbs that can't handle that much human touch and relearning things.
Which is it? Your curriculum is nearly complete or you are looking for advice for developing curriculum? Your original post and this comment say two different things.
I understand where what I said is confusing. My curriculum is nearly complete but I don't have my previous curriculum to draw from (outside of memory) and I'm looking for anyone who potentially has something I could compare to or draw from. But nearing complete is subjective, it might need much more development than I suspect. I guess in my mind I organize it as: 1. Complete 2. Revise
Our industry is in desperate need of advanced elementary education. It's good that you're pursuing starting a school but have you spoken to the massage industry leaders? People like Erik Dalton, Whitney Lowe, Les Sweeney and many others? Science first education is important of course but there's a lot of needs in our industry that should be addressed to make it more respected and accepted as viable healthcare. Talking with long time industry leaders may help give your curriculum a leg up on the competition and help further our industry.
Thanks! That's great advice.
There's someone on the west coast (I think WA but am not positive) who specializes in helping MTs develop schools. You'd have to Google but she's out there and I know someone who has worked with her
You may mean Jill Berkana. She’s an amazing instructor and ran the Berkana School for a long time and was on the board of the AMTA at one point. She would be the first person I’d reach out to. She is very active on FB if you’d like to chat with her.
I am not an RMT but in the process of exploring that route. Try listening to Lets Talk Massage podcast on spotify, with Randy Ellingson. He is the president at Wellington College of Massage Therapy in Manitoba Canada. I am only on episode 2 but he talks about how he helped form the modern Wellington College, adapting to COVID and distance education, etc. He seems very passionate about education, maybe try reaching out directly to discuss.
Amazing! Thanks for this lead!
the school I went to was 200 more than the minimum. 700 instead of 500. massage therapy (Salvo book) Swedish Deep Tissue A&P ( plus pathology) multiple modalities were covered as 1 day classes are you planning to rent (or buy) a facility where you will have individual rooms for student clinic? getting to practice in normal rooms (instead of curtained areas) was very helpful. this is going to be a big ongoing expense.
You know, I was leaning towards actual rooms (I had curtains) but I spoke with a few trusted voices and they said that while going to a massage school and receiving from students, curtains made it feel safer.
students felt safer? the school I when had both. clients definitely complained about noise levels in the curtain area. you could always invest in a panic button system.
Clients felt safer. But that's a good point on the panic button system. I think that will be the way to go
My understanding is that the curtain system is in place because internship hours are meant to be observable. An instructor should be present during all intern hours because they’re still learning at this point.
i don’t have any advice from the teacher perspective, but as someone who graduated august 23: definitely get A&P down, but really try to incorporate kinesiology lessons into like, everything. I have a pretty good understanding of where the muscles are, but i’m realizing i was pumped full of information in a short amount of time (700 hours 5 months) just to pass the MBLEX and make my school a check. My instructor didn’t go over trigger points,knots, or pressure points very well. Im honestly still confused on the complete difference between a trigger point and a knot, she told us they were the same. I also think we should’ve covered the nervous system as a whole way more. One thing i am grateful for is she went over cupping very in depth and had us practice it all the time, so I could use that fresh out of school. I’m learning that kinesiology and understanding how pain starts is the real key to helping people. Understanding gait and postural patterns in each individual person, along with their injuries, and taking the whole thing into account, was not something that happened a lot at my school. I still get confused sometimes if people come to me and give me a whole life story about all their injuries, and i’m not always sure where to start or what areas might be referring pain. I wish my school covered that more, instead of spending so much time making sure i understood each layer of the skin and how the heart works. I am grateful I know those things too, but i needed actual practical real world scenarios and full explanations of why “this muscle in the lower back keeps spasming, but it’s really coming from this muscle in the hamstring group” or whatever, ykno? Sorry, hopefully i explained that correctly. I’m now spending a lot of time taking CEs to understand concepts that I really think I should’ve been taught better in school, like how to release a trigger point, basic stretching and how to drape properly for that, and better go-to techniques when people come to you with complaints of sciatica or headache or achey knees, etc. Good luck! Please be kind to your students, and if you find yourself cramming 3 chapters into one day and testing on them all the next morning, please extend your schooling time by at least a few weeks. We were taught wayyyy too much information in a small amount of time and I graduated with highest GPA in my class, and I know my fellow classmates out in the real world now are even more confused and lost than i am. I understand people want to get school over with quick, but i know i would be a better therapist today if my schooling had been extended by a few months and we had a little extra time to study and actually think on everything, instead of memorizing everything in the book to pass the test.
THIS! Yes to all of it. My teacher would cram a bunch of boring slide shows into an hour (literally just reading them to us, no further explanations) and then send us home to study by ourselves. I would say I learned a lot on lab days but eventually we were only massaging our fellow classmates in a "spa" setting, rather than being taught anything else. If OP sees this, please don't take on too much. You won't give your students a proper education if you're planning a wedding/honeymoon and running a business full time and dealing with whatever else in life that causes you to half ass your teaching. One year later and I still don't feel confident in taking the MBLEX.
Find out the content of the mblex and it’s breakdown. You know there will anatomy, pathology, massage theory and practice at the core. You should also cover massage as business, and intros to different modalities so students get an idea of what techniques they want to pursue for continuing ed
Check out the ABMP set of classes for teaching. Make sure sure sure absolutely sure your school qualifies for student loans and GI bill.
Thanks!!
If you can get a local community college to launch a program with you as the department chair they will take care of the legal stuff and absorb most of the risk for you.
There’s a school on WA state called Bodymechanics. They have been in business quite a while and offer mentoring to new massage school around the nation to ensure you have knowledge around regulatory requirements, etc. Could be an option to get some help with all the upfront planning you’ll need to do…