Narcissistic Teaching and Why I Got Kicked Out of Pickleball Class
First Class
I was really excited to learn to play pickleball. I’d had to sign up two months in advance. I’d bought new court shoes. Over two years after a major injury that was complicated by multiple other significant injuries, I’d hoped Pickleball might be a low-impact and low-pressure sport I could participate in on days I am able to.
Kay*, the Beginning Pickleball instructor, had the four of us introduce ourselves and our previous experience with Pickleball — which for all of us was none or virtually none. She pointed out that she was on the Pickleball Governing Board, and she seemed to have a deep knowledge of the game, which earned my respect.
Then she got out a whiteboard with magnets to do “a quick explanation of the rules.”
An hour later, we were still standing there, trying to listen over the noise from a volleyball clinic in the other half of the gym, as she explained — yet again — about The Kitchen, which was also called the “No Volley Zone” which meant you couldn’t hit a volley shot while standing in it, but you could while standing behind it, which is why the best place to stand was about 6 inches behind it, but that was only after the serve which was of course made by the right back person on the side by the walls with the purple pads (which is different in our gym because most Pickleball courts are oriented north/south to minimize sun in people’s eyes but in our indoor gym they’re going roughly east/west) which has to bounce and be hit back and then bounce and be hit back again because of the Two Bounce Rule. Are we getting all of this? Maybe she should explain it again, to clarify. . .
All of our eyes were glazing over, but we tried to nod politely and pay attention. We were all women who wanted to be good students and not make waves, and we all wanted to learn.
When a ball from the volleyball clinic bounced over to us and I went over to return it, she snapped, “Suzie!” and admonished me to pay better attention, saying that this was very important information and I would need to know all of it to play Pickleball. Then she proceeded to re-explain something she had already explained at least twice.
It was over an hour in, and none of us had touched a paddle or a ball.
She finally eased us into a drill where we tossed the balls over the net. Fine. She came up and told me I had “busy feet” and needed to move less. But it was hard to know how much moving was appropriate when I hadn’t yet seen a game played and didn’t have much context for what the drill was for or what part of the game it was preparing me to do.
Next, she moved us into doing a dinking drill over the net, from the Kitchen line. But only after another extensive lecture about ready positions, how to hold the paddle, where people stand, the No Volley Zone, and what each line was called — again. The two older women in the class had trouble dinking, and this was the first time most of us had used the paddles or hit the ball so there were a lot of balls in the net, flying across the room, etc. But that was fine. We kept a good attitude about it and had fun. We spent the rest of the two-hour class dinking and having Kay critique us on our dinking form. I still wasn’t sure how, when, or how often dinking was used in a Pickleball game.
OK, I (still) know nothing about Pickleball and I am not a great athlete, but even for me the first class had a very slow pace and had felt very basic. It seemed like it had taken two hours to cover what should have taken maybe one hour — tops. But I figured that maybe she was one of those teachers who liked to front-load a lot (even though I personally don’t think this is the best pedagogy) and maybe it was one of those classes that takes awhile to build momentum. I’d figured that in the second class, now that we had covered the basics, we would pick up speed and do a bit more.
Second Class
In the second class, there were two new people who had missed the first class. But Kay had also sent a 10-minute video overview about Pickleball (that turned out to more clearly and thoroughly cover what she had taken over an hour to explain in the first lesson), so they’d had a way to get an overview. Kay decided that with two new people, it would be best to review and go over everything from the first day again. She got out the whiteboard with the magnets, and started by asking us to summarize what we’d learned. That lasted about two minutes before Kay decided we weren’t explaining clearly enough and started over with the lecture from the previous class — this time adding new information like even and odd-numbered players and the five jobs the server needed to do that completely befuddled people who had not yet played in or even seen a game. One of the women who had missed the first class actually seemed to know a bit about Pickleball, but when she began supplying information or asking Kay questions, Kay shushed her, saying, “I have to ask you not to interject. I need to be able to explain everything clearly.” After that, we all stood silently.
Twenty-five minutes into the class, I asked Kay when we would be starting to, you know, actually be DOING anything related to playing Pickleball. Then our conversation went something like this;
Kay (giving me a death stare): It’s important to get an overview of the rules. You will need this when you start to play.
Me: We already spent over an hour in the last class going over the rules.
Kay: We didn’t spend an hour.
Me: Yes we did. I timed it. We actually spent more. And now we’ve spent another twenty minutes going over it all again.
Kay: We haven’t spent that long.
Me: I’ve been timing it. It’s actually been twenty-five minutes.
Kay: Well these two people missed the previous class.
Me: That’s not my fault.
Kay: I was just trying to catch them up with a review. It seems like you could be a bit more gracious about helping people get caught up. Pickleball is a sport about being giving and accommodating with other players.
Everyone was staring at me, so I added: Look, I just wanted to learn to play pickleball. I just want to learn the basic rules and skills so that I can go to the Beginner Play sessions here and not embarrass myself or annoy other players.
Kay: You will need to know the rules to play Pickleball.
Me: Yes, that’s fine. But I don’t really need a whole dissertation about the nuances of Pickleball rules. I just need an overview so I can start to play.
Kay: You do need to hear all of this. It’s important to be completely clear about the rules before you start to play.
Me: If I need more I can watch a video. Or read the rules for myself.
Kay: I don’t think you really understand about how how teaching works.
Me: I have a PhD in Education.
Kay: Well you don’t understand Pickleball.
Me: I don’t. Which is why I’m taking the class. But info-dumping on beginners for over an hour isn’t really appropriate instruction. You might want to consider using 10–2 theory and giving people chunks of information and then having them practice.
Kay: (Glaring): You know what? You’re just a know it all! Are you able to participate in this class or do you need to leave?
Me: When will I be getting to participate in this class?
Kay: We’re about to start. If you would just give me a few more minutes to finish the overview. . .
Me: How much longer is it going to take for that to happen?
Kay (pointing to the other end of the empty Pickleball court): Go stand over there in the Kitchen! I don’t need your negative energy in my class.
I took off my court shoes and said I was going to take a break and come back in 5 — 10 minutes. I said that if the class wasn’t doing something by then, I was going to leave.
Two of the older women in the class tried to calm me down. One told me to take a break. The other came over and whispered that they really did want me in the class and why didn’t I just take a few deep breaths and try to calm down? I said I’d take a break and come back. But I took all my stuff with me.
I walked out to my car. I almost left. It was very tempting to just drive away, and maybe I should have. But I decided to give it one more chance.
When I came back into the gym, the class was starting to do the dinking drill we’d learned the class before. It was still review, but that was fine, especially if it was only a warm-up. And anyway, at least I would be getting some kind of exercise. I put my court shoes back on.
“It looks like Suzie has decided to join us,” Kay said, shooting me a snide look. “While you were out we covered a lot of important information you are going to need.”
I said, “I think I’ll be able to figure it out.”
I had just put a few balls in my pockets and gone out to the court when Kay stopped everyone before they even had a chance to start. “Let’s review the proper ready stance.”
A quick “everyone show me the ready stance” with a few words of review would have been fine, but Kay began to expound on foot position, paddle position, angle, and tilt, why this is the correct position, common mistakes beginners make, etc.
I walked off the court, put the balls back, and started taking my court shoes off again.
Kay began an extensive overview of the dinking drill, but interrupted it to ask, “Suzie, are you going to be joining us for this drill?”
I said, “I was going to, but then you started talking again, so I started changing out of my shoes again.”
Kay snapped, “It sounds like you don’t really want to be a part of this class. Maybe you should just leave.”
I said, “Yeah that’s probably a good idea.”
The two older women tried to talk me into staying.
But I said to Kay, “I don’t like the way you’re talking to me and the way I’m being treated.” I finished changing my shoes.
As I was leaving Kay got in another jab. “Since Suzie is no longer playing with us. . .”
I waved goodbye.
I asked the Rec Center for a refund, given that Kay had basically just kicked me out of the class. They said they didn’t issue refunds after six days before the course, because you couldn’t just decide you didn’t want to continue after you’d already committed to taking the course. I said that I still WANTED to learn to play Pickleball, but that after two and a half hours in the class, I had barely learned anything, the instruction was not appropriate for beginners, and the instructor had made it clear I wasn’t welcome.
The person at the front desk said something about there being lots of different teaching styles. I said, “Kay’s style isn’t really a style that any teacher uses.”
Narcissism Traits
Clinical definitions of narcissism don’t always show us what it looks like when we actually encounter one in the real world, so sometimes it’s helpful to see what real-life narcissist behavior looks like. Reflecting on my experience, with Kay, we can break down the interaction and see common narcissist traits.
First of all, there was the ongoing lecturing and “listen to me” — without any awareness of where her students were at or what they needed, and without any ability to read the room and see when people’s eyes were glazing over.
Lack of empathy — check.
It’s also worth noting that Pickleball was designed to be an accessible recreational game that people of all ages and ability levels could easily learn and play, with basic rules can be explained in 10–20 minutes. So there was no reason why Kay needed to take over an hour and a half to talk at us about the rules — unless she liked the attention. There are also clear Pickleball Beginner Progressions that Kay could have looked up and used, but we didn’t do any of those things other instructors suggested, and in fact did a drill that experienced instructors of beginners said not to start with.
Overconfidence and lack of willingness to use ideas from others — check
Then, when I made a reasonable and appropriate request to move on from reviewing the rules and get skills practice half an hour into the second lesson, Kay didn’t try to listen to her students, take feedback, or modify her behavior. Instead she turned it on me and tried to make me the problem.
Blaming and narcissistic projection — check
She tried telling me she had not talked for as long as she had. When I corrected her, she took that as an additional affront.
Gaslighting — check
Next she tried to make it about the need to catch up the two new people (at least one of whom seemed to already know something about the Pickleball rules) and then tried to pit me against them and make it into an issue about me not being “gracious” enough to the new people.
Triangulation — check
When I pointed out that we all wanted to learn to play, Kay tried to diminish and marginalize me by saying that I just didn’t have her extensive knowledge about teaching.
Belittling — check
That backfired, so then she went in the opposite direction and accused me of being a know-it-all.
Personal attack — check
Other people got involved and tried to “make peace” by getting me to go along with the narcissist and accept her abuse.
Flying monkeys — check
Since now she saw me as a threat, she attempted to remove me from the class, first by banishing me another part of the room, and then by making it all too clear that I wasn’t really welcome to return unless I was willing to shut up, toe the line, and also take her verbal abuse.
Scapegoating — check
But of course, then I was the one with the problem when I left. There is no way to win with a narcissist.
Reflections as a Teacher
I have been teaching since I started working as a children’s ski instructor when I was fifteen. I’ve taught elementary before and after school care and summer camps, 8th grade Language Arts, a middle school summer writing camp, multiple high school English classes, College Writing, and Teacher Education and Research Writing classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels (in two graduate programs I helped our department start). I’ve taught a total of about 25 classes over my career. I’ve also taught skiing, adaptive skiing, and coached volleyball.
My decades of experience were how I knew that Kay’s teaching was not appropriate. No effective ski instructor would make beginner skiers stand there in their boots for an hour while they went on about the history of the sport, different kinds of skis, different styles of skiing, the intricacies and nuances of the Skiers’ Responsibility Code, knee and hip angulation, weighting and unweighting during a turn, leaning too far forward vs. too far back, etc. — all before people had even put on their skis and tried to glide.
Similarly, no effective English teacher would (or should) start the first day of class with explaining all the grammar rules, including split infinitives, gerund phrases, dangling participles, and how and when to use a semi-colon. Certainly, there is a time and a place to learn those concepts (except split infinitives, which is a made-up rule we all can disregard), but that time and place is not the first day of class.
I’ve never even been a fan of spending the first day reading over the syllabus — although I know that some people do. But when our students show up on the first day, excited to use their new pens and notebooks, why wouldn’t we want to capitalize on that brief enthusiasm?
But like all teachers, I’ve had my hits and misses. Or things that I’ve previously taught one way that I would do differently now that I have more experience, now that I’ve learned more, and as thinking in our field has continued to develop.
The vast majority of teachers are not narcissists — they tend to be the opposite. Many are on the codependent side, give too much, and need to work on boundaries.
But we’ve all also met that windbag ski instructor who talks for the entire hour, or that verbally abusive coach who always seems to pick on the player who asks the most questions or doesn’t pick up on skills as quickly or whatever. Or that teacher who gets so caught up in expounding about the rules that they lose sight of the activity that students are supposed to be doing. They aren’t common, but these people do exist. And maybe (ahem) some of us have even crossed over into that territory once or twice.
It can still be easy to fall into some of Kay’s traps. Who among us doesn’t love to hear ourselves talk? Some teachers even set a timer for themselves. Others get good at reading the room for glazed looks and requests for the bathroom pass. It can also be easy to go on about the nuances of a topic we have thought deeply about, while losing sight of where beginners are and what they need to know right now — and what they don’t.
It can be hard to take feedback from our students without taking it as a personal challenge and then letting our egos get in the way of focusing on what they need as learners.
It can be easy to take the student who wanted to learn so much that they get impatient or frustrated when instruction is unclear or goes long and view them as a problem, rather than admit that we might be getting in the way of our own learning objectives.
And it can be easy to quickly brand anyone who calls us out during the many times when we could actually be teaching better as the “problem child” (which was actually my Roller Derby name — meant ironically), and then start singling them out as the person who needs to be put in their place or sent out.
Most teachers do not do this. And if and when we have made mistakes in this direction we try to listen, catch ourselves, think about it, and change our practice so that we’re not doing it again. The best way to prevent becoming a Kay is through constantly reflecting on our practice and then finding places to improve.
I love to be a student and learn from other people. Every time I do, it also teaches me more about teaching, which is an art that can be so easy to do badly and so hard to do well. Returning to the learner’s position and the beginner’s mind always makes me re-examine how effective and friendly my own first day — and beyond — of my classes are. I always leave with new ideas.
