Tommy Thompson – Director, Principle
teacher (1983)
Debi Adams and Bob Lada –
Senior Faculty
Studio & Teacher Training: 1692
Massachusetts Avenue, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Certification
Who trains as a Teacher
Faculty
Course Schedule
Course Offerings
Affiliated Study
Requirements for Graduation
Tuition
Information/Enrollment
Since 1983, ATCC has offered a Teacher Training Program for those who wish to become teachers of the Alexander Technique. Entering students enroll in a three-year (1600-hour) course of study, during which time they explore practically and theoretically the principles and concepts basic to the teachings of F. Matthias Alexander.
Having gained the requisite skills at the completion of the three-year course of study, the trainee is awarded a certificate of qualification recognizing that they have satisfied the requirements necessary to teach the F. Matthias Alexander Technique.
The qualified teacher is eligible to become a Certified
Teaching Member of Alexander Technique International (ATI)*. ATI is an
international professional society of Alexander Technique teachers
which assesses and certificates its teaching members through an elected
body of experienced Sponsoring Members.
* More
information about ATI
"The aim of teaching as I
conceive it, is to bring a pupil to the point of self discovery that
F.M. reached when he was able to translate what he saw in the mirrors
into kinesthetic terms, and to apply this new knowledge to the solution
of his problems..."
Frank Pierce Jones
Generally, the technique speaks to all persons who are interested in change; to those who wish for the freedom to make non-habitual, non-reactive choices, and to those persons who wish for increased possibilities in daily interaction, and in their overall experience of life.
Specifically, people from a wide variety of backgrounds including professionals in music, dance, theater, psychology, medicine, and related therapeutic disciplines in mind/body education have graduated from the Teacher Training program.
These teachers have then gone on to teach the Alexander Technique. Some have combined teaching the Technique with their previous profession. Occasionally a person will enroll in the Training who has no desire to teach, but who wants extensive exposure to the teaching for their own purposes. Usually this person studies for a year.
As lessons give us the freedom to choose a better course of action than the one habitually taken, we truly encounter the depth of our own commitment, not just to the work, but to ourselves and to those around us.
Tommy Thompson, Director
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our faculty include resident teachers and adjunct faculty. Whenever possible, adjunct faculty are part of the elected pool of Sponsoring Members in Alexander Technique International. These Sponsoring Members are designated to assess the competency of a candidate for ATI certification. The adjunct faculty members attend the school regularly. In addition to the resident and adjunct faculty, visiting teachers teach on the course occasionally throughout the year. These visits are also open to graduate teachers as part of their postgraduate training.
All Resident and Adjunct Faculty are Teaching Members of Alexander Technique International (see more details about these teachers).
Tommy Thompson – Director, Principle
Teacher (ATI Sponsor)
Debi Adams – Senior Faculty
Bob Lada – Senior Faculty (Ati Sponsor
and Anatomy)
Andrea Matthews – Teacher, Anatomy
Jamee Culbertson – Adjunct Faculty
Marie-Françoise Le Foll – Adjunct Faculty (ATI Sponsor)
Rosa-Luisa Rossi – Adjunct Faculty (ATI Sponsor)
David Gorman – Guest teacher
"True life
is lived when tiny changes occur."
Leo Tolstoy
Fall Term (14weeks) September 9 through December 19
Tues. Sept 9
Fall term begins
Fri. Nov - 20
Dec 1 Thanksgiving Break – no
class
Mon. Dec 8th through 13th. Tommy is in Israel teaching.
Class
taught by
Graduates
Fri. Dec 19 - Jan 6
Holiday break – no class
Special teachers: to be announced
Winter Term (11 weeks) January 6 through March 13
Tues. Jan. 6
resume class
Fri Mar. 14-23
break
Special teachers: dates to be
announced
– Dr. Spencer Schaeffer (Cranial Sacral Osteopathy)
Spring Term (12 weeks) March 24 through
June 19
Tues. March 24
Spring term begins
Thurs. June
19
Last day of school
Each semester emphasizes:
— sit-to-stand, table work, and related activities such as monkey and constructive rest,
— situational activity work (working with a person, involved in daily activities or activities which demand special skills, i.e. athletes, performers etc Often people are invited to attend class o be used as models for working in activities.),
— attentional and kinesthetic recognition of habitual patterns,
— Alexander skills, i.e. hands-on-back-of-chair, whispered 'Ah', etc.
More specifically:
— Daily hands-on study, The day to day structure of teacher training is broken down into a hands-on demonstration on a given topic, followed by application of what was demonstrated by the trainee, followed by discussion.
—
Functional anatomy related directly to Alexander
principles, special
seminars, based upon David Gorman's
book In Our
Own Image and Rolfer, Tom Myer's Anatomy Trains books
on Myofasial Merididians
— Invited guest Alexander teachers who are also sponsors in ATI come into the course on a yearly basis. This allows the ATI sponsors the opportunity to observe a trainee's progress over a three year period, should an individual trainee wish to be assessed for ATI certified teacher membership by that sponsor.
— Invited guest teachers/speakers on
related subjects such as osteopathy,
and
various branches of medicine, Feldenkrais, T’ai chi, ethics,
yoga,
— Scheduled class days once a month (in
weekly class time) with focus
on
individual issues viewed from the Alexander principles, (One of the
greatest benefits to Alexander's discoveries pertain to how one might
use the work to address any issue that comes up in their life. Each
trainee is invited to bring such an individual issue to class, and
Tommy will work through the issue using Alexander's principles. Each
trainee has the opportunity to experience what this is like when
applied to issues meaningful to their own life.
— One to two individual 20 minute session with Tommy Thompson per week in class,
— To help students with reading
requirements, book discussion on each of FM Alexander's books, and on
Frank Jones' book is held
each week
on an assigned reading,
—
Tutorials: one-on-one meetings whenever needed between trainees
and
faculty, Theses meetings provide the trainee with the opportunity to
bring to individual faculty whatever issues they might have that they
don't wish to share with the rest of the class. The meetings also
provide the trainee with the opportunity to receive a progress report
throughout their training.
— Affiliated Study/Mentoring
ATCC has affiliations with both the Boston Conservatory for Theater, Dance and Music, Boston, Massachusetts, and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts (ART).
Third year graduates (one per term) are eligible to assist Debi Adams teaching at the Boston Conservatory in her classes for musicians, dancers and actors in the Alexander work.
Under a mentoring program, All third year students are required to assist or observe Tommy Thompson, assisted by Bob Lada in Tommy's Alexander classes for the graduate students in the Advanced Theatre Training program connected with The American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University. and the Moscow Art Theater in Russia. When possible, first and second year students are urged to attend these weekly 3 hour classes at ART. This is the second year of the mentoring program and some changes may be necessary as we explore the best way for you to get experience working in activity in a group context. Recent graduates are invited to assist.
Both mentoring experiences are an excellent exposure to working in groups, and in situational activities.
Graduation is based on reasonable and timely attendance for 3 years, amounting to 1600 hours of study, including hands-on class time, special projects, and affiliated study. *See above, Affiliated study and Mentoring.
Occasional absences are understood. However, extended absences will have to be made up. An extended absence is anything over 8 days per term. Make up time is available only after completion of the 3rd year. Graduation from the course is dependent upon completion of 9 full terms. For transfer students, it is possible that work from another course will be accepted but an evaluation by the full faculty will be necessary sometime before the third year to determine whether transfer terms or portions of terms will be counted towards graduation.
In addition to all the skills you learn in the daily class work, the following are also part of the requirements for graduation:
— Familiarity with all of F.M. Alexander's books and Frank Pierce Jones's book, as well as an acquaintance with the Course Reading List,
— Two oral reports per year,
including one Entrance Report and one
Exit
Report for Graduating trainees ( these oral reports may
feature some aspect about the Teaching. For example, one might choose
the concept of inhibition or non-doing for a topic. In each report, the
trainee is asked to state what Mr. Alexander says about a given topic,
what other recognized teachers have said about the topic and what the
trainee thinks about the topic. Preparation and delivering
these oral reports give the trainee the opportunity to practice
speaking about the Alexander work in public, and discovering ways to
best articulate to another person or group what the work might mean to
them.
— Individual project completed by second term of third year
Full-time Students:
working towards teacher certification (Tuesday-Thursday
9am-1pm): Plus outside study time.*
*Tuition currently is $9,000 annually, paid in full upon acceptance into training course. In addition, there is a $500 commitment fee, payable upon acceptance into the course, and thereafter twice more every June 1st. to secure space for succesive fall terms.
Or,
iif preferred, tuition may be paid in three installments:
Due
by August 1st:
$3000
Due by December 1st:
$3000
Due by March
1st:
$3000
Due by June 1st of each year
$500
A late fee of $20 per week will be charged to all accounts that are overdue.
Explanation of non-refundable fee: A non-refundable 'commitment fee' of $500 is due upon acceptance into the Training Course. This $500 fee is also due for continuing students each year by June 1st to recommit, and to secure space for the next fall term (see fee payment dates above).
Participants in the training are granted entry to the term only if tuition has been paid by the designated date. All fees and fee schedules subject to change with reasonable advance notice.
NEW OPTION: Beginning in the fall, 2007 a new optional deferred tuition payment plan is available for those trainees who wish to pay their tuition over an extended period of time. A trainee may pay half of their tuition, and in unique circumstances, one-third of their tuition, either upon entry into the training program, or along the guidelines outlined above under the installment plan. The difference would be the candidate for teacher certification would cut by half, or by one-third all figures listed in the installment plan.
They would then make special contractual arrangements the semester prior to graduation to pay the remainder of the full tuition during whatever time frame they designate feasible within a two year period upon completion of the three year training. It is assumed monthly payment arrangements would be made that were tailored to the graduate's income. The idea behind the deferred payment plan is to make available to a person what might not be available otherwise.
Sponsors: Opportunities to meet with ATI sponsors will be made available whenever possible.
Visitors:
Visitors interested in training shall pay the weekly fee (see below)
beyond one day’s visit. The total amount may be applied to the
commitment fee. Entrance into the training course is based upon mutual
consensus of the faculty and upon the consensus of the student body.
Study by the
week
$290
Study by the
day
$97
Postgraduate students:
Fee by arrangement.
Contact
The Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge:
E-mail: ttatint@aol.com
or tommy@atcambridge.com
Phone:
+1 617-497-2242
Fax:
+1 617-497-2615
Mail: 1692
Massachusetts Ave, 3rd
floor,
Cambridge MA, 02138, USA
*
Although effort is made to keep tuition fees consistent throughout a given trainee's three year course of study, tuition is, however subject to change.
Contents © Copyright 2006 Lester W. Thompson (except where noted), all rights reserved
