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How good are you at determining what is essential in your teaching? As teachers we have various details and foundational aspects to cover, and the more we know the more we want to explain.
But these complexities can be filled in later, perhaps even by our enthusiastic and active student, if we can motivate them from the start with the essence of the subject matter. And what is that essence?
If we view our teaching as a collection of knowledge, facts, perspectives, and insights, is it cluttered? Confused? What is essential? How can we simplify?
I recommend this short article, The Four Laws of Simplicity, and How to Apply Them to Life, on how to declutter our physical possessions.
What would our teaching look like if we built it using a similar approach?
Part of our work is to use everything in our lives to teach. But tragedy and loss can take away a teacher’s confidence and pain and illness can leave us feeling diminished and incapable. The intellect knows these things will come but the heart and spirit can stumble nonetheless.
Can we teach when our bodies fail us, when our hearts are broken?
We may be tempted to step away at these times, but if we are to teach worthwhile life lessons, we must also teach our students how to sustain themselves through loss and pain, to accommodate changing resources, to heal, to re-invigorate. To go on.
Can a teacher heal and teach at the same time? Not if we expect to be exactly as we were. We must change our expectations and learn ourselves in the present. What can we do now? What must wait for later?
And what can be taught from the parts of ourselves that hurt? What insights are we gaining from this crisis?
These are times of perceptual opportunity. When fever makes it hard to think, listen instead of using reason. When despair attacks, hear it speak without believing its words. Look through the pain, loss and despair to what lies beyond.
During dark times there are cracks in how we see the world. When we walk the lands of pain and loss we learn to walk in new ways. With focus this hard time is also fertile ground for new understanding.
If you can show your students what it is like to be in the world with both pain and intent, if you can be present for them while also recovering from what has happened, you offer a clear demonstration and a powerful teaching of what is possible. The best time to learn this is when you are healthy and whole. The best time to teach it is when you are not.
If you teach, you are always a teacher, whether you are well or not, whole or not, of good spirit or not. When times are hard, you may also feel hard, have fewer resources, less tolerance. You may hurt. Rest what needs resting. Learn the world anew from where you are.
And bring back what you have found so you can teach it.
I once had the privilege of witnessing the starting ritual of a deep teaching relationship, one that lasted many years and covered great distances.
There are some commonalities to such beginnings. Ideally the teacher sketches the various levels of challenges the student is likely to face so that the student can become of a mind to face them. But no amount of description or explanation can properly inform the student of the scope and type of work they face. Even the most experienced teacher does not know what will happen. This is an act of faith for both, a step into the unknown and unknowable.
The beginning is important. It can set a tone, create a practice area, lay down expectations and common language. If done well the ritual tests and births the student’s – and teacher’s – commitment, vision, and intent.
This ritual can tell the student – in action, not only in words – that the study is hard and may take them places they do not want to go. Further, a challenging initiation can give the student a sense of having earned the right to embark on a path that is both difficult and rare.
Choice is powerful. The wise teacher gives the student time to consider, to question, to be uncertain. They use all their skill to assure that the student’s consent is freely and clearly given. Later, when things are hard, both student and teacher can use this consent as a reference point.
The beginning is the start of the teaching so that in addition to giving the student the choice to step through the doorway it will also in various ways embody the work itself.
To walk a path of change the student must change. Note that the teacher must also change. The path is walked together. The beginning reflects this as well.
This time is precious and powerful. It can resonate across the entire teaching, serving as a touchstone and a guide. While every teaching beginning is different, they have this in common: neither student nor teacher know where the the path will lead or what it will cost them. They step forward in mutual faith that there is something there worth finding.
I have been hosting a weekly chat with teachers from various backgrounds to explore the subjects and issues that interest teachers of depth and spirit. Some recent topics have included what teachers like and dislike about their own teaching, what it takes to build trust with students, the effect and cost of teacher credentials, student motivation, and how to learn from a flawed teacher.
I am opening this chat to include more people. Invitations will be send via email on the day of the meeting, just prior to the meeting. The meetings are on Wednesdays, UTC 2300, which is 7-8pm Eastern Time and 4-5pm Pacific Time.
If you are interested in joining us, please contact us at gurushandbook@gmail.com.
I once taught a man decades younger than myself. No money or other compensation was involved. Some time into our work he asked me, “Why me? What do you get out of this?”
This is a question that goes to the heart of teaching, of why we pass on what we know even when obvious compensation is minimal or lacking. Why do we work so hard to open doors for those who come to us?
As teachers we are good at answers and most of us can lay hands on any number of true answers to this question. But the question is a guiding one, and for us more useful than the answers.
And for the student?
My own explanation to the student varies with the situation and typically contains two points. The first is that I am part of a teaching culture and heritage that values the passing on of knowledge, with less focus on the compensation than the teaching. This is a cultural heritage I treasure and help sustain with my work.
The second is specific to the student. What I tell them is tempered by what they need. I may say that it matters far less to me what they know than how they know it. That is, I teach them because how they see the world helps me see it better as well. Teaching them teaches me.
I am cautious with this answer. Any time we tell a student that they are special we risk solidifying them around their desire to be special, to value themselves because of what we say. When we choose students they are a sort of special, but it does them no good to identify with this unmoving self-image. So when I answer this question, I focus on that part of the student’s uniqueness – their way of seeing, of looking beyond the obvious, of asking questions – that is most in motion, that brings them to the edge of what they understand. Thus I am with my answer implicitly encouraging them to stretch and discouraging them from a static self-image.
My offered practice: consider a student who you have chosen to teach, or might have chosen. How would you tell them why you chose them in a way that is both true and useful for their learning?
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