LEARNING WHAT YOU NEED TO TEACH<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a saying that we teach what we need to learn. I\u00a0don’t agree. In my experience, if we don’t know something, trying to teach it
seems irresponsible. Rather I believe that we should teach what we know, not\u00a0what we don\u2019t know. Then, we can learn about ourselves while we teach.<\/p>\n
Many years ago, I was in Amsterdam to facilitate a three day
crystal healing workshop. I was pretty excited when I got there. I had lugged a\u00a0heavy suitcase over there, filled with crystals, some for healing and some for\u00a0selling. I had studied the healing energy of all kinds of crystals and although\u00a0I had never run a workshop, I felt that I knew my stuff.<\/p>\n
Between the time change and the anticipation, I didn’t sleep\u00a0well the night before the workshop and when I got up, I was exhausted. But I
carried on, arranging the crystals in groups and studying my notes. When the\u00a0students were about to arrive, a woman walked up to me with a Dutch accent and\u00a0introduced herself. \u201cHello,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m Elke. I\u2019m your interpreter.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was stunned. I thought everyone spoke English. How would I
work with this? It would take twice as long to express myself because\u00a0everything had to be repeated. How would I deal with the long pauses and\u00a0stilted conversations? I looked past Elke and watched the students filing in.\u00a0My mind was spinning and I suddenly felt like I had no business being there. I\u00a0had felt confident and prepared but now I felt tired, blindsided and insecure. After\u00a0thirty people had shown up, again I was taken by surprise. They had told me there\u00a0would be twenty at the most and I wasn\u2019t about to ask ten people to leave.<\/p>\n
As they took their seats in a semi-circle of chairs, I\u00a0stared at the empty chair in the middle. I wondered why no one was sitting\u00a0there when I realized that it was for me. I sat and looked around the room at\u00a0the large group of people who were waiting for me to start. I went into auto\u00a0speak and began talking about my experience of crystals, waiting after each\u00a0sentence for the interpreter to do her job. It was awkward and confusing and I\u00a0wasn\u2019t sure if I was repeating myself or making any sense.<\/p>\n
It was a monologue until a hand went up and a woman said
something in Dutch. I was relieved that someone was participating and I put my\u00a0attention on the interpreter. She said, \u201cShe\u2019s having trouble hearing you. Can\u00a0you speak up?\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded and raised my voice. I spoke in fits and starts and\u00a0broke the people up into smaller groups so they could work with the stones and\u00a0share their experiences. I showed them how to do \u201ccrystal layouts,\u201d arranging\u00a0them in shapes, getting my feet back under me when a man raised his hand. He\u00a0had a confused look on his face. The interpreter said, \u201cYou\u2019re moving too fast.\u00a0Can you please slow down?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure what happened for the next hour but when it was\u00a0time to take a fifteen minute break, I went into another room and cried. I
didn’t know what I was doing. I was educated about crystals and their healing\u00a0energies but being a teacher was way out of my understanding and my comfort\u00a0zone. I felt like an imposter and I called a friend who regularly facilitated\u00a0consciousness workshops. \u201cI don’t know what I\u2019m doing,\u201d I told her. \u201cI thought\u00a0teaching was showing other people what to do but I feel so inadequate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you give a workshop,\u201d she said, \u201cyou share your knowledge but you also learn a lot about yourself. Just keep going. You\u2019ll find your rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was humbled and when I walked back into the room after the
break, I realized that we were all on the same path but in this case, I was a\u00a0few steps ahead. The work I was doing went beyond teacher and student but I wasn\u2019t\u00a0teaching what I needed to learn. I was teaching what I already knew, I had\u00a0studied and done my homework. but now as I shared my knowledge, I was learning\u00a0about myself. I felt better, I had changed my attitude and I meshed with my
participants. When it was over, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I had\u00a0connected with my students and I had learned how to slow down and work with\u00a0other people.<\/p>\n
I have a new career since then and as a writing coach, I\u2019ve\u00a0been able to follow the same precepts. I\u2019ve been teaching six-week writing
workshops since 2016 and in 2020, I moved my classes to Zoom. I was lonely, I\u00a0wanted a sense of community and I was afraid that teaching online would be less\u00a0intimate but that hasn\u2019t been true. I teach my classes for me as much as anyone\u00a0else and the connections we\u2019ve made has been fulfilling for all of us. After my
experience in Amsterdam, I don\u2019t feel separated from my students. I don\u2019t feel\u00a0superior or wiser than they are. I just do a short mediation, I suggest a topic\u00a0for them to write about and then I get out of the way. Granted, I have a lot of\u00a0knowledge, I\u2019ve written dozens of books and made the bestseller list a number\u00a0of times, but when I teach, it feels like we are all in this together, sharing\u00a0our writing with each other and having stimulating conversations. I can’t tell\u00a0people how to write. All I can do is help them remove the blocks to their\u00a0creativity and allow their creative expression to flow freely.<\/p>\n
Connecting\u00a0with other people is crucial for our mental health. Even if you work alone or\u00a0live alone, a healthy dose of connectivity can help you feel that you\u2019re not\u00a0separated from the world at large. When we teach something we know, we can\u2019t\u00a0tell anyone what to do but we can encourage them to step forward, take a chance\u00a0and let their natural talent shine through.<\/p>\n
Socrates\u00a0said, \u201cI cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.\u201d<\/p>\n
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LEARNING WHAT YOU NEED TO TEACH There\u2019s a saying that we teach what we need to learn. I\u00a0don’t agree. In my experience, if we don’t know something, trying to teach itseems irresponsible. Rather I believe that we should teach what we know, not\u00a0what we don\u2019t know. Then, we can learn about ourselves while we teach. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2180,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}