Hi, I'm Sam,
They say knowledge is power but does that apply to the knowledge of anything or the knowledge of important things which could have an effect on your life? But I guess no matter what it is, it could be important under certain circumstances. I’ve always held teachers in very high regard, that could be as a result of having one as a mum but still. I’ve always admired how they found it important to transfer what they know to others. I’ve always seen them as all knowing in their field because that was the only way for me to accept the fact that they’re able to train a number of people on a specific or few subjects. I’ve always been loved by teachers and it’s not because I was the top student, because I wasn’t, I believe it’s because I was and still very much teachable. I think teachers just want to see the seriousness and zeal to learn what is being taught. That willingness to learn communicates to them what approach to use for any student they’re teaching.
It’s easy to undermine the hard work that goes into teaching and in addition to other things, it takes natural skills to be a good teacher. You will be wrong to assume that because you’re well versed on a particular subject that you can transfer that knowledge to someone else. I always say I’m a terrible teacher but I have to admit that it felt good teaching people to drive and I had the privilege of understanding the satisfaction that teachers have whenever they teach and see their student thriving and advancing in whatever they’ve tried their complete best to put into them.
As a young student, I took pride is giving back to teachers whatever they taught me. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I realized as time went by that it’s not enough to remember and regurgitate what I learnt. I was meant to use whatever I was taught as raw material to configure my own thoughts and information. It may not be entirely different from the next person in terms of the final product but the process and analysis can be mine and mine to use to arrive at different solutions. I always passed but not to the excitement of my teachers because they were expecting more which they knew that I could give but never did. Whatever I got wasn’t wrong per se but it could’ve been more and no one has ever gotten something groundbreaking by producing exactly what they got.
There’s a level of mastery that can only be attained only from teaching something over and over again. With each period of teaching comes new information or method to get something done. At that point, you’re not just teaching what you’ve known for a long time, but you’re learning new things in addition to what you’ve known for a long time and the privilege to experience in real time the evolution of subjects you’ve know to be a certain way. Accepting the different forms and levels your subject matter has had to go through to arrive to the moment you’re proudly impacting the more refined knowledge to a different set of students. It is very much possible to learn from the very set of people you’re trying to teach a subject matter and that boils down to the individual ability to be teachable no matter what level attained. Learning does not always have to be in a classroom setting. Being teachable allows me to position myself as a sponge ready to absorb as much as I can while giving me the freedom to process what has been absorbed and refining it to be a useable and reusable information while I move through life.
When the task of teaching falls on anyone serious, it is very easy to switch to learn to teach mentality and while that is expected, accepted and celebrated, the pride of learning to teach suppresses the ability to learn while teaching. The pride that I have the knowledge to give you and not the possibility that there’s something to learn while I’m teaching. Being teachable starts by ignoring the idea that there’s is a time and place to teach and learn. Every area and place of our lives provides an avenue for teaching and learning. There is always something to learn or teach at every point and corner of life. The desire to learn or to teach to learn is innate and a decision that I have to cherish, which makes it very easy for me to identify all the teachable moments life presents to me.
