those who can't, teach

"Those who can't, teach."

-old adage that oversimplifies teaching and is really, really wrong

In order to teach, you need the following prerequisites:

• Understanding: you cannot teach well what you don't understand well.
• Empathy: you need to be able to assume the point of view of someone who doesn't know what you know yet and not hold that against them.
• Curiosity: you need to want to know what can they already do on their own without your help.
• Compassion: you need to understand that growing pains exist.
• Ingenuity: you need to be able to adjust because not everyone learns the same way, nor do they necessarily learn the same way as you.
• Patience: you need to understand that not everyone gets it on the first try or even the twenty-second, and sometimes, it's not time yet for a particular skill.
• Wisdom: you need to know when you're the expert and when your student has just taught you something.

This is a short list of prerequisites. Not on the list? A teaching credential. Teaching is a profession, but it is also a way of communicating and a way of viewing the world as a place where people can grow. (Also not on the list: skilled marksmanship, but that's more political than I want to get today ...)

Do you have what it takes to teach well? I bet you do or could develop those skills because those who can, teach.

Have a great day.

we are all children

Do you feel frequently embarrassed? Unsure? Tentative?

Maybe you're confident? Knowledgeable? Authoritative?

Regardless, here is a little known truth: we are all still kids inside. 

Our childhoods form who we are. We grow up, but in the end, it's all still in there. Some of us learn to approach the world with caution. Others of us learn that we had our turn at the bottom of the pecking order, and now it's our turn to be boss because of chronological order and the Way Things Are. Some of us say, screw it, let's do this!

What we have, and what actual children lack, is experience. 

Other than that? None of us have any idea what the hell we're doing. In some ways, we know less than children because we think we know what we're doing. There is an actual experiment that I will spare you the citation for (unless you want it, and then, I'm happy to share) in which five-year-olds outperformed adults on a cognitive task.

With experience, we lose our ability to consider things differently.

Some people see this as a relief --those'd be your pecking order types. "My turn! Nothing changes because I waited too damn long for this!" they say in their suits borrowed from their parents.

Some people see this as terrifying.

Some people are terribly well-adjusted and see it as an adventure.

But we are all still the children we were with a few years of additional mileage and wear-and-tear tacked on. 

Things get a lot easier when you realize that we are all still children, all of us, and the danger is forgetting that in our desire to be adults. No one has all the answers. We continue to have ingenuity and playfulness in there.

So go out, have fun, and make peace with that kid inside. And listen to the actual children from time to time when they have an idea --consider it instead of dismissing it out of hand.