Morning Pages: July 30, 2002

We believe all people have skills, experience and understanding that they can draw on to tackle the problems they face. Social action workers understand that people are experts in their own lives and we use this as a starting point for our work.

False start above, couldn't say what I meant. I know Amy is sitting next to me breaking down the word "expert" and I must say I feel a bit tempted to look that word up (Expert: very skillful; having much training and knowledge in some special field). So, this means that my students are the experts in their lives, not me, and if I start where they are in teaching I will only know where they are by asking them. I like how this talks about our job as "...to help uncover what is already there." Reminds me of Nohad, who once wrote about "unfolding our personalities."

This principle may well be the one I've spent much time working toward. I can remember countless conversations with Charles. I would moan and groan about something going on in one of my classes, vocalize some kind of "I wonder..." question, be lost in thought as though I was pondering the imponderable. Into my deep, philosophical reverie Charles' voice would crawl, "Have you asked them?"

"Damn," I'd think, "why does he always remember to do that part of it and I need to be told every time?"

He assures me and reminds me that he doesn't always remember that sometimes I, or Shirley, have to remind him to ask his students.

It's such a novel idea, almost embarrassingly complex in its simplicity. And what happens when you ask? Students tell you - people I've never heard speak in a class suddenly start talking to me in classes where they were previously mute. My students have much to offer me, if I can just let go every so slightly, if only for the briefest of moments.

So, what does this all say to me about teaching? It says, "Let go." It says, "Shut up." It says, "Listen."

And, in the quiet space between an inhalation and an exhalation, where the diaphragm sits at rest, I will hear my students' voices and by hearing them, acknowledging them, I'm affirming their worth as people who have something to say that I'm interested in. This, then, begins a cycle of positive behaviors, which help the student take risks and figure out who and what they are. In taking these risks, my students will use their insights and knowledge base to form the basis for the stories they can tell about who they are and where they've been.

All well and good, so how do I get to the point when I am able, truly, to start where each student is? What if my class ranges widely in terms of technology skills or varied widely in emotional maturity or varied widely in knowledge base? In college it seems as though I need to sometimes teach basic skills along with the content of whatever course they are enrolled in. This is grossly unfair to the cream of the crop and those between the cream and the bottom. So, everyone in the class works at the level the bottom needs, regardless of where they are academically.