The Underestimated Ingenuity Of The Human

To lead someone by the hand is indeed an addictive impulse. Particularly for parents and teachers.

With each passing day, I grow more hesitant of teaching. I adore teaching. It’s in my blood. But the years have been teaching me a lesson. That teaching is far more dangerous than I once thought.

The Hippocratic Oath states, FIRST DO NO HARM.

Perhaps this should be posted above the mirror of every teacher.

I have had some powerful insights over the last several years. Perhaps they are a reward for my willingness to listen. A reward for admitting that I know much less than I thought I knew. That it would serve me well to learn more than to teach.

A vision has been forming before my eyes over the last several years. And it grows clearer by the day.

It is the realization that TEACHING KILLS.

Learning takes place not because of teaching, but despite it.

Learning occurs from within the human being. And when the human being dances to the tune of INSTRUCTION, his ingenuity begins to whither.

We have before us millions of magnificent specimens in the form of human beings. They have enormous talents. They have a brain that has evolved over seven million years. They have a body that is a masterful machine.

And here the teacher stands attempting to guide this wondrous creature’s hands as if it were an invalid.

The path that any man takes relates to the questions that drive him.

What I am driven by . . . what I am fascinated by, is the creativity of the human organism. If I teach someone something, I immediately LIMIT THEM. I cast them in stone.

Why?

Because my most fundamental message in teaching them is to follow my instruction, to mimic my movement. In doing so, he simply becomes another robot in the army.

What I am most interested in is not how well he can follow my instruction. What I am most interested in is WHAT HE HAS TO OFFER THAT I HAVE NEVER BEFORE SEEN.

This is my message to to a talented student:

Show me something pure. Untainted by the hand of man. Something primal. Something wholly original. Something that is yours and yours alone. And please allow me to stand witness to it.

For in the creativity . . . the uniqueness . . . that you demonstrate lies the glory of your creation.

And my fear in teaching you is that I will suppress what is uniquely yours, in exchange for that which is commonplace.

If I do offer words, I will whisper them in the bottom of your ear. Sparingly. And with great trepidation. So as not to prevent the full bloom of your originality.

Allow the fullness of your creation to unravel before my eyes. So that I may learn what can never be taught.