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Musings on Education, Part 4: A letter to my students

A letter to my recent students:

Dear Students,

I am writing you today because I feel it is time for openness from my perspective on you and your experiences in my recent courses.

I went into teaching in higher education 22 years ago because I loved learning, helping others learn, and to enjoy the intellectually stimulating place that universities and colleges can be. I also thought that I was somehow doing good – helping the world be a better place through education.

The journey over 22 years has been very rewarding to me. I smile when I reflect on the amazing experiences we have had together. Many of you I will remember fondly for the rest of my life. Some have become my dear friends, too!

During these last 2 decades it was not only you who have grown professionally and personally through our experiences together, but me too! We have both gained new skills, awareness, knowledge, and self-confidence.  I used to be scared of going into the classroom when I first started teaching. This and many other fears and insecurities have been replaced with confidence and strength. And I have seen the dramatically increased  confidence and strength in hundreds of you, too!

Recently, however, I have found myself scared again of teaching. And it surprised and disturbed me when I uncovered the reasons:

1. I love learning and growing intellectually and personally, and always have. Recently, I have found a mismatch between what I love to do and what you are seeking. Most questions I get from you now are either grade related or “tell me what to do” queries, not learning related. As I don’t worry much about grades (and never did) receiving your questions has become increasingly frustrating for me.

2.  Further, there has been a lot of emotion attached to your queries recently:  Shock, anger, disappointment, and blame pointed at me when your grades do not meet your expectations, or I won’t tell you “what to do”. When I was in university, I knew that my grades generally reflected my effort, understanding, abilities, and skills.  Obviously, there were good teachers and bad teachers, great courses and crappy courses.  But overall, it was *me* who was responsible for my grades, not my professors. I always knew this. To my recent surprise, apparently many of you think I am responsible for your grades and for your learning!

3.  I always knew that I had to change and grow up as a necessary part of my learning. And for most of my 22 years, I think most of my students understood this too. Through mutual trust, engagement, hard work, and opening up our minds and spirits, learning happened through change.  Now, I am finding that most of you want to do more of the same things you did before, in the same ways, as if learning is about simply more volume of information intake in the ways you did before. This is so fundamentally opposite to learning as I understand the process that I simply don’t know how to teach in the way you want me to.

4. Mentoring has always been an important part of my learning. When asked at the end of my degree who I held up as a person I respected and wanted to be like right then, It was Professor Jim Erskine, a master teacher and overall amazing person. He represented at that time the person I wanted to be primarily because he was dedicated to crafting the most amazing learning experiences for his students and making it safe for us to learn. I grew tremendously from his teaching, mentorship, and those transformative learning experiences. From building our communication skills to new ways of seeing the world, every class had something to learn, even if I didn’t fully understand at the time all of of what it was I was learning. I knew I was on to something good in Jim’s classes and gave all I could to learning and growing during our time together. I was no perfect student, to be clear, but I really worked hard at changing myself.

Over the last 22 years, I have found myself humbled by the number of my own students who feel I have helped them learn and grow. This alone has made the journey worthwhile for me.

In the last 2 years I have been humbled again. This time, however, it has not been in a happy way. Despite crafting and honing what I thought were my best learning opportunities yet, and looking forward to our time together with all that I have to give, I witnessed very little interest from you in engaging and learning. Oh, we have had the odd fun times in the classroom and a few of you have excelled, but would have despite anything I have done. As a whole, however, I feel little change has happened as any result of my role as your teacher. In other words, I am no longer making a difference.

These last few courses together have been the most difficult experiences of my career and have led me to reconsider why I teach and whether I am able to teach any longer.

“Maybe it is me who is now simply a bad and uncaring teacher”, I have asked myself in reflection. So, how did I go from being a teacher that made a difference to one who students get angry at because they don’t like their grades or I won’t tell them what to do?

After some reflection, I have come to the conclusion that there is no judgement needed. No good or bad conclusions to be made about myself or about you.

There is simply a mismatch.

We now have different purposes. I am here to help others learn and grow because I love to learn and grow.

I sense that you have come to my classroom with different purposes and for different reasons. Not good or bad reasons, to be clear, but simply because you want something other than learning as I understand it and can help you with.

I regret that I did not see this mismatch coming sooner. But that is the nature of learning, isn’t it? You sometimes have to learn by experience.

I now take full responsibility for finding where I can do what I do best. I make this commitment to myself and to any future students I teach. Future students:  I will help you to the best of my abilities and with all the care I can for your human development. If, however, you want something other than learning as I understand it and can help you with, I will graciously decline to be your teacher.

In conclusion, I hope this letter helps you understand more about our time together these last few courses, the grades you earned, and why I was not able to deliver what you wanted:  Top grades and a simple path to your success in getting those grades. We have a mismatch of purposes, perhaps, that is all.

All the very best to you. May you find the success you seek!

Sincerely,

Paul

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Travel, living, and learning: A recipe for life?

Why is travel such a deep calling for many people, myself included?

Why does our deepest self resonate with feelings that travel can trigger, including a sense of opening, expansion, learning, connecting meaningfully with others, and freedom?

Many years ago I posted a theory that travel is essential for learning, and particularly for children and teenagers. The theory posited that only travel could deliver certain experiences and learning opportunities, ones you could not get any other way.  To my surprise, I got a lot of backlash, particularly from mothers. Clearly not everyone agrees with my theory.

Over the years since I mused about the potential role and power of travel in our lives, I have come to even more strongly believe it is an essential part of a life lived fully.  Maybe it is just that my reality has formed from my belief – a self-fulfilling prophecy, so to speak. Or maybe my particular life path includes travel as a planned and useful part of my personal growth – part of my destiny. Regardless, travel is what I am called to do and travel is what I am doing…right now.  I am writing this while occasionally glancing out the window at a volcano (actually 3 volcanoes, if you look closely), on the shore of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala:

volcanosBut eye-candy aside, I am returning to the idea of travel as an essential part of life in order to gain some clarity on how it fits with living and learning my life. I am attempting to form some sort of recipe for my life, with travel as a central ingredient.

In comparison, there are many recipes for cooking food, and many different ingredients. But a few ingredients in cooking food tend to repeat across many or most recipes in a particular culture.  But are those ingredients foundation ingredients or simply spices that enhance the experience of life?  Hmmmm…interesting question.  For the culture I am from (“Western”), my stage in life (“past middle age”), and my personal growth path (“a rushing river”), my recipe for life seems to include a large dollop of travel.  But again, did I put that ingredient into my recipe, or it essential?

Case experience:  My first 10 days on this trip

The first 10 days of this trip have given me every indication that travel is delivering exactly what I needed and wanted.  In just 10 days:

– I have met a dozen interesting people who have expanded my views of the world:  Young Israelis who struggle with politics, how they interact with other cultures, and how to love.  A crazy-funny gay owner of a hostel who hits on all the male guests – myself included.  A Canadian couple constructing a life of travel and remote work (“digital nomads”).  A woman from Switzerland who is a distant relative of mine. A lovely young woman building a life for herself and her Guatemalan boyfriend between America and Guatemala. He is working on an organic farm on Long Island and Riley is spending a few months on an organic farm…in Guatemala.

– I have hiked past waterfalls, through vivid forest of flowers, and past banana leaves so vibrantly green that I thought I had never experienced such a color before.  I passed Maya women carrying huge loads of concrete blocks on their backs.  I greeted children with eyes and smiles so bright I wondered if I had arrived in paradise.  I stepped off the path to allow old men to pass, receiving a heartfelt (and sometimes surprised), greeting and thanks.

– I have shopped in traditional markets, buying new and strange foods using my basic Spanish skills, and a smile, and some proverbial scratching of my head. “How am I going to get a dozen loose eggs all the way across the wavy lake on a rickety, crowded, bobbing boat, without breaking them?”

– I swam many times in a beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes (see photo above).  The first swim in the lake likened to “a baptism” by Riley.

Clearly, travel has been an ingredient of my last 10 days that has generated a veritable feast for my life.

The blessing… and the curse

It is so easy to make everything seem so wonderful in reflection. Most of my first 10 days have been wonderful, no doubt. But travel also brings a form of curse, one which must also be acknowledged and honored.  Also in the last 10 days:

– I have had the “runs” on and off for 5 of those 10 days. Nothing serious, just adjustment to new food, water, sleep, and energy patterns.

– I woke up in the night with my heart pounding and my arms and legs numb and tingling. This lasted a few hours until it passed and hasn’t returned since. (No, I don’t do drugs).

– I struggled with communication, working to improve my Spanish and feeling humbled once again for those who are learning a second language (read: my students).

– I had to regularly and consciously stay “centred” in order to flow easily through chaos of ever-changing conditions of my life. From moment to moment my life has changed in the last 10 days, something that can be hard on a psyche.

– I have had to put up with noise around me. Being sensitive to noise when I am tired, listening to construction noise from the villa immediately next to ours has been a minor irritant.

– My plans changed. And then they changed again. And then I let go of those and just went with what came up in the moment.  Travel forces you to be flexible, whether you are naturally so or not.  Resisting change is a quick way to blacken your work. Acceptance of change leads to wonderful new experiences (usually).

Each one of these “curses” I feel safe in saying were not daunting to me.  I overcame them pretty easily, flowing into my next moment with more grace than I have every mustered before in life.

Travel:  An essential ingredient for life?

Given the aforementioned analogy of the recipe, the last 10 days of travel have delivered me a feast of experiences, learning, and feeling very much alive.

So is travel an essential ingredient in life, such as rice would be in Asia, flour (or sugar) would be in North America, or beans to a Guatemalan?  Does travel create a life that is akin to a feast?

We like feasting on food. But we can’t feast on food every day. So, is travel an ingredient like in a food  feast? Wonderful to enjoy on occasion, but not something that we would be able to stomach every day nor would be good for us? What balance of stability and travel would be a healthy mix?

Questions for further consideration…

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