What is the short answer to the question,
“How does one teach another their truth?”
You Don’t.
Whether you a trying to teach the principles of math to a student, the lesson of honesty to a toddler, or the lesson of responsibility to a teen, teaching truth is elusive. Many have heard me joke about parenting as a form of brainwashing. Repeated exposure to MY truths has influenced my children immensely. Parenting allows for lecturing, modeling, reinforcement, and punishment – many of the same bag of tools available to the teacher.
But how about disappearing? Is that a teacher’s tool?
Once again, in my studies of the craft of theatre I’ve come across an insight into acting that lends itself to the art of teaching.
The teacher … looks for the right steps for each student, and when the student is about to make his discovery, the teacher must disappear. If the teacher looks for his own satisfaction at the point of discovery, the student does not fully discover.
Take a child who has a pile of blocks but can’t find a way to make what he wants out of them. If the teacher guides him in making the shape the child wants to make, he should disappear when the child is about to take the definitive step. By taking this step himself, the child discovers his own thoughts.
In the development of the actor, the teacher tells the student that if he continues to study in this direction, he will come to the point where he will recognize when he is performing truthfully. The teacher has already fixed what is true beforehand.
The student hasn’t.
Eventually, the student only learns what is true for the teacher.
– Joseph Chaikin, The Presence of the Actor, 154-155
Teaching how to get to discovery is more the job of the teacher than the discovery itself – How to learn more than What to learn. Inciting passion for discovery and nurturing curiosity sounds like a far more interesting job, doesn’t it? By celebrating exploration and discovery, the teacher is still a student as well.
Teaching the what is still part of the job and always will be. But there must be ways to stop hijacking the student’s moment of discovery, when what you desire most is to walk the student into the right answer, the perfect performance, or the tangible goal.
This is when my favourite word comes in: Witness. Judging the outcome as right or wrong based on the teacher’s idea of the outcome is a narrow view of teaching. That is teaching answers. Not teaching experiences.
Teaching experiences requires different types of lessons: those that allow room for discovery. A teacher must witness those discoveries then inquire after the experience. What an amazing opportunity to grow with your students.
What it means that we don’t have to be right all the time.
Now I can’t say I know how to do this in a class setting. But I am more than willing to try to learn. Coming up will be a series of blogs on preparing our kids for their first experiences in their teen specific world and how we can coach them along the way. I’ve been preparing my work to expand into classes. Wish me luck! I’ll need it, it’s an introvert’s nightmare (but one of my greatest dreams).
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