#310: What Have You Learned?
Gigi and Teddy - August 2022
Back when I was getting my teaching degree, I learned in detail the steps to creating and carrying out a formal lesson plan. Though this was a process in the art of teaching, the last and very crucial step (once the lesson had been taught to students) was to engage in my own learning and self-reflection. This reflection not only involved gauging what the students took away from the lesson, but what myself as the teacher learned too. This would entail considering the strengths and shortcomings, if the goal had been reached, and where I could improve next time. The teaching and the learning went hand in hand. I love that Corey emphasizes the value of setting aside that time for reflection, and it motivates me to think more about how often I sit back and actually do it myself - whether that means pausing to check in on my relationships, work, my health, and even my spiritual learnings. And the greater self-discovery that could come from doing so more regularly.
- Amanda
What have you learned?
I’ve been off of work, and with my kids this whole summer. It’s been a blur filled with equal parts daddy school, activities and chilling out. Last week, while breaking down our days before getting to sleep, my wife asked me a really good question that I haven’t been asked in a long time. “You’ve been with the kids for 2 months now… what have you learned so far?”
It was one of those questions that’s so perfect at the moment that I didn’t know how to respond. Learned about the kids? About myself? About teaching? Of course she left it open ended, so I could take it however it landed for me.
When summer started, it was easy for me to come up with a list of skills I wanted the kids to practice, and what experiences we might have together. And we’ve done a good number of them. I’m pretty sure the kids would be quick to reply to this question — it’s part of naturally being in sponge-mode, picking up new things every day.
But me?
When I’m teaching, I often learn lessons in class while it’s happening — usually how NOT to do it next time — and maybe have a chance after the class is done to write it down, or speak out the experience to a friend. That helps me to store the learning. But as a parent-being, there’s no formal beginning and ending that allows for this kind of reflection. I’m always going. And when the kids do get to school, or to bed, there’s job work, personal work, or house work to be done.
Sometimes answering a great question feels like destroying a piece of art. But if I must… What I’ve learned is this: I’ve been leaving out a crucial part of the learning loop for my own course in human being — formalized self-reflection. For me, lessons become known when I can articulate them to someone else.
And I'm lucky that my family is nearly always open to talking about something, AND that they seem to ask me the right questions at the right time, causing me to pause and think (and write) more deeply.