“What Do You Mean by ‘LEARN’?”
A few years ago, in a smoky yakitori shop in Tokyo, enjoying a cold beer after a presentation to school principals. Tanabe, the leader of the Emotional Intelligence Network in Japan, asks: “Today when you said, ‘learn,’ what did you mean?”
Answered by my baffled expression, he explained: “In Japanese, you can translate ‘learn’ in many ways. Today when you said ‘Learn,’ the translator used manabu. It comes from ‘copying.’ This is the traditional Japanese way: You copy until you do it perfectly. But I think you mean something else by ‘learn.’”
In 25 years as an educator, how is it that no one had asked me this question?
Since then, I’ve turned around and asked it many others… teachers, students, parents, managers… and you.
What do you mean when you say, ‘learn’?
And how might your answer change the way you approach the world… and your work as a changemaker?
Reaching Students with a Moment of Emotional Intelligence
Rewind to 1992, my second year of full-time teaching, and a small conversation that set my life on a new course. Like many, maybe all, young teachers, I was in over my head. I had a mile-high stack of ungraded papers, two of my students’ parents were mid-divorce, and I wasn’t sure I should be a teacher.
I went to the executive director of the school, Anabel, and, with some trepidation, shared the litany of challenges.
What are nice people supposed to say when you tell them you’re overwhelmed and a bit depressed?
I expected:
everything is fine, don’t worry.
After all, isn’t placation the required response when people share pain? Anabel took a different approach:
“Well, I can see why you’re feeling overwhelmed. I’d be depressed too if I was dealing with all that. Why don’t you just let yourself feel those feelings for a couple of days, and then if you need help getting out of them, let me know?”
This practical acceptance of my emotion was a shock. Wait! My feelings made sense??
I walked out seeing myself in a new way — and seeing emotions in new light. I began to learn that emotions are real and legitimate, but not in charge. Fascinated, I decided it was time to learn more about emotions and emotional literacy… which has led me to learn more about learning and teaching.
I began experimenting — could I do that with my students? What would happen if I just acknowledged emotion, as Anabel did, as “no big deal.” As a fact. We’re feeing what we’re feeling because that’s part of the richness of our human experience.
As I began to practice seeing emotions as an important-but-neutral message, my own feelings began to shift. I began to be less scared of my own and others’ feelings. I also began to connect with my students in a completely new way. We were still teacher and students, but we were also people. My understanding of “learn” began to shift.
How to Stop Being Afraid of Losing Control
Fast forward. 2005. I’d done several trainings for a global company called Schlumberger (you call them when something breaks on one of your oil fields). On the way to Kuala Lumpur, my client calls: “You’ve got 16 students, only one woman, all Arab, all engineers. I’m not sure how they’ll take to emotional intelligence — good luck.” I was nervous — far from home, far out of my life experience.
One of my typical reactions to fear is to withdraw into being an expert. Teaching from this expert-stance is to become an explainer. It’s very comfortable to be ‘the one who knows the answers.” You tell, students copy. It’s Manabu.
This is a pattern I recognize, and while there’s something comfortable about it, it’s shallow. This is the hardest part of teaching emotional intelligence: You have to practice it yourself — it starts with being more aware. Then doing the work to not follow those comfortable old patterns, even (especially) when life gets complicated.
So, early in the class, talking about emotions and reactions, I shared my pattern. I told them how, with two young children, I often found myself feeling scared and overwhelmed and wanting to be right.
One of the participants laughed in recognition, and said how afraid he is about being a daddy. And we were off to an incredible two days of laughing and working and even crying together — not as “teacher and students,” not as “Arabs and American,” but as people in a room together learning.
The Secret to Being a Real Teacher
The risk I took in Kuala Lumpur was about connecting as fellow humans, being vulnerable enough to take off the ‘expert hat’ and listen. This human-human connection has become central to my vision of teaching. It’s about experiencing together, and finding the rich common ground that all people have when we become honest about emotions. From risk comes connection, from shared humanness new insight emerges.
We need this kind of connected-insight in our lives, and in the world. We face complex problems and it’s hard to change. While we might know, logically, that change is needed, it’s not enough to catalyze transformation… because people are not just rational. That’s why we need more emotional intelligence.
Back in the 90s, there were many remarkable teachers at Anabel’s school (in those years, it won two Federal Blue Ribbons for Excellence in Education). One was a true marvel: Mary Laycock. She was in her 70s when I met her, she kept teaching for another 15 years (and, published over 100 books on innovating mathematics teaching). She travelled constantly teaching about teaching math. But one day, she turned to me sharp eyed and passionate, and said something that’s completely changed my understanding of teaching:
“We teach children. Not subjects.”
As a classroom teacher, I loved content knowledge, and I loved the idea of expertise. But two decades later, I’m listening to Mary more and more: learning is not a process of acquiring content. It’s a process of making meaning together.
Why Your Definition of ‘Learn’ Matters
Zoom ahead to 2015. I’m working on another book, the hardest I’ve written. It’s about using emotional intelligence as a parent. While I love being a dad, I find this to be an exceptionally challenging gig. Just when you think you have your “students” figured out, they change. It takes a lot of being willing to learn. Here there’s nothing to copy, no rulebook, so we need to invent and grow together.
In this land of uncertainty, my definition of ‘learn’ becomes a saving grace. There is no ‘right answer to know.’ There is no multiple-choice test to ace. But each day I get to wake up and try something new.
Thankfully, I had a head start on learning about learning… because now with two teens at home, I’m daily confronted with how little I know. Sometimes it makes me vexed and I feel old and peevish. “Kids these days!” But most days, I’m curious, not to find the answer, but to stay awake to what might appear.
Navigating in uncharted waters, teaching becomes the same thing as learning.
‘Learn’ doesn’t mean ‘collect the answer,’ it means, ‘create meaning.” So ‘teach’ is not about passing knowledge… it also becomes a process of creating meaning. Meaning grounded in authenticity and courage and compassion. Even more, it’s about creating change — seeing a way forward when there’s no clear path, and finding courage to take uncertain steps through rising complexity.
—
A previous version of this article was published in Thacher Magazine.
