Why can’t everyone have their own definition of Education?
A while ago my mother expressed her desire to learn English (language), I was enthused; I took upon myself the task of being her teacher. So I gathered some middle school literature textbooks, few grammar books, and a dictionary. I was going length and breadth to make it happen. I even planned out a schedule to make it work and so I sat her down and handed her over a four-page curriculum that would last a year. Looking at the amount of effort I had put she quietly agreed to proceed and in a way it made me feel proud. Days went by and the whole thing started going downhill, I was constantly irritated with her for not putting enough effort into a very scientifically planned curriculum and by the third week she gave up, she just hated the idea to even talk about it, so she asked me politely to stop with my efforts too. I could not understand, I had put in a lot of work, it started irritating me even more and I blamed her for not being serious enough. She now seemed happier and more satisfied; this was all very confusing to me.
After a few days, I realized it did not matter whether or not she learned something so I decided to let that go and then it occurred to me. I never included her, it was me who made a curriculum, it was me who forced it on her and it was me who was constantly irritated. She was nowhere in the picture; She came to me with a desire or what you call a momentary fling, it was not like her life depended on whether or not she added an extra language into her basket of knowledge. She was just curious and I exploited it with my insecurities and ill-formed ideas. I wanted to be a “Teacher” or so I thought but I possessed no knowledge or acumen to justify that claim. Apart from getting a glimpse at my incompetent effort I also realized how important it is to listen, all through that incident I only reacted but never listened. To form an interaction it is not necessary to speak a lot, of course, I am informed about a certain topic or an issue but conveying it requires a lot of patience, listening and sometimes translation not just of language but the idea as a whole, let’s understand this a “Feynman” way! For example creatures from outer space arrive on earth for the first time and imagine they haven’t seen water, so they ask what water is? Just letting them know the chemical formula or any arbitrary explanation will not work. You have to first understand what they drink for a living (if they do) and explain in relation to that what water is. Much like that people are inherently different each person is so diverse that they are their own culture. Coming into a dialogue is initially an art of listening, listening with an open mind and listening not so that you can react but take it in.
When I further delve into my understanding of the whole thing I feel that no one can teach anyone anything. All we can do is facilitate them so that they can enjoy learning, it is an act of taking the best out of a person by listening and letting them find their voice so that happiness is cultivated. Forming a dialogue without too many words is where interactions are productive. Letting the other person express their insecurities, doubts, and travesties about a certain topic and listening to them can help facilitate better, dissolving or making them comfortable with such vulnerabilities so that they are no longer afraid is all there that is to be taught.
