Teaching and Learning the Next Thing

I once had the privilege of working with an organizational change consultant when I was head of Dynamy, a small gap year school here in Worcester, MA. He had worked with many large organizations but was very helpful to our small team. Apparently the patterns of human interaction apply whether there are two or two hundred people on your team. Even a team of one, I have found, is enough be problematic. Even when it’s just you, in your apartment or in your life, you still have a challenging team to work with—all the many parts of yourself.

At Dynamy, we were trying to improve our performance as a team. We did well enough, but I wanted less struggle and more ease in how we worked together—how we did all the things we had to do to provide support for young people to learn and grow. It was clear to me that we, as adults, had to keep learning and growing in order to allow the young people to do the same.

My conviction came from my own intuition and from a longitudinal study that was begun in the 1930’s. The researchers in this study tracked students from very different kinds of secondary schools for several decades to see if they could determine what kinds of schools, traditional or progressive, were better for the students. They found no discernable difference based on school philosophy, but did find a significant correlation between the quality of education and schools that had recently changed their educational model. Schools that had recently or were in the process of change were better for the students. My take away was that those were the schools with engaged faculty, where the teachers were learning and growing along with the students.

Emerson put it this way ‘Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear a word you’re saying.’ It’s not our eloquent words, but rather something deeper that is the real communication. Recent studies of infant behavior confirm this observation. Little human beings are masters of imitation. Long before language emerges, babies are masters of watching and mimicking. Our biggest impact on our children and even the world is not what we say, but what we do. I would take it further to say it’s not what we do, but who we are.

I try to take this quite personally. While the words I speak and the actions I take are important, the real teaching and giving happens at a more subtle level. I suppose this is bad news and good news. The bad news is that the reality of my inner life is not always clear and straightforward. I consistently am not as wise and compassionate as I would wish.

The good news is that I don’t have to rush around doing things and making sure I am reaching enough people or giving enough Dharma talks. I don’t have to solve our organizational challenges and make sure everything holds together. My job as leader, parent, grandparent and teacher is to pay attention to what is right here. In doing the work of this moment, whether weeding the garden or writing an email, I am making my biggest impact on the world.

My job is not to be perfect. (Mission accomplished.) My job is to be willing to change. (Still in progress.) The important question is not how to get those other people to change, but am I willing to change? Am I willing to keep learning and growing—to keep leaving behind old certainties and moving into what is emerging now? This is the spirit that allow us to be truly help others.

Personal Practice: Think of one team that you’re part of that you would like to change in some way. It could be the ‘team’ of your family or a work team or your apartment mates or your relationship with a friend. What is the change you would like to see? Your first answer to this question may likely be something to do with other people behaving differently. Looking beyond that, ask yourself: ‘What is one small step I could take that might lead toward change?’ It might be some kind of inward shift. It might be some specific action. Do it. Be it. Notice what happens.