Do You Want Me to Teach You...?

I have had the privilege of getting to know a lovely lady at our new church. A member of my parents' generation, she is a model of faith and resilience. She told me today that she plans to start writing her life story in a book for her family. She has notebooks filled with memories and reflections she has recorded over the years. The youngest of six children, her mother died when she was 21 months old and she was sent to a Mennonite home as a foster child. She eventually returned to her father, new stepmother and siblings when she was older but continued to spend summers on the Mennonite farm where children learned to work alongside the adults. She told me that her foster mother never ordered her to do new things but said instead,

"Do you want me to teach you how to.... make bread, make cook cheese, 

weed the garden, or do the laundry?"

My friend said as a school-aged child she felt special when an adult assumed she was old enough to start a new skill and how the time spent with her "mom" helped consolidate her learning. She grew in confidence and ability and this helped her to be a lifelong learner while successfully tackling significant challenges in her adult years. She continues to be a dynamic role model for her children and grandchildren. (and me!)

Our grandson experiencing learning challenges (photo by his mom)

My mother raised me in a similar way. She recognized when I was ready to learn a new skill or take on a new responsibility, even if I resisted due to fear of failure. Mom bought me a length of material and a pattern the summer I was twelve years old and taught me how to make a dress. I worked beside her as she baked and cooked and made preserves. She let the neighbours know that I was a good babysitter and pushed me to accept evening childcare opportunities for fifty cents an hour. She never had a car at home and she showed us how to use public transit in Toronto with confidence. 

It is often easier to do things ourselves than to teach someone else to do them, accepting their less-than-perfect results as they learn. A parent is more capable than a young child but a transfer of wisdom and knowledge is essential if the child is to mature to independence. I have patients who expect me to "fix them" with a passive physical modality but it is my job to teach them how to help and heal themselves or how to adjust to a new functional level.

There are many wise observations on the importance of investing the time it takes to teach in a way that makes a life-long difference for a child or student. Here are some of my favourites.

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."  –Benjamin Franklin

"Every child deserves a champion—an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be."   – Rita Pierson

"A good teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary."   –Thomas Carruthers

Young children are generally eager to learn but if they are not challenged, quickly become bored and lose interest in creative independent action and thinking. Busy parents can fall into a trap of doing too much for their children to assuage the guilt of not having time to spend with them. College and university teachers I know lament the number of students who expect high marks that do not reflect their efforts and abilities. Even when they are given specific instructions, they do not correct their errors or change their ways. Online learning has been a necessary tool during the Covid pandemic but the teacher becomes a one-dimensional image on a screen or a voice in an earbud. The personal relationship with the teacher has been lost. ChatGPT was released this month as a superior AI bot that can "expertly answer your questions, but also write stories, give life advice, even compose poems and code computer programs" (ref). The answers generated by the bot are well-written and based on "facts", but the computer does not have the ability to fact-check or cite sources, and it may propagate stereotypical biases. It cannot share personal experiences that have not been published. Sadly, it has the potential to make it unnecessary for people to learn to write well.

We suffer if we do not fulfil our need for human connection and mentorship. Online relationships are convenient and useful for staying in touch with family and friends, but they cannot replace authentic face-to-face interactions and the handing down of information from generation to generation.