Igniting your Natural Genius - Section 6: Coaching and Mastery
by Prasad Kaipa and Steve Johnson
Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Section 4 | Section 5 | Section 6
In the following section, we explore this process of coaching and apprenticing and the power it can have on human development
Students learn more from people than from books, more by example than by theory, and more through enjoyment than by painful study. It is a time of growth and acceleration.
Teaching is a great responsibility, but it should not be approached as something that is a grave burden on the teacher. It is a role that makes a difference; being a coach is more than merely transferring information, but teaching how to learn. It is pleasurable to watch others grow, and to be part of the process. Teachers do not need to be great altruists; the most surprising thing is that in the process, it is the teacher that is the more transformed towards mastery.
The first thing a teacher must remember is to forget
Prasad: I have been trying to teach my family how to swim. When I took my son into the water for the first time, I noticed that he was not interested in learning the way I originally learned. He was different in his approach and he wanted to try things I was afraid to try at his stage. In addition, in observing his patterns of swimming and breathing, for the first time I was becoming aware of my own patterns. After a time it was also clear that the only thing he was going to learn was what I did and not what I said. Not only did I need to unlearn how I swim, I also needed to learn how to teach swimming, for which I was quite unqualified.
I enrolled him at the YMCA. My focus was not on Pravin and his swimming but more on their instructor's methods of teaching the children. After several lessons, he did learn how to swim.
Then I ventured to help my wife who was also taking lessons at the YMCA. That was an entirely different experience again. It turns out that the way you teach adults to swim is quite different from the way you teach children. This time I had yet more to unlearn.
Students are naturally expected to reappraise and develop their patterns of thinking during the learning experience, but it is the teacher's own patterns that most need reassessment, because they have been established for so long and in such depth that the teacher becomes qualified to teach that subject in the first place.
It is only by attempting to explain something that we sometimes realize that we do not fully understand it ourselves. We may have accepted much of the material at face value, but when a student asks us 'Why is that?', we have no alternative but to think it afresh. The act of teaching is therefore unique in its ability to clarify thought and be a learning accelerator. It is an essential ingredient for mastery.
-- Joseph Joubert, Pense´es 1842
The teacher cannot teach the student unless the teacher becomes the student
Prasad: The first time I taught physics to undergraduate students, it began to dawn on me that I did not know how to answer their questions even though I knew the answers. The answers I first told them did not make sense to them. It was clear that I had to unlearn, to forget what I learned, and to be one of the students again in order to see their point of view. Only when I could do that was it possible for me to answer the questions in a way they understood. Though they were learning in my class, my learning was much greater.
That experience was very valuable to me. I realized that learning does not have much to do with content at all. The material might be the most brilliant work imaginable, but if the student cannot include it in any known frame of reference it will be literally meaningless. This means that the relationship between the teacher and the student is of greater significance than the material covered..
I also learned that each person is different: everyone's patterns are unique to them. I can not repeat the same information for everybody and expect every student to react in the same way. Everyone will gain in a different way. If the teacher asks students what was the most significant thing they learned that day, there might be as many different answers as there are students.
This necessity to know what each student already knows, as well as the need to know what each student needs, presents a major challenge to the teacher. To help people unlearn, we have to understand them, to live in their reality and not the teacher's.
If we assume that most people function on autopilot most of the time, we can also assume that they generally resist change too. Each of us has several filters through which we communicate with the world under certain conditions. The financial officer of a company may have all manner of filters and styles in the evenings, but at work the finance mask needs to be worn or the company becomes dysfunctional. This is as it should be, although some people are so malleable that they only respond to the expectations of others, and they therefore do not develop their own identity. It is with this complex mix of possible personality types, filters, masks and fronts that the teacher is faced, and it is usually helpful if students are analyzed into certain categories in order to be able to adjust at speed. Some example modes:
Anxiousness describes our operating mode well and we are characterized by high intelligence, analytical and technical abilities. We continually attempt to prove our worth and look for approval. Competitiveness is in our blood and we are fiercely individualistic. Many engineers and scientists operate out of this mode. Many innovations and discoveries come from these people.
Some others understand their limitations and do not try to be everything to everybody. They try to set up partnerships and are willing to co-operate as long as the conditions are clear and the roles are well defined. They value relationships as long as they are beneficial and operate comfortably in a group. They are good at synthesizing information and most managers and consensus builders fall into this category.
Another group operates out of trust and purpose. They focus on what needs to be done and teams emerge or evolve out of commitment to the shared vision. They are good at integration and have natural leadership abilities.
-- William Hazlitt Winterslow:
The teacher always learns more than the student, so the student is the better teacher?
Prasad: I studied my subject for a number of years, and obtained my degree in it. Later, the first time I taught it I learned a clearer distinction of the subject. Then, during my second year of teaching I learned much about the process of teaching and learning. Later again, the third time I taught I learned to create a context for learning and teaching, for example in understanding how and why students ask questions. The next time I taught the same content I learned more about my own intentions, and theirs. Later still, I learned more about the nature of intentionality itself.
This hierarchical model of learning, each layer nested in the next, is a powerful one. There are always higher and higher levels to discover. This is highly dependent on the teacher's attitude: if the approach to teaching is 'I know the material better than the students do', the result will be a lecture but with little learning. Alternatively, if the approach is 'what new light will present itself on this subject today?'everyone will learn.
--Sophocles
If we wish to know why someone is successful,
the last person to ask is that person
Many experts are not at all conscious of the reasons they are successful. We are each good at what has become easy for us, but we often do not know why it is so.
Sometimes people are appreciated not for what they themselves think important but for something else entirely. The mathematics lecturer who wrote Symbolic Logic, Curiosa Mathematica, and a book on Euclid is not remembered for his lifetime's studies but on two works he considered trifling that he wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll in his spare time, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. He would surely be amazed and puzzled at the worldwide awareness and affection held for his trivial works around one hundred years after his death, matched only by the complete disregard of his 'real' work.
Many management books written by industry leaders have been published over the years, but they do not always inspire. It sometimes seems that they miss the very essence of the reasons for the author's business success. Not all sports stars become successful coaches.
Prasad: I have met Olympic athletes and interviewed them in the attempt to better understand their learning process. Many of them were unconscious of the process even though they were medal winners. They knew how to do what they were good at, but they were little help in helping to transfer the skill to others.
-- Pindar
If the student has begun to learn, the teacher should stop teaching.
Many children will often stubbornly rebel against being shown how to do new things. Perhaps part of the problem is that they do not feel they 'own' it unless they worked it out for themselves. We should be careful about how we teach some of the higher order and more important learnings.
When we discover something for ourselves, we attach some emotion to it. It is hard to do this when learning data from someone else, so this type of learning is more superficial and analytical. The best teachers, like the best salespeople, make the other person think they made their own conclusions.
It is an ancient Chinese proverb that says: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day....teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Much time is spent in schools trying to impart information to students, and for much material this is no doubt a workable approach. But if a student emerges at the other end of the education conveyor belt with no interest or curiosity on the subjects covered, surely we have missed much of the point. More importantly, we have done a major injustice.
The real breakthrough occurs only when the learner learns how to learn, even if as a result the learner rejects the material being trained. Walt Whitman wrote:
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. 10
Coaching can also help the learner to feel empowered and to feel the responsibility and desire to produce outstanding results. It can help the learner set clear objectives, and create goals that will stretch. It should also emphasize the importance of unlearning the old models and gaining new perspectives as a result. Then, during the 'normal' teaching stage, the learner can develop the new skills and practice them. Only if the other stages are experienced can the learner benefit fully.
-- -- José Ortega Y Gasset
The teacher can only teach what is already known by the student.
Development of the mind is not a linear process. There are times of rapid progress, and times of consolidation, and each topic or skill being learned will have its own rhythm. These are natural cycles, and the challenge is in identifying the opportunities for accelerated learning and gaining the maximum from them while the going is good.
These moments of ripeness can are precious, because they do not happen frequently or upon demand. Everyone will recall times when they were so interested in a subject that they did not want the book they were reading or the discussion they were participating in to end. At those times, it seems like a fast track had opened up, and the brain was hungry to take in as much as it could in as short a time as possible.
Research has shown that there are many such natural periods of peak learning potential. One of the studies that correlated the growth rates of animals -- in this case the rat -- with the amount of stimulation they received when young, did establish a direct causal link but found that whether the stimulation was carried out lovingly or jarringly was much less important than whether there was stimulation at all during a certain critical phase of early development. 11
Several studies show that in animals, 'marked changes in cortical organization following monocular (one eye) deprivation are seen only if the deprivation occurs during the first three months of life. After that time, even extended periods of deprivation seem to have little effect.' 12
After the critical period is over, the effects of the influences during that sensitive time can be long term. In another study it was found that stimulated animals are less emotional and timid, eat more, and are more active than unstimulated ones, and the differences can remain during the lifetime of the animal. 13
A study of children being cared for in institutions showed that those given special opportunities to deal actively with a visual environment that was enriched showed accelerated development rates for some types of visual-motor abilities, but that the treatment was less effective if it came too soon or too late. 14
Some of these studies are of very young infants. In one, infants were placed in an environment which was enriched by a variety of objects hanging within reach. Infants not similarly stimulated showed the onset of sustained observation of the hand at a mean of 60 days, but the infants in the enriched environment showed this a full ten days earlier. 15
-- Kahlil Gibran
In the cycle of learning, the teacher and the student are at exactly the same point
Books are important learning aids, but there is no substitute for a teacher. A German proverb states: A Teacher is Better Than Two Books.
There is a learning cycle. In the model of learning suggested in this book (see next section) when the teacher begins to teach, both the teacher and the learner are at the beginning of the cycle. However, the cycles are shown as concentric circles, and the teacher is one cycle in. They travel round together. One of the strengths of the model is that the teacher is not seen as the expert or guru running on ahead with the learner trying to keep up. They are both on a learning path.
Once a circuit has been completed, if the learner coaches someone else the next cycle is begun again, again one step inwards. In this way, we learn at deeper and deeper levels, but only if each time we are willing to understand our conditioning, unlearn what we need to unlearn, jump the gap, and implement the results anew.
The journey can be more accelerated on each cycle, prevented only by a self-imposed blockage, for example a lack of openness to being wrong due to an overdeveloped ego, a lack of recognition of the conditioning to date, or a failure to implement the new learning.
-- Henry Adams
We teach by creating opportunities for learning, not by talking about opportunities. Such talk is cheap. We remember for much longer how something was said than we remember the words used. We remember what we do much more than what we hear.
A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows and rows of natural objects, classified with name and form. 16
The European on-the-job training model known as apprenticeship is an ancient practice. The trainee would earn next to nothing (or would pay for the training), but eventually would become a master. It was Albert Camus who said that you cannot create experience, you must undergo it. 17
A dog is not considered good because of his barking, and a man is not considered clever because of his ability to talk. 18
Teachers should therefore live the part rather than dictate notes to the learner, and ideally they should both 'do' together. The open-ended phrase 'Let's explore this for a moment' is a helpful verbal equivalent.
Talkers are no good doers. 19
Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. Emerson. Journals, 1840.
Prasad: A friend of mine friend was telling me about his recent sailboat experience with his seven year old daughter. As with many other children, she liked to help her dad whenever she could, so she wanted to control the sailboat. In an open sea in winter on a choppy day, however, Phil was reluctant to give the controls to her, which did not make her very happy. Reasoning with her did not help.
The next time, Phil took her to a shaded area where the wind was kind and there were no strong currents in the water. They took a small boat and he let her control the boat. As any other seven year old girl, she did not pay attention to the instructions of her father. Very quickly though, she noticed that the boat was getting either too close to the shore or not going around the lagoon as planned and she started making corrections and learning from the feedback. Other than answering questions when asked, Phil kept quiet and to his delight, Ashley was able to control the sailboat and both of them had a lot of fun that afternoon.
In this example, the child had to unlearn that handling a boat in rough weather was easy. Her father had to unlearn about assuming seven year olds will always react well to reason.
During the unlearning process, the role of the coach or, more accurately, the role of the facilitator is to create the environment for unlearning. In that process both the teacher and student unlearn together.
What you don't learn
-- Samuel Butler
IN THIS SECTION, we explored how the coaching process helps both the teacher and the learner, and that the teacher gains the most by the very process of having to clarify thoughts sufficient to describe them and discuss them.
The teacher is not there to show off an impressive body of knowledge, but to guide the learner through experience that will accelerate learning. This can only be achieved if the teacher understands the learner -- not only what is already known, and what is just out of grasp, but what beliefs and filters the learner takes for granted that may be preventing a new perspective from taking shape.
When we do become successful, we often do not know why. This underlines the value of coaching others, because it makes us rethink who we are and how we got here. In doing so, we have a clearer assessment of our strengths and gifts, and this helps us to reevaluate what our future can be from that point onwards.
The continuing education of the learner, in the hierarchical layers of ever deeper understanding, illustrates that the learning process is cyclical. When we have learned, so we are just beginning to unlearn it and learn something bigger that begins for the first time to clarify in the mists at the edge of our mental vision.
So completes the stages. Click here to see the complete cycle shown in model form, and launched in a new browser window.
The Learning Framework (c) 1991-98 Prasad Kaipa
Possibility for a final chapter Implications
If you stop with just reading the book, you only got only partial return on your investment of paying for the book. As you may have noticed, this book is not about prescriptions. It does not tell you where you will end up by focusing on lifelong learning, self mastery and empowerment. You direct your own journey and it depends on your own intentions.
Learning is like 'rafting on white water', using the metaphor of Peter Vail. You have to be intentional and actively direct your energies and resources to move forward and not get stuck. You can explore uncharted waters if you choose to stay on longer and it is up to you. There are no recipes only principles and guidelines!
Our recommendations are to start using these aphorisms and principles in your own life and contributing to others and forming learning communities to assist each others journey. Such communities of learners are only hope for creating a future that is not predetermined by the past that we all are carrying around!
We are also working on multimedia tools to make this book available on a CD ROM and we offer workshops and dialogues with organizations and communities to allow your own learning to be accelerated.
We'd be delighted to hear your suggestions, questions, or comments, and please do not hesitate to call and talk with us!
Prasad Kaipa, Steve Johnson
The Mithya Institute for Learning
To teach is to learn twice over.
To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow in order to lead
(TOC)
Essays and Characters, 1850
A man, though wise, should never be ashamed
of learning more, and must unbend his mind
Antigone 442-441 BCWhen men succeed, even their neighbors think them wise
Odes 5th century BC
He who wishes to tell us a truth should not tell it to us, but simply suggest it with a brief gesture, a gesture which starts an ideal trajectory in the air along which we can glide until we find ourselves at the feet of the new truth
Meditations on Quixote 1914No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge
On Teaching, The Prophet 1923
A teacher affects eternity;
he can never tell where his influence stops
The Education of Henry Adams 1907
Never believe on faith see for yourself!
You don't know 20 The dons are too busy educating the young men
to be able to teach them anything
Note-Books 1912
Other Chapters of 'Igniting Your Natural Genius'
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Copyright 1998, 1999, The Mithya Institute for Learning. All rights reserved.