During my recent re-reading of the Tao Te Ching, one of the core texts of Taoism, a passage about teachers and students that I previously missed now caught my attention. The ancient Chinese religion and philosophy of Taoism aims to understand “The Way,” or the rhythms of the universe. I’m fascinated by how the ancients thought about how we can best observe “The Way” as it unfolds, in order to live in harmony with its unfolding, rather than fighting against it. The excerpt below provides a unique perspective on when someone is a teacher and when they’re a student as The Way unfolds.
“Good people teach people who aren’t good yet;
the less good are the makings of the good.
Anyone who doesn’t respect a teacher
or cherish a student
may be clever, but has gone astray.
There’s a deep mystery here.”
– Tao Te Ching, Chapter 27, Ursula K. Le Guin translation
Contemplating the above-quoted passage, I appreciate its call to think dynamically about when I’m the teacher and when I’m the student, and to think of those roles in the broadest possible sense. Instead of seeing “teacher” and “student” as rigid roles, as in a classroom, I began to see that my role as either can change fluidly. Even within a single conversation, my role can shift from moment to moment; I’m a “teacher” whenever I have more knowledge about a topic than my interlocutor, and a “student” where they know more than me. These roles of student and teacher can apply to all knowledge, profound and mundane, ranging from the nuances of philosophy, to best practices at work, to my experience growing up in my hometown, to whether the other person prefers chocolate or vanilla.
“Well, let me begin from the beginning. Back in 1875, I had vanilla ice cream for the first time at the soda fountain in town. And, goodness gracious, let me tell you, it really knocked my socks off!”
Throughout my life, I’ve become more and more convinced of the importance of teaching and learning, not just to doing well at work, but also to having a rich mental and social life. In my work life, I’ve begun to understand how important both teaching and learning are to my success. As a knowledge worker, I’m tasked with becoming the most knowledgeable person in my organization about my assigned domain. This mandate requires me to quickly learn about that topic, then teach colleagues at various times to influence relevant decisions. Teaching is one of my primary responsibilities as a people manager, contends Andy Grove, former CEO of the computer processor maker Intel, because it’s the only way I can improve my team’s capabilities. Outside of work, I enjoy spending my leisure time actively learning about diverse new topics that pique my interest. An engaged student since my college days, I continue to find joy in turning over new ideas in my head. Socially, I push myself to learn about the interesting experiences of whoever I’m talking to, and to share what I’ve learned as it benefits them. Though I don’t have any children, I suspect that teaching also plays a central role for parents.
Drawing from my experiences as teacher and student, I believe that simply having more or less knowledge doesn’t mean that I will be effective in teaching or learning. A differential in knowledge between two people simply means that the opportunity to teach and learn has presented itself, should they choose to seize it. And, furthermore, a knowledge differential always exists since, if nothing else, I know more about who I am and other person knows more about who they are.
To be effective in either role requires awareness, humility, and gratitude.
Where I’m the student, I must first have an awareness of the limits of my knowledge. This awareness helps me identify where the other person knows more than me, no matter their rank and standing. Once aware, I must then humbly admit my ignorance to myself and ask them for the gift of sharing their greater knowledge. Acknowledging that they’re not obligated to teach me, I should show gratitude for their willingness to impart their greater knowledge onto me, or at the very least be grateful that they helped me become aware of my ignorance.
“Now remember, students, to capture that perfect shot, awareness is everything! …. Students?”
Where I’m fit to teach, I must be aware that my interlocutor knows less than me about a topic. I then need to humbly create a safe space for them to be a student: demonstrating patience, and making the time to allow them to ask questions and make mistakes. In the process of fielding their inquiries, I should humbly admit the limits of my own knowledge and that I may be mistaken that I have greater knowledge than they do. As the student tests the boundaries of what I’m teaching them, I should be grateful for the opportunity to benefit them and to pressure test my own understanding.
“The only way to motivate you to learn is to keep telling you how stupid you are, you dummy!” (image created with Leonardo.ai)
Conversely, lacking awareness, humility, and gratitude can cause someone to be both a bad student and a bad teacher. Someone, where a student, might resist admitting their ignorance, whether from pride or laziness, and miss the opportunity to learn from another. I’ve often found myself, in many debates, pridefully unwilling to admit that I’m wrong, even when it’s blindingly obvious that I am. Where a person could teach, they might waste the opportunity to benefit the student and, mistaking ignorance for inability or willful inattention, impatiently scold them. As a professional, I’ve noticed myself feeling frustrated at various colleagues for not understanding an assignment or making mistakes. Rather than patiently coaching someone to complete an assignment correctly, which would enable them to do it themselves in the future, I’ve responded by angrily finishing the work myself.
Developing awareness, humility, and gratitude can take a lifetime of work. Once we understand what these mental habits mean, we must then cultivate the discipline to practice them from moment-to-moment.
Building an awareness of when I’m the student involves understanding the limits of my knowledge, which, in turn, requires an understanding of what it means to understand a topic in a deep, nuanced way. Even people who have earned good grades in school might not know what true understanding looks like. Late in his life, physicist Richard Feynman described how his bright college classmates’ lacked a deep understanding of math and science: “I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way – by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!” Feynman describes perfectly how, as a college student, I learned what a nuanced understanding looks like when I saw how fragile my own rote memorization of concepts was. Despite hours of studying, I felt demoralized when I couldn’t apply these concepts properly to novel situations on exams. From this humbled state, I slowly re-shaped my conception of what “depth of understanding” meant. Conversely, where I’m the teacher, I must first learn to recognize when someone else knows less than me. To notice their confusion, I must pay attention to their verbal and non-verbal cues. Only then can I ask subtle probing questions, in a non-condescending way, to determine where my interlocutor lacks understanding. Over the years, I’ve offended many friends and colleagues by condescendingly explaining something they already knew. Though well-meaning, I closed them off to what I wanted to say with my careless way of probing.
“Please, please, pick yourselves up. You ARE worthy of basking in my superior wisdom!” (image created with Leonardo.ai)
To gain the humility to be effective in either role, I’ve found it helpful to not judge ignorance as bad. Removing this value judgment freed me from feeling embarrassed where I’m the student. Where I’m the teacher, this judgment-free attitude prevents me from thinking negatively about my interlocutor. As a high-school student, I acted like a know-it-all because I held the mentality that my self-worth depended on me knowing things and having the right answer. Entering college, I saw my ability to always have the right answer quickly smashed, and my fragile basis of self-worth along with it. My mentality changed in graduate school when, during a leadership lecture, professor and former CEO Harry Kramer, proclaimed, “You don’t want to be the person who has to be right, you want to be the person who has to get the group to the right answer … whether it’s your answer or someone else’s.” That framing changed my mindset completely. During debates, I shouldn’t be focusing on my self-esteem, I should be focusing on benefiting the group and finding the truth. When I began to see situations in that light, I found it much easier to say, “I don’t know,” and “I’m wrong.”
As for gratitude, I find it useful to see learning and teaching as gifts. Where I’m a student, I try to “respect a teacher” by thanking people for sharing their knowledge with me. In addition to cultivating my own gratitude, which I find to be a good in itself, I’m also encouraging others to continue sharing their knowledge. Where I’m a teacher, I attempt to “cherish a student” in various ways. At work, I thank people for bringing up problems to me or for their effort when they’ve made a mistake. By doing so, I’m trying to create a safe space for them to learn and to encourage them to continue not hiding things in the future. In social situations, I try to show gratitude to people for simply being interested in what I have to say.
While I’ve by no means mastered being a student or a teacher, I’ve slowly improved over the years. I appreciate the perspective of the above-quoted passage, which pushed me to reflect on the dynamism of these roles, which can flip on a moment-to-moment basis. Also, I’ve appreciated the gratitude that it suggests for having the opportunity to play either role. Adopting these perspectives, I believe, will help me cultivate a greater openness to perceiving The Way as it unfolds.
Published on September 19, 2019