I'm watching my children grow. And I'm starting to see other people become their teachers. And I don't mean school teachers, coaches and dance instructors. I'm talking about people who step up to guide their development and their participation in the community. I'm realizing that many of us mentor others, but only on specific topics or in specific ways. Some by conscious choice (fencing coaches, for example) and others just because the child/person is poised for a breakthrough that we just happen to have the bandwidth with which to help.
I'd only ever considered the epigram in the title from one perspective: the student's perspective. In which, teachers magically appear from the ether when one is ready for a new enlightenment. I'd not considered where these teachers came from or how they knew to make their presence known.
Over the weekend, I had a couple epiphanies on this point.
What I notice is that there isn't a shortage of teachers. They're all around us. The trigger is whether someone is ready to be taught something. At *that* moment, the teachers step out of the shadows, where they've been waiting all this time.
Many teachers employ the 'pool push' technique. They're not particularly motivated to cultivate someone. But, if their path in life takes them past someone standing on the edge of a breakthrough, they may just shove the person a bit and push them over. Like nudging your buddy into the pool just before he decides to jump in for himself. These teachers teach when it's convenient. And sure to be effective. They conserve their resources. There's nothing wrong with that - they're being helpful.
Other teachers make their presence known earlier, and help with the preparations...cultivating growth in someone. These teachers fall a bit more often into the expected teacher roles: school teacher, professor, coach, scout adult leader, whatever... these teacher are more willing to invest, and to take the risk that their efforts may be without payoff...that the student being cultivated may learn *some* lessons and also never learn some others.
I think I see this in effect with my lovely wife. See, as her husband whatever impact I have as a teacher is as a cultivator. She cultivates my growth too - I can think of a couple lessons she'd like me to finally learn! Anyway, more than once I've spent weeks (even years) cultivating an idea for her, only to meet with resistance or a lack of acceptance (again, the same is true in reverse). Then, one day, she comes back from talking to someone else (the garden manager at the home improvement store, say, or a girlfriend she met for coffee) with this huge breakthrough in her thinking. Yep. That same idea I've been trying to communicate for such a long time. This experience used to frustrate me. But that was because I hadn't figured out the two different roles. See, that Garden Manager's idea wouldn't take root unless I'd done all that preparation. We had to tag-team. The Garden Manager gets all the credit because he made the big splash in understanding; but someone did the hard work of getting her step-by-step to the edge in the first place.
Now that I can see the difference in the roles, I'm more at ease with how this all works. I think I can release some of my need for attribution now.
So here's my big ah-hah: teachers are not rare or magical. They're in plentiful supply. It's just that not all will cultivate students; instead some are simply ready to help whenever convenient. Knowing this, it seems SO MUCH MORE LOGICAL to broadcast my emerging growth opportunities in order to more easily find those pool push teachers!
I now feel compelled to help my children to understand this point. Looks like I have something new to help cultivate in them... probably so someone else can conveniently push them over into the realization. But that's okay. I know my role here.
Oh, and in all fairness, my lovely wife was the one who gave me the nudge I needed to make this realization. Sometimes, a cultivator can also get to push someone into the pool!
