Teaching Without Teaching
By: Trinity
Tags: Consulting, Mentorship, Coaching, Teaching, Training

Teaching Without Teaching

A focus on technique will cost you your career.

It never fails.

When I first tell a new client the details behind this secret, they look at me as if I’ve taken their entire world away from them.

The world is in love with the notion of how. Students love to ask for it. Teachers love to dispense it. But the student who asks this is not a true seeker. And the teacher who dispenses it is not a true teacher.

Why?

Because how asks for a prescription. How asks for a method. How asks for a template. How asks for a recipe. How asks for the way. And those who ask the how question, ask the question precisely because they are ready to follow the how answer. And if a person is willing to follow the way indicated by another it is only because he believes that there is, in fact, a path that is ready for him to tread. He has not yet come to the realisation that a path is not a road, but an experience. And that experience is not something to join or walk toward. It is something that is continually and incrementally unfolding before him as a function of his way of perceiving his place in the world.

In some ways, the very act of teaching is to misunderstand and to underestimate the nature of the human machine. As teaching is largely about the dispensation of information. The human brain does not respond to another’s words. It responds to its perception and translation of those words. In this way, the teacher and the student are forever speaking a different language.

The teacher teaches the how, not only because he feels it is the only way or the best way. But because he simply loves to do so. He gains something from it. Emotionally and financially.

The student asks the how, because he seeks a quick resolution to his problem. And though it may only work temporarily, he becomes accustomed to this chase.

The true seeker is consumed with the what. For him, the how is like the remora fish that rides the belly of the great shark.

The great teachers are not teachers at all. They are seekers. They are not so much interested in their student’s development of technique, as they are in the development of his understanding.

Teaching technique will lead to an enhancement of one’s technique. But never to the realisation of one’s potential.

Asking for the how does not make one great. It makes one dependent.

Seek understanding. Not instruction.

For the ultimate technique is devoid of conscious action.

And the ultimate understanding is devoid of thought.

Great teachers are hesitant to teach.

Great teachers are better observers than they are teachers. Teaching is, in some ways, a myth. The greatest skill is learned, more than it is taught. And the great teacher realises this.

The great teacher introduces the student to a concept and allows him to make acquaintance with it. He leads him into the room and allows him to have a look around. Given the appropriate freedom, the student ambles through the room, visiting the corners and the layout. His brain develops a feel for the boundaries of the room and how to move within it without bumping into walls. With time, the student learns to live within the room and breathe its unique fragrance. Eventually, the room becomes home.

This is the way in which skill is developed.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the instruction that prevails across the world consists of leading the student by the hand. Pulling him into the room. Taking him to each part of the room and defining its characteristics. Showing him how to walk within the room. Demonstrating for him the length of the stride and the speed of the walk. The student is instructed to memorise the information and repeat it for the teacher.

There is a huge problem with this approach. In memorising the information, the student’s attention is on the information, rather than its relevance. His focus is on the form, rather than its place within the movement. In memorising, he ceases to learn. In following, he loses his way.

The great teacher searches not for the perfect time to teach, but for the perfect time to retreat. Every now and again, he will reappear, not so much to instruct, but to enhance the student’s understanding. For he realises that the student’s progress, or lack thereof, does not so much depend upon his mastery of the motion, but on the mastery of his understanding of the concept behind the motion. As the student’s understanding is refined, his motion progresses.

The great teacher is, therefore, a third wheel, so to speak. If he fears anything, it is saying too much. If he detests anything, it is standing in the way between the student and the concept.

The great teacher understands that it is only once the student makes something his very own, will he attain mastery of it. In making it his own, he transcends instruction. His skill becomes an inseparable part of him.

Learning begins when teaching stops.

The great teacher realises this.

If only we had more of them in the world.

Is it not more effective to look at the individual as an individual, rather than as an aphorism? Is it not better for the student to be free in allowing himself to respond in any manner that contributes to his motivation and allows himself to succeed?

The road to success is full of complexity, disaster, glory, and abstraction. It is wild.

Why the insistence upon taming it?

Every fix creates a new problem.