Tag / teaching

by Nathan Coumbe

Teach someone else

Do you want to know how to retain anything you, yourself, are trying to learn?

Teach someone else.

A teacher, after all, is nothing more than a professional learner. Any teacher worth her salt will tell you that the greatest learning comes when one knows one will have to teach the material being learned to someone else.

The next time you find yourself reading a book, taking a course, or watching a video lecture, imagine that the reason you are learning the material is so that you can teach it to a small group of people in 48 hours.

Better yet – actually teach it to a small group in 48 hours. If you can’t get a group together, then teach a few people individually. If that is impossible, then write a blog post, or record a quick video lesson, and publish it.

“To know, but not to do, is really not to know.”

–Stephen R. Covey

To know and to do, but not to teach? Well, that’s just not right.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Solve interesting problems

One of my passions, and pain points, is the state of modern education in the US. Everyone knows that it’s not working well: children are leaving schools, both public and college-level, less prepared for careers than ever before.

The reason is simple: schools are operating on outdated modes of education in which students are taught to sit still, obey, memorize lots of information, regurgitate it on a test, and then promptly forget everything they just memorized.

The creative ones, the wiggle worms, speakers, artists, drawers, engineers – they are all stifled in the name of obedience. Yes, I realize that to have 35 kids in a classroom, you can’t have them all doing their own weird and wacky things, but answer this question for me:

When was the last time you got paid to regurgitate information on a standardized test?

What is school for? Seth Godin asks this question often. I believe the answer should be to educate and prepare children and young adults to create, innovate, contribute, and solve interesting problems for society. It is not about asking, “Will this be on the test?”

None of the “tests” you face in real life are multiple choice, with answers you found in a textbook and memorized only to forget them a hour later. When an irate customer is standing in front of you, there is no clear, right answer. There is an answer that might make things better or not; it’s up to you to figure that out.

When a new idea is dropped on your desk by a leader, you have to collaborate with your team, find and utilize resources, synthesize information, and come up with a solution for the project. How is memorizing a bunch of unrelated information that is kept separate from other information in the spirit of division called “subjects” helpful in this regard?

Why not instead teach people how to solve interesting problems? Teach how to find answers to questions on their own, how to create connections between information across varying fields and periods of time, how to think, and more importantly, how to learn when formal education stops.

Greg McKeown triggered this train of thought for me in his book Essentialism when he wrote the following:

“What if schools eliminated busywork and replaced it with important projects that made a difference to the whole community? What if all students had time to think about their highest contribution to their future so that when they left high school they were not just starting on the race to nowhere?”

Greg McKeown, Essentialism

The Industrial Age in the United States has ended; factory work is quickly becoming a thing of the past, as much as parts of our culture want to hang on to it. Our schools cannot continue teaching in the same mold as as they used to, when everyone eventually went to work on an assembly line. Employers no longer need cogs in machines; they need creative thinkers and problem-solvers equipped with the skills of communication, collaboration, analysis, leadership, and learning (yes, it is a skill).

In short, we need to teach people how to solve interesting problems.

by Nathan Coumbe

Stop telling people to avoid the arts

How many of us have told someone that she should choose a real major, one that is applicable in today’s job market, rather than pursue something creative like art, music, or literature?

(RAISES HAND)

Why do we do this? It is well-meaning enough, I suppose: we don’t want them to struggle financially, we don’t want them to fail, we don’t want them to get hurt because it is so hard to live as an artist…

Let’s just stop, shall we?

What if the person to whom you gave this advice is actually quite talented as a writer? What if she has spent so much of her free time drawing, painting, and sculpting that she has become a fantastic artist? Do you really feel comfortable telling her that she should go get her MBA, work in middle management, collect her benefits, get the 401(k) match, and just worry about “all that artsy stuff” in her off hours, because she can’t make real money in the arts? Why is that good advice (especially when that last claim is bogus)?

Handle Money. Fail often.

Why don’t we teach her instead? Let’s make sure that we are teaching our children how to handle their finances, how to live on a budget, spend less than they make, save money, make money, and how to avoid debt at all cost (this is the real reason so many of us starve these days). We should most definitely teach her not to go $100,000 in student loan debt for her MFA in painting, but that does not mean we should tell her not to pursue her passion – those are not the same thing.

At the same time, we should also be teaching her to fail and fail often. Have her start trying to sell her art online. That doesn’t work? Should we tell her that she should quit and go get a real job? No! You don’t tell a child to stop trying to ride a bike because she fell off and scraped her knee; you tell her to get up and encourage her to try again.

Do the same thing with your creative child or friend. Encourage her start teaching other people what it is that she knows. She can make online videos of her work so that others can see it and her ideas will spread. Find whatever avenue works for her.

Encourage

There has never been a better time to be an artist than today – the market is wide open, the possibilities are limitless. You can be an artist in anything at which you are talented; it does not have to be a traditional “art”. Let’s focus on teaching our family and friends the right skills they need to survive and thrive – let’s teach creativity, leadership, personal finance, marketing and storytelling. Then let’s send them forth to pursue that which they most truly enjoy.

If we can teach them to handle money well, and to learn and grow from failure, they will all be fine.

We will all be just fine.

by Nathan Coumbe

What is a teacher?

What makes a great teacher?

The best teachers you’ve ever had were not the ones that gave you good grades or helped you get by in a class you hated. They weren’t the best because they were fun or cool to be around. They did not ensure you got the right answers on the test or graduated at the top of your class.

The best teachers you ever had pushed you to find your own answers. They forced you to ask better questions; they taught you how to learn.

The best teachers, then, are those that make sure that when formal schooling ends, your education continues.