I had an interview with an educator/coach, Avril, last month who said “We teach what we need”. I’ve been thinking of that sentence since our interview. At first, I thought, doesn’t she mean “we learn what we need”? But as I’ve reflected on the sentence, it began resonating with me.
My interview with Avril was for my Changes BIG and small podcast. I took an Akimbo workshop to learn how to create a podcast. But in the process of taking that class and learning from the coaches and my fellow students, I was also teaching (helping others) with the things that I was learning.
Starting a Podcast
When I changed careers two years ago, people kept telling me how brave I am. I don’t think there is anything special about me, so I want to highlight other people like me who have made “brave” changes in their life. My need was to find out what drives people to change, and to motivate myself and others to take steps to make changes in our lives, even when that change seems scary. While I don’t think the changes I’ve made in my life are particularly impressive, there are other changes that I struggle to make. My podcast, Changes BIG and small, is a way of teaching people about overcoming fear to create change, so in a way, I’m teaching what I need. 🤯
In another episode, Maria mentioned that we only need to be a little bit ahead in our journey to coach. We just need to have learned a little bit more than the next person needs in other to help them on their journey.
So all of us can coach if we are just a little bit ahead on the journey. Sometimes it could be, talking about podcasts, just a few episodes ahead, because we have figured out a few things, and then we can solve them and share them with someone else and we’re going to help them. Right? So everybody can teach and coach others.
Maria Xenidou, Being Intentional and Building a Career to Make An Impact
Learning and Teaching
In a group I belong to on Facebook, the admin has created a Google form to get us to think about and share what we can teach others online, so that we can create free workshops for each other within the community. Look around at your communities. What do you want to learn? And what can you teach?
Credit
During April, I’m participating in the writing prompts challenge from WordPress.com. Want to participate? Find the prompts here.
Featured image credit: David Travis
Another interesting one I heard was that we can only have so much unshared knowledge.
So we learn stuff and then we either forget it or teach it to someone else.
The action of teaching/sharing something creates space for new knowledge..
Obviously this is not scientific :p but it comes to my mind often 🙂
Ha. I like that idea. Sharing actually creates space to learn more! I don’t care if it’s scientific or not; I’m going with that perspective!