If our students are to be the future leaders of tomorrow, we need to create a joy for learning that is inviting and meaningful. In this post I reflect on how educators can create a joy for learning through humility.
It’s easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day tasks of teaching that we forget about the bigger picture — creating a joyful learning experience for our students that help them flourish as individuals.
I was recently asked by a colleague to share a moment when I felt a joy of learning to the extent I was willing to dig deeper and learn more than the assignment or project asked for. I know the intelligent sounding answer would have been to share an experience from working on my doctorate and exploring the research I had designed. Which is true. Very true. Even so, I decided to venture into an honest and authentic experience from much earlier in my life. I have always enjoyed learning- ever since ever. However, I didn’t always enjoy demonstrating my learning while in school. That is something that took a bit of time for me to develop.
So here is the exemplar moment, encapsulating a joy in seeking information, synthesizing, and demonstrating my understanding I decided to share with my colleague. It’s high school English, 1979 and I am 15 years old. The assignment was to create a short story to orally share in class by Friday. Awesome. I am already excited because it involves making something up with a bit of stand-up thrown in for good measure. My high school English teacher would point out she never included stand-up as part of the assignment. She would be very quick to mention I interpreted standing up to read the short story in front of class as stand-up.
At home, during dinner, as usual, my brother and I were thoroughly quizzed by my mother to identify any homework we will be needing to work on, and I delightfully describe the assignment. I’m already set on wanting to do a scenario about Father Sarducci from SNL.
Yes. Do you know the character? Back in the 70’s Don Novello created this character for SNL. He is this Priest who is always smoking and works as a gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper. I thought he was hysterical.
Now remember, I’m 15. At that time, I had absolutely no pause that I was borrowing another person’s character to use as my own creative activity, and at that time, I was instantly more interested in being given a legitimate reason to stand before my classmates and “act” like Father Sarducci. I was wonderfully missing the point of the writing activity and spent much of my time thinking about what I could wear and how funny it would be to do the character, and even more funny to do it as a girl!
Sometime mid-week, I remember dad asking about the assignment and me telling him all about the details of what I would be wearing, and how I was practicing my ‘accent’ to get it just right. He must have seen it was running a bit light on substantive creative writing, because I remember he somehow pointed out- without hurting my feelings- that I was reenacting skits I saw on SNL and not creating something new for the character to do. Dad was good, really good, at pointing something out that needed to be focused on, without destroying the human involved.
Here is where I think you should know something about my father. Originally, dad was going to be a history teacher like his father. That path was sidelined when he entered military service, and then, returning home, taking full time work. Even though the degree was no longer in his journey, he never lost his love for history and could have been appropriately described as an amateur historian.
I find it fascinating the pieces of our lives that live on in strands of memory and how they weave together to create little tapestries of lived experiences. I can remember dad and I looking over the newspaper and making note of the big news items of the day. The US was negotiating for the hostages held in Iran to be released.
In speaking with my dad, he suggested Father Sarducci could be in a hot air balloon disguised as the Black Rock of Mecca and that’s all he said. Well, that’s all I needed to suddenly be driven to look up what the Black Rock of Mecca was, and why dad would suggest it for this particular character and how it related to Iran. Once I got it- laughed out loud and found it super funny- (the sarcasm, not the hostage crisis) I could not wait to write the paper. I was driven to find knowledge, synthesize these exotic viewpoints, and excited to create the story and share it.
Why this as my example for a moment of joy in learning? Why something so off handed? Because the moment was so personal. Everything about the experience was intertwined with things I was drawn to- a loving father, humor, sarcasm, writing, religion, and few sprinkles of showmanship. It’s easy to grow and extend situations we find inherently fertile and nurturing.
Helping your learners harness their energy, develop drive, and enjoy learning, is the very foundation for how we build a joy of teaching and create a joy for learning with our students. My dad was able to help me channel my energy toward writing and developing something of my own, not only mimicking someone else’s creative designs. He didn’t do the work for me, he pointed out the trailhead markers and let me go after it, and, most importantly, he kept checking in to see how that journey was going and if I was headed in the right direction. All while remaining humble and respecting my individual self.
A teacher’s humility can play an important role in creating a positive learning environment for students by promoting mutual respect and open communication. When a teacher is humble, they are more likely to listen to and value the perspectives of their students, which can foster trust and collaboration. A humble teacher may be more willing to admit when they do not know something and actively seek out new information, which can model a growth mindset and inspire curiosity in their students. In this way, a teacher’s humility can help create a joy for learning by making the classroom a safe and engaging space for students to explore and grow.