thoughts
the power of teaching
Yesterday, I taught someone how to make a web page. Today, I helped my campus minister set up Outlook on his computer to check multiple e-mail accounts.
Big deal, you say. And yeah, it might be. But something really hit me when I was doing those things. I discovered, again, how much I really like to teach people how to do things. It really makes me feel good about myself when I can help someone learn how to do something, and when they feel good as a result of having done it.
In the classic golf journal, The Little Red Book, Harvey Penick tells of one of his favorite pupils of all time. She was a young lady who just wanted to learn how to play golf well enough to enjoy the game with her husband. The problem was that she could never get any loft on the ball at all. He worked with her and worked with her. And finally, she hit her first shot into the air. She was elated that she had been able to finally hit a true golf shot. She eventually reached her goal, and started playing with her husband regularly.
Penick's point in all of this was that it's the simple joys of teaching that make teaching worthwhile, like seeing someone succeed and begin to understand (and maybe even enjoy) something that you love to do. In Penick's case, it was golf; he was perhaps the best golf teacher of all time. In my case, I love helping people with web design and computers in general. I don't necesarily have to get paid to do it (in fact, both of the situations I mentioned I did for free); payment can be made with an understanding nod, a "thank you", or genuine interest in what I've shown them.
That's the power of teaching. It's something that makes both the teacher and the student feel good.