Quick
now, here, now, always,
Ridiculous the waste, sad time stretching before and after.
T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets: Burnt Norton
Impatience
The back porch is ablaze in sunlight
and colorful impatience flowers. My theme flower! Impatience!
An aging sage once said: "There are three things that make
adult learning work - in this order - time, time, and time."
So it is with healing, and growth and the swing of the stars.
While we cannot hurry or slow time down, our perception makes
for amazing differences. In pain, as Elizabeth Berg said in A
Year of Pleasure, "Some nights are months long. Moments
of joy rush by on fragile wings."
As we teach adults, using a design well wrought through days of
needs assessment and assiduous planning, we need to be reminded
that learning takes time. We can cover content by whipping through
it, PowerPoint images flashing, and finish on time, or we can
set a learning task and wait patiently while learning takes place.
It is not easy to tease out the difference between teaching and
learning. I wish someone had told me fifty-four years ago that
I was being paid, not to teach, but to assure learning. I was
always a brilliant teacher--and that had nothing to do with the
quality of learning in those many classrooms and workshops and
seminars.
This fine company of teachers is called Global Learning Partners
for a good reason. Ask any of us about the personal learning that
has taken place since we joined. Such learning comes only with
sweet patience, waiting out a management crisis, a learner's antagonism
or ego trip, our own fear and trembling.
Saint Augustine, a wise man (354-430 AD), said, "No man (sic!)
teaches another anything. All we can do is prepare the way for
the working of the Spirit." As we know, She works slowly,
taking Her own time.
Our job as Dialogue Educators is to do our homework, set sound
learning tasks, and wait. They need to know that they know, we
need to celebrate the silent moments of reflection and to wait.
I still find this immensely difficult. However, I am convinced
that learning can be quick (alive!) when it occurs on the learner's
time frame, and not necessarily on mine.
Companies, nations, families, learners - all need to grow naturally,
slowly, gently. A favorite Swahili proverb of mine is Haraka,
haraka haina baraka. Haste brings no blessing. That
seems to be the message these bright impatience flowers are offering
me on my back porch this September day.
