The importance of being trusted

One of my main concerns so far has always been that of trying to learn as much as I could both in my education and professional life. Through the years, since my secondary school, I recall wondering a lot about pedagogic issues applied to my personal experience as a pupil at first place - how is it that some teachers are so boring and can't "pass on" the love for the subject? what stimuli would I need in order to get more curious or to absorb even more about whatever subject? how do I get to make some use of all these notions I'm supposed to store? (Italian pedagogic system can be highly sciolistic sometimes).

These thoughts started drifting my attention toward a deep concern for language and its use, as I got more and more engaged in areas like linguistics, semiotics, literature and varied fields of expression - in one word Art - in my university studies; for I thought it was a matter of exposition.

And then, of course, the big question: what is Knowledge? Do I ever get to know things?

There's been a time when I thought I could learn only from good teachers, that is not only those who deeply know the discipline they teach but also those that put the student in the condition of really taking and carrying within what they learn. It is not (only) a matter of absorbing information but more and foremost a matter of making something out of it. Once you receive the contents it is very important to be able to handle them in authonomy.The real good teachers that I met in my educational journey were those who made me acquire skills (and contents), those who were there to watch after and help me to "walk on my own legs".

This ability in teaching is increasingly important as the student grows up and starts to build his/her own identity. We need to experience independence and mistakes in order to grow wiser. We need to be coached and mentored, not to be cuddled or, even worse, treated as notions cans.

At this status of things, another concern raised: what are the techniques a teacher should use to do this?

There is a special feature that is inner to the learning process that I find fundamental: Trust. As the learner opens up to receive from teacher, s/he abandon her/himself to dive into the unknown with the hope and the trust that s/he will be lead into the gloom. That is putting oneself in the condition of a bright blindness as s/he engages the journey with teacher. When this very personal relationship of trust fails the sweet magic of travelling safe towards interesting wanderings is broken.

Lately, I had a misfortuned encounter with a supposed coordinator that should have lead me (and other people) through a working process. Probably it was his first experience. A series of circumstances lead me to loose trust in what he was saying and, though I tried hard to take and make something out of it, I couldn't overcome that sense of being at risk in a confused landscape where my sight was kind of blurred and doubts started stopping me from doing a "good job". The lack of directions mislead my search as I struggled to stay focused. The funny thing was that the workshop was divided into two parts and the other one was run by a very good teacher, so that the enormous difference was stunningly evident at my eyes.

Once I got over the frustration of not being directed and thus not keeping the pace with the useful work during the other half of the workshop, I started thinking that it was a very helpful experience anyway. We can still learn from bad teachers. We can comprehend what we lack and what we need. I know now what directions I shouldn't go, what I want and need to work and, in a future, when I could find myself in a directing position, I know what I should never ever do.

Non tutto il male vien per nuocere (not all the bad comes to harm) ...