Teachers as students: a lesson in humility

The best law professor I ever had was a Philosopher who lectured Tort law.

He was a large, balding, animated personality. A man who was truly excited by the series of contradictions that is tort law. He created this safe space where students, who would never dare venture an opinion in other classes, could vocalize theories, muse over possible answers or troubling trends. He welcomed our comments, and was open to the possibility that our musings could influence his opinions. Even the really off the wall, not such a bright moment suggestions were examined for possible insight.

And it wasn’t just to make us feel safe and cherished. I think what made him so special was his humility. It wasn’t humility for humilities’ sake, but a real respect of us, the students, as active contributors to things of importance. Every class you felt as if he went in thinking ‘what can I learn today’. He never saw tort law as open and shut, knowledge was not static and students had something of value to contribute, despite our lower food chain status.

Space to truly learn
As students, we had a space were we got involved in thinking, rather than just being taught, a sad reality of most of our university careers. In fact more than that, we had a responsibility to think, or the class and possibly tort law, would be the lesser for it. It transformed the classroom. It was magic.

Transferable experience
Perhaps not everyone has experienced the average law lecture. Students with well highlighted books tremble at the thought of being called upon, so that the professor can laud their superior knowledge over us. But surely we are all in situations, far more often than we’d like, where we sense that whether a minister, a boss, a parent or some type of leader, does not respect us as having value to contribute. Or a question is asked that could lead to good discussion and real learning, but the conversation is quickly shut down by the person who quickly tells how it is. The person seeks merely to transfer their knowledge to us, or to ‘influence’ us as a subconscious notch in their belt, to change us as they wish.

Situation Reversed
I have to admit I write fairly fluently on this, because I’ve been in more situations than I’d like to admit, where I’m the one dishing out my experiences, or knowledge or insight into God, without truly seeking to create a space where God, or knowledge can flourish.

Henri Nouwen speaks to this brilliantly in his book ‘Reaching Out’ (Doubleday, US, 1975):

“Someone who is filled with ideas, concepts, opinions and convictions cannot be a good host. There is no inner space to listen, no openness to discover the gift of the other. It is not difficult to see how those “who know it all” can kill a conversation and prevent an interchange of ideas. Poverty of mind as a spiritual attitude is a growing willingness to recognize the incomprehensibility of the mystery of life… In short, learned ignorance makes one able to receive the word from others and the Other, with great attention.” (p 103 – 104)

Nouwen advocates for ministers, teachers and parents to cultivate a ‘learned ignorance’, to allow the student to discover knowledge, to truly learn and mature, and to allow seekers the space to discover God.

I led a small group a number of years ago, where the members were, lets say, somewhat odd. From a worldly perspective they weren’t that skilled up, their opinions often from left field, not well thought through, or just plain wrong. There was something in me that resisted just letting them talk without ‘setting them right’, that resisted actually respecting their views and asking God ‘what can I learn from them’. If I was honest with myself, I saw it as bringing myself ‘down’ to their level.

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” 1 Cor 1:26-28

The girls picked up on my attitude. I think it stopped that small group from being a place of real honesty, where God really could move. And as for my well thought through opinions and insights, they bounced off them like rubber balls.

How many other situations are occurring like this? How many people have been put off the Church, and Christ, because we are so quick to tell them how wrong abortion, or homosexuality is? How many conversations are shut down because we know the answer?

I needed a good dose of humility. Frankly, it’s easier not to. False or forced humility is a pointless exercise. True humility takes time and patience, and a total reworking of how we see people, a new view of people who might seem foolish in the world’s eyes. It means listening, truly listening, and sometimes without even getting your two cents in. It’s adopting my tort lecturer’s attitude of genuine excitement about what everyone can bring to the table, no matter how unorthodox the packaging, or how weird or misguided 99% of their other views are. Only then can we, as teachers or leaders, create a space where God’s wisdom is free to truly penetrate and changes lives, starting with ours. In reality, the truth is that “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” But for the grace of God will my life ever have true influence.

I think at the end of the year with those girls, I was the one who had learn't the most. I had come to see that each of them, no matter how odd or thick or boring or random, had some corner on something brilliant, that they had gone through different experiences, and journeyed with God in some way that I had not, and in some way that I could learn from.