MyBestTeachers

What a blessed man I have been to have had many wonderful teachers during my lifetime.  Those teachers have come in many forms and existed in many contexts.  Like...teachers, parents, pastors, coaches, spouse, mentors, my kids, students, tutors, counselors, friends, and pets.

The best ones share some commonalities, though I'm pretty sure they didn't all exhibit these traits in a deliberate way.  But exhibit them they did.

Here are some of those common learning catalysts:

• They fostered curiosity in me by modeling it.
• They let me know, in many ways, that they cared about me and about my learning.
• They watched over me during the learning process, but didn't coddle me.
• They asked really good questions (that couldn't be answered in a multiple-choice format).
• They allowed me to fail, but made it relatively safe to do so.
• They challenged me, through their words, through their actions, through the learning tasks they laid before me.
• They encouraged me and cheered me on.
• They somehow got me to connect the dots between the new learning and the old, and to ways that learning might transfer.
• They never gave up on me.
• They loved me (or, at least, they did a really good job of faking it).

Yep.  This guy is one lucky lead learner.