From Whom Do You Choose To Learn? Part 1

SERIES: Wisdom (5 of 6)
From Whom Do You Choose To Learn - Part 1

When you think of growing up in school, what teacher do you remember? I remember Mrs. Irvin, my 4th grade teacher. She believed in me and made me want to learn. I liked her and learned a lot from her. Some of my other teachers...not so much. Not all school teachers are equal, and that is true in life, too. Learning from some people is easy, and from others...not so much. 

“But here’s the truth both about school and our life today. Everybody has something to teach us. If we choose, we can learn from anyone. But we have to choose.” This is another quote by Matt Keller in the book I have been referring to the past few weeks, The Key To Everything,. He suggests there are four kinds of teachers we should allow in our life  if our goal is to be teachable. I’d like to mention two this week and two next week.

The first kind of teacher we all need in our life is the “Say Anything, Anytime Teacher”.  This is very similar to what we talked about a few weeks ago with people we allow to point out blind spots in our life. We have to pursue people like this in our life and specifically give them permission,  encourage them to speak up about the hard things we may not want to see in our lives. This teacher may be a best friend or somebody we respect and trust their judgment.

The second kind of teacher is “New Voices That Will Stretch You”. Think about a subject where you are knowledgeable. When is the last time you let someone younger or less experienced than you share what they think for an extended period of time without interrupting or correcting them? Matt Keller describes his approach to new ideas from new voices like this, “I don’t agree with everything they are saying. But I think we have to give them permission to stretch the balloon a little bit so that it never quite goes back to the same shape it was before.”

On your job, you learn to deal with people from many backgrounds and different ways of thinking. Having those skills, you can tell a lot of people what all YOU know, or you can learn a lot from what OTHER people know. Which do you do? 

Your service is appreciated,
Pastor Rob

BOOK GIVE-AWAY: Congratulations to Phil who won a copy of Matt Keller's The Key To Everything in last week's book give-away.

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Links to other posts in this series: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 6