On Teaching and Learning

On Friday I flew to Salt Lake City in response to an invitation from a University of Utah student group. They wanted me to come and sit with them for a few hours and engage in open-ended dialogue. I was intrigued by the chance to talk with a diverse group of students with intellectual curiosity about a wide range of matters--history, theology, politics, culture, faith.

As is usually the case when I have encounters like this, I find that the line between teaching and learning is pretty faint. An image like this ambigram by Scott Kim captures the relationship perfectly. Learning and teaching are reflections of each other. All good teachers are lifelong learners; all good students teach their instructors by way of their questioning and their searching. Socrates and Plato and Aristotle had it right, eh? Even 12-year-old Jesus and the rabbis in the temple had it right.

On Friday I found myself with students who I know think differently than me about many things. I think we all relished the opportunity to engage in a conversation that wasn't a debate but a search for shared understanding. There were a few times when the look on a student's face said to me that he was in disbelief I could think such a thing. I occasionally wondered the same about them. But the dialogue was nothing if not civil, the questions thoughtful and to the point, and my responses as candid and honest as I could make them. At the end of the day we were friends.

An ambigram is defined as "a graphical figure that spells out a word not only in its form as presented, but also in another direction or orientation." These days we often forget that there is a web of complexity to knowledge. We oversimplify for effect. The truth of things is not in its declaration, but rather from the questioning and exploration it compels.

We are all teachers. We are all learners. We are never one without being the other.