I was at a workshop recently; it centered around purpose and conveying it to others. During the workshop, we were given a task of self reflection. We were given three questions on which to reflect. To let you in on my personal strategy: I knew I wouldn’t have to turn anything in, so I only need notes I could speak from in the group session. I drew these up from my ever flowing stream of consciousness, edited/extended, and put my pen down. I, with a few others, took only five of the allotted ten minutes. The others took the whole allotment.

This seemed innocuous, but the lead of the session commented:

See some of you wrote immediately and others took time to gather thoughts then write. What’s more, some wrote the whole time and others just jotted.

Remember this when you teach people things. Some people will get it right away. Others will take time to gather all their thoughts. They might take time to take in what you are saying and get up to speed.

This perspective with writing was just natural. I feel it was nature for two reasons: we had allotted time and our work was independent. When you are trying to teach something or convince someone, it can feel adversarial. For what it’s worth, are you not trying to change something within them? Within this adversarial feeling, slowness of friction in the process of the knowledge transfer can feel like dissent or disagreement.

But what if like the reflective writing, teaching doesn’t have to be adversarial change in another but collaborative building of new ideas in the other person (and likely you too). When collaborating, it will be much easier to give them the space to ingest and gather all the ideas. You and your pupil are a team after all. Offering patience and understanding (and not being adversarial) gives not only space to the learner but peace to the teacher.