* music plays me…

I’m told Carlos Santana once said, “It’s not so much that I play music, it’s that music plays me.”

I teach for a living. Some days it goes better than others. But I work with very smart students who continue to patiently (mostly) teach me how to do a better job of facilitating learning, which is what I really seek to do. And when things are going well, really well, it’s almost as if “It’s not so much that I teach students, it’s that my students are teaching me.” For it all to be useful the way it needs to be, we actually all need to be learning, but when that happens, it feels to me like we’re making beautiful music. Me in the roles of Teacher/Learner, my students in the roles of Learners/Teachers.

And when it’s not working. Well that is painful. But I’ve found this to be a necessary part of the learning process I need to get better at what I do. With time, there’s progress. Not like as in a vaccine, but more as like what it takes to build something. Slowly. Over time. Sort of a “crawl, walk, run” process. With more time spent crawling than I’d ever imagined at the beginning of it all. But “walking” (when things are going well) is fun and “running” (when we’re “singing”), well that’s absolutely exhilarating!