Producing my documentary is the perfect example of something Andrea and I have struggled through because we've been given so much independence with it. Thus, there comes moments where we don't know what to do next, or where we're not sure how in depth our work needs to be because there is no one telling us exactly what to do. And although this can be very frustrating at times, I find that this frustration has made me thirsty for knowledge and its allowed me to improve my work in such a way that I would have never done so if I had a rubric to follow.
What I most loved about their workshop was that they replaced the role of a "teacher" that most of us were used to. Throughout the presentation I completely forgot that they were younger than us and that we had just met them, because despite our age difference, I felt I had so much to learn from them. This proves that you don't need a "teacher" to learn, and just like we are all the teachers of our own learning, we can also be the FACILITATORS of other peoples learning regardless of our AGE, RACE, or CULTURE.
When they first arrived to our class, I honestly thought that they were 25, they were really, really tall. But just like the visit from Alex and Michelle, despite them being older (and much taller than us), we were able to carry out an hour long conversation without much intervention from our "teachers". We learned from them and their program in the same way that they learned from us, and we were able to help them by giving them contacts for their businesses.
These experiences have taught me that learning doesn't necessarily come from a "teacher", and as I mentioned previously, there really is no such thing as a "teacher". There are however, facilitators of learning. If you think about it, anyone can teach, some people can do it better than others, but just because a "teacher" knows how to teach doesn't mean that the student is actually learning. Transferring knowledge from the mind of a "teacher" to that of students is a lot harder than it seems. Why? Because knowledge is CONSTRUCTED, not TAUGHT. Knowledge is the gathering of content, experience, and skills, and there is only so much of that which a "teacher" can teach us.
Therefore, we should take advantage of the experiences that allow us to learn from others, and we should make the effort to experience what we are learning, not simply read about it or hear someone talk about it. We should meet more people like Alex, Michelle, and the Team Academy. We should share what we know with others, and in the process, we can facilitate other peoples learning.
Last time I checked, if we set our minds to learning something we can learn it. We are the teachers of our own learning, remember?