Paris, Escape Rooms, and Lifelong Learning

A friend, during a conversation a few days before I arrived in Paris for nearly three-weeks with my wife (Licia) and a friend (Ann) who will be with us the first few days, described with childlike wonder and glee the pleasure she has been taking in designing and entering escape rooms—those playful spaces where you willingly allow yourself to be locked into a room with other people so you can all collaborate on how to escape in the shortest time possible from the seemingly exit-less room.

This is all far from my thoughts when, arriving at the flat where we will spend the first of our three weeks in Paris, we are met by the mother of the man who rents out the flat. She lovingly and patiently shows us around. As any good trainer-teacher-learner would do, she shows us how to get into the building and makes sure we understand how everything in the flat works. Reminds us that we haven’t a care in the world and shouldn’t do anything other than have fun while we are here. Then leaves us.

Everything is perfect for about five minutes. And then her brief, informal training session begins to fall apart. Because we are tired and don’t absorb everything she tries to teach us. And because she shows us how things work without taking time to make us practice what she demonstrated.

The fun begins when, after briefly settling in, we decide to take an early evening stroll and find a place for dinner. But we don’t even make it out the door of our flat on the premier étage—the first floor of flats, one level up from the narrow shop-lined street with multi-story buildings featuring shutters and grill-work on the balconies—before we begin to stumble. Walking toward the elevator, we look—initially unsuccessfully—for the stairway she used while we brought our suitcases up in the elevator. All the doors initially look the same through my weary eyes. All seem to be entrances to other flats. It is only when the doors to the elevator are closing and my field of vision is forcibly narrowed that I realize the door across from the elevator—which I had assumed led to a flat since it had a number “1” posted on it—actually was quite different in appearance from the others (plain rather than ornately decorated as the others are, so much so that I really hadn’t seen anything other than the number before visually searching for an entrance to the stairs). So I step back out of the elevator. Look to see what is behind Door #1. And voilà! There they are: that hidden-in-plain-sight spiral staircase, descending into darkness. (Reminder to self: when working with learners, be sure to overtly draw attention to the subtle clues that help them remember what they are struggling to absorb. They might be as tired as someone who has just stepped off a cross-Atlantic flight and might not be operating at full capacity.)

The adventure in learning-a-new-environment while somewhat exhausted—not the best of conditions for any training-teaching-learning situation—is far from over. Stepping into that dark stairwell, I am unable to activate the wall switch to throw some light onto the situation, so abandon this part of the journey and gladly rejoin Ann and Licia for a quick ride down to the lobby. Exiting the elevator and now in full-alert mode, I begin looking for other hidden traps. Like the one that is immediately visible when we look from the small elevator lobby toward two consecutive sets of glass doors that separate us from the street—and we have no idea now to open the first set, which leads into a space created by walls to our left and right and those two glass doors forming a small perfectly square room with mailboxes between where we are standing and where our destination—the street in front of the building—is. It immediately becomes worse: we realize that even if we were to figure out how to open the glass door leading into the miniature lobby with the mailboxes, we have no assurance we would be able to reopen it to get back to the elevator or open the door that finally provides access to the street.

We stop. We look for options. We are stumped. Our only tools are the key to our flat and the small fob that is supposed to open doors like the ones we are contemplating. But we see no mechanism against which we can place the fob to unlock the doors. We try pointing the fob everywhere possible since there doesn’t seem to be a button to press on the fob to active it. We try pressing it against everything that looks like it might be activated by a fob—small white squares on the wall, the handles to the door, even the glass doors themselves.

Nothing.

We start pressing anything that looks like it might unlock the first of the glass doors.

Nothing.

And finally, out of sheer desperation, I begin running my fingers over the small white squares on the wall next to the interior glass window. And finally feel what my eyes were not perceiving: one of the squares has a very small lip along its bottom…which allows me to use my fingers to lightly press down on it and release the heretofore unperceived switch.

But now I’m really cautious. Apprehensive, And—admittedly—a bit excited by the challenge, for it’s clear to me that if we step into that middle glassed in space without identifying the release mechanisms—we could easily become trapped in that glass escape room, unable to re-enter the elevator lobby or exit to the street-until someone else came along to release us from captivity.

“OK,” I say with far less assurance than I am feeling, “let’s figure this out before we let that inner door close. You stay in the elevator lobby so you can hit the release switch if I can’t find my way out of the next room.”

This, of course, is not going to be easy; finding the solution to an escape room never is. I try everything—obviously looking for a similar white square that could be lifted from the bottom to release a hidden-from-view latch. Tapping the fob against everything that looks like a potential recipient for a signal from a fob. But to no avail. At which point we agree that Licia and Ann will go back to our flat to try to call the owner for a refresher lesson in Escape-From-Your-Building 101 while I continue trying to find a way out of our situation. And just when I’m assuming we’re going to spend the rest of the evening in our flat rather than on the streets of Paris, I notice a small black circular object on a wall-mounted intercom fixture next to the set of mailboxes. Which, of course, has a barely visible red light in its center. And which turns green and releases the latch back into the elevator lobby when I press the fob firmly against it. Which suggests that if I find a similar black circular object close to the door leading out to the street, I might be on the verge of finding the escape the three of us have been seeking.

When Licia and Ann return to the lobby without having yet managed to reach either of our potential rescuers, I proudly show them what had been quickly shown to us earlier this evening and just as quickly forgotten in the overload of information—the path to dinner.

It’s been a very long journey. And the evening is just beginning. Licia and I are ready to move. Ann, understandably exhausted and unnerved by all has happened since we arrived, decides to stay in for the evening. So Licia and I venture out. Find a charming market where we buy the basics for the breakfast we plan to prepare the next morning. Return to the flat to make sure Ann has comfortably settled in for the evening. Then, like the lifelong learners we are, we set out in search of a meal and a re-introduction to a city that neither of us has seen for more than two decades.

NB: This is the first in a series of reflections on traveling and learning in Paris.

Giving Thanks 2023: Claremont EAP and Learning by Talking It Through

Although the timeworn cliché suggests that “talk is cheap,” I’m grateful that my work often reminds me how valuable it actually is in training-teaching-learning.

Facilitating hour-long online conversations on a variety of topics ranging from “conflict resolution” and “assertive speaking/active listening” to “honing your presentation skills” and “running effective meetings” through Claremont EAP, I routinely have an opportunity to use conversation as a dynamic, engaging learning tool designed to produce positive, measurable results for all involved. While it is really little more than an adaptation and simplification of the classic dialectical method (formal conversation that explores a thesis and then its antithesis in an effort to arrive at some sort of synthesis), this learning-by-talking-it-through approach is often fresh, stimulating, and productive for those in workplace learning/training settings; used to being subjected to “training” sessions comprised of a lecture and death by PowerPoint or asynchronous online learning offerings designed to provide learners with information/skills they need, test the learners’ comprehension, and then pretend that what  has been achieved through that approach produces something more than a certificate of completion, they are surprised and delighted to see that learning can be so fun and action-oriented, and that time spent in learning environments can feel as if an hour passes in the blink of an eye. (We always end with the question “What will you do differently as a result of having been part of this conversation?” so they know our time is meant to produce positive results.)

Our colleagues at Claremont make all of this easy to accomplish. They begin with brief, concise descriptions of what each session includes and what it is meant to produce (e.g., straightforward goals and objectives without using the jargon of training-teaching-learning to entice participants into a session). They then provide facilitators and learners with copies of a slide deck and workbook so that those inclined to engage in a bit of flipped-classroom learning (reading or doing something before the day of the actual learning session so that the live session involves using as much as learning something) can arrive fully ready to apply what they are learning at the earliest possible opportunity. They give each facilitator a large amount of freedom to decide how best to incorporate the materials into the session; those of us who value the conversational approach make it clear, at the beginning of each session, that this will not be a lecture and the slide deck will not be the center of attention; we are going to talk, use the deck and workbook to stimulate transformative conversations, and walk away with a plan of action that allows us to apply what we learned. Most importantly, Claremont (because of its work in the overall field of employee assistance programs), offers tremendous support which includes one-on-one conversations with those learners who want or need to more fully explore the challenges they are facing in their workplace—which makes this about as perfect and comprehensive an approach to learning as any I have seen or can imagine.

Through Claremont EAP, I work with some organizations that schedule me once or twice a month for specific days and time, while others may only want one or two sessions that address specific challenges within their workplaces. For those needing a limited number of these conversations/seminars/workshops, the focus might be on a specific situation; those with whom I have been working steadily for two or three years place the conversations within a broader context, e.g., an overall health/wellness program where the conversations are just part of what the organization makes available to its employees, and it’s there that I have a chance to work in ways that have, over a long period of time, been those I find most productive for everyone involved.

Meeting monthly or semi-monthly creates what I adore: the opportunity to work repeatedly with learners to develop a healthy community of learning where participants understand that we are pursuing something far more rewarding that a motivational talk or a lecture that is little more than a chance to step away from work for an hour. What quickly develops is a core group of learners who participate as often as they can, augmented by those who might want to only drop in for one of those conversations when they see a topic that is of particular interest to them. The result is that there is some stability and continuity to the learning, with the benefit of keeping things open to the less-frequent participants who, because they are new to the group, bring fresh perspectives that enliven already lively, engaging sessions.

The impact of our shared talks is clearly visible at several levels. Through the answers they provide at the end of each session, my co-conspirators in learning talk with me in ways that show they have acquired something they value and, more importantly, have concrete plans for how they will immediately use what they have learned. Initial post-session evaluations they later complete often document the impact our time together has had and will have on the work they do. Comments they make in subsequent sessions occasionally confirm that they actually have taken some of the steps they have said they would take, and demonstrate that our conversations have a continuing, cumulative impact since the learners continue building upon what they have already gained.

Yes, talk can be and often is cheap. But the incalculable value of conversations that explore challenges and draw upon the wisdom of all participants to inspire significant changes in behavior, attitude, and perspective is what continues inspiring me to work at the deeply emotional level Claremont EAP allows me to work. And, through sessions that explore topics including the importance of expressing and acknowledging gratitude in our workplaces and other venues in our day-to-day lives, In sustain and express the high level of gratitude which keeps me going with Claremont EAP and its magnificent learners.  

N.B.: This is the fourteenth in an ongoing series of posts on the theme of giving thanks.

Giving Thanks 2023: Edunauts Revisited

An ongoing struggle for some of us who spend way too much time thinking about crazy things is the way our language fails to reflect the changing nuances of what we actually do. It’s a theme that several of us first began discussing nearly a decade ago over dinner, when we realized that terms like “teacher,” “librarian,” and “trainer” no longer fully captured the incredible depth of the work people within those professions do. My own clunky response over the years has been to adopt “trainer-teacher-learner” which, for me, describes what all of us do and share in common—any one of those three words, without the other two, paints an incomplete picture for me. My colleague Jonathan Nalder added to the conversation a few years later with the term “edunaut,” which I absolutely adore and which always seems to elicit smiles when I share it with colleagues in training, teaching, librarianship, and other learning endeavors, but it doesn’t seem to have gained much traction (yet).

Thinking and writing over the past few days about two of the major edunauts in my life (library advocate George Needham and T is for Training podcast host Maurice Coleman) has made me realize how many edunauts have helped—and continue to help—guide me over a very long period of time.

There was, in high school, the magnificent H. Lee Meyer, a gifted math and science teacher whose advanced classes I frankly avoided because I thought, at the time, that they were too complex for me. Lee repeatedly asked me, after I took the required introductory science course he offered, why I didn’t pursue the more advanced aspects of fields he clearly cherished, and I was honest in laying out my fears—at which point he told me that being “chicken” was not a good reason to avoid rewarding learning experiences. The taunt worked: I enrolled in an evening course he taught at the local community college and struggled my way through a very challenging and very rewarding introduction to geometry. What sticks with me and has continued to influence me after all these years is not anything about geometry itself; the real lesson, repeatedly relearned, is that whenever I have hesitated about enrolling in a difficult course for fear that it might affect my grade point average or be something at which I would fail, I remember Lee’s implicit reminder that learning is the willingness to accept challenges whether I believe I can meet them or whether I might fail at them. It has made me a far better edunaut than I would have been without Lee, and it certainly has made me encourage countless others to follow their hearts rather than succumbing to fear of failure.

Another of those crossover high-school-to-community-college edunauts was Floyd Ohler. As I wrote when I discovered (many years after it had happened) that he had passed away in 1994, he “was a wonderful instructor whom I knew peripherally while he was teaching in a local high school in Stockton (California) and whom I came to know at a much more significant level while taking his English 101 course at the local community college there in Stockton during a brief sabbatical from my own university education. He was witty, vibrant, creative, and inspirational, and his two-word critique of the final paper I submitted for that course was transformative: ‘sell it.’ Those words, which I still remember clearly decades after he penned them, opened up to me the idea that I could actually write for publication—something I continue to do to this day. Deeply grateful for what Floyd inspired and for the example he set for any of us willing to pay attention to what he showed in terms of the important roles first-rate teachers play in our lives.” And I still remain deeply grateful that memories of Floyd’s unorthodox approach to teaching—he once spent the first half of one of those marathon evening sessions stretched out on his desk and asking all of us in the class why he should get off his desk—make me realize the transformative impact all of us as edunauts can have on our co-conspirators in learning (aka, students) through the use of just a few well-timed encouraging words.

Richard Drake

My years at UCLA put me in contact with quite a few inspirational edunauts, not the least of them being Richard Drake (a Ph.D. candidate teaching two related Italian history courses) and John Fleishman, the inspiring advisor we had during the years I wrote for the UCLA Daily Bruin. Richard’s engaging lectures (which were so densely rich that I always left the classroom with a sore hand from taking copious notes) were among the first to bring history to life for me and instilled in me a lifelong voracious, insatiable appetite for reading and absorbing history books (yes, Richard, I’m still at it, currently working my way through Mary McAuliffe’s wonderful books on Paris from 1848 through 1940); I have continued to learn from him through sporadic exchanges of notes over the years, watching interviews posted on YouTube, and reading some of what he has published, including his delightful biography of historian Charles Austin Beard a few years ago. Attempting to keep up with John has been equally rewarding: his well-received book Phineas Gage: A Gruesome But True Story About Brain Science (c’mon—tell me that title doesn’t make you want to read it immediately!) and his articles for Smithsonian Magazine consistently remind me to follow a lesson he taught me so many years ago: tell your story as quickly and as effectively as you can, then stop long before your reader has a chance to catch his/her/their breath. All these years later, his voice continues to be one that encourages, inspires, and brings a smile to my face whenever I encounter it through his formal writing, his notes to me, and his posts on Facebook.

So many edunauts, so little time to capture even a small percentage of those I have encountered—but two more deserve at least a bit of attention before I bring this latest expression of gratitude to a close: Alec and George Couros. Alec is someone I first met when he offered the transformational #etmooc—the Educational Technology and Media Massive Open Online Course in winter/spring 2013. The course spawned a community of learning that continues to thrive more than 10 years after the formal coursework concluded, and Alec continues to be someone to whom I turn whenever I need a positive jolt; he has joined me as a guest in online courses I have facilitated; very generously blurbed my Change the World Using Social Media; and continues to affect what I do in training-teaching-learning by providing continuing examples of what great learning involves. His brother George continues to be equally encouraging through his writing as well as his cutting-edge approach to learning; his Innovator’s Mindset massive open online course was a stimulating example of how an online book discussion group (centered on one of his books) can effectively incorporate a variety of online tools into a cohesive, transformative online learning experience, and his Innovate Inside the Box exploration of another book, with Instagram as the learning platform, introduced me to Instagram as something far beyond anything I had imagined in terms of using that platform to stimulate and support learning.

The edunauts in our lives are clearly well worth acknowledging, thanking, and emulating. And the real power of what they produce is that, if we are attentive and mindful, we absorb a bit of what they offer and give us cause for being grateful that we can become edunauts, too.

N.B.: This is the thirteenth in an ongoing series of posts on the theme of giving thanks.

Giving Thanks 2023: Maurice Coleman and T is for Training at 350

Maurice Coleman

There are few more engaging online meeting places for trainer-teacher-learners working in or with libraries, library associations, and library consortia than Maurice Coleman’s fabulous T is for Training podcast, as I have noted numerous times on my blog, in conversations with friends and colleagues, and in workshops about building community and fostering positive, effective collaboration. It’s the sort of virtual meeting place where, like clockwork, you can drop in (currently every other Thursday evening at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT on TalkShoe, unless we take a break for holidays or to allow Maurice to watch a sports event he can’t bear to miss) to be with colleagues, explore topics of interest to all of us, learn with and from each other, and walk away much happier than you were before you arrived.

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams

It’s also a comforting place where community members and guests gather when we are in emotional upheaval, as was the case yesterday. Waking up to a Facebook post from R. David Lankes sharing the devastating news that the much admired library advocate George Needham had passed away earlier this week, I called Dave early that morning to see whether he would join us for that latest recording of the podcast—already scheduled for that evening—so we could explore what George had meant to so many of us. Then, having received an immediate confirmation that he was interested and available, and dreaming in a way that T is for Training inspires so many of us to dream, I reached out mid-morning to Joan Frye Williams, whose collaborations with George when they were both affiliated with the library training organization Infopeople taught me more about training-teaching-learning and presenting than I will ever be able to fully describe.

I wasn’t at all hopeful that I would be able to reach her; the only contact information I had for her was her Facebook account, and I wasn’t sure, given the level of grief she must have been feeling at that moment, that she would even be checking her Facebook account yesterday. But in a way that seems to be an integral part of the T is for Training experience and the sort of miracle that George would have fully supported, Joan responded 15 minutes before the recording began yesterday evening, which set us up for a timely, unique, intimate opportunity to capture at a very personal level what George had meant to so many of us (through the eyes of people who knew him extremely well).

The T is for Training magic continued as we logged onto TalkShoe and began the recording. Responding to the hastily-distributed email message notifying T is for Training regulars who knew George that he would be the topic of discussion that evening, two other long-time friends of the show (Peter Bromberg and Janie Hermann) joined us after having been away for quite a while. Rounding out the conversation were a few of us who are part of the recording sessions as often as we can be there—all of which produced a wonderful combination of capturing bits and pieces of George for those who would appreciate hearing the stories we shared; a reunion of sorts that reminded all of us how valuable the T is for Training community is for us in pleasurable as well as difficult times; an example of how online communities of practice continue to be a valuable part of our onsite-online lives; and how podcasts like this create moments that, when shared, ripple out with positive effects into the extended community of teacher-trainer-learners we serve. You simply won’t find conversations like this accessible at exactly the moment you need them.

Looking back over the sessions we have recorded this year produces a list of wonderfully diverse topics and a review of the opportunities we had to spend virtual time with cherished colleagues. We began the year with a discussion of things that had changed our approach to training-teaching-learning in 2022; among the usual suspects in attendance were Widerstand Consulting Executive Director Jill Hurst-Wahl, whose work on diversity-inclusion-equity-justice always brings a stimulating perspective to T, and Tom Haymes, a writer-educator-technologist whose work continually inspires me. The themes covered included our increasing use of storytelling in learning; mind-mapping in learning; and (inspired by Priya Parker’s work, documented in her book The Art of Gathering) finding ways to make our gatherings compelling, engaging, and productive.

February 2023 recordings included one with UCLA Daily Bruin Alumni Network colleague Glenn Seki at the center of a spirited discussion about what trainer-teacher-learners can absorb from his book How to Become the Best at Anything—the quick answer being “they can absorb quite a bit!” That was followed later in the month with an exploration of how, in the best of circumstances, a long-lasting (10-years-and-still-thriving) learning community can form out of the shared experience of being part of a highly engaging massive open online course (in this case #etmooc, the Educational Technology & Media MOOC that initially was offered in winter/spring 2013 and was in early 2023, reconvening to design and offer a new massive open online course exploring artificial intelligence in learning).

A session-by-session recap would, of course, quickly become tedious. It’s enough to know that the discussions throughout the year ranged from what trainer-teacher-learners need to know about copyright (drawing from usual suspect Jill Hurst-Wahl’s expertise) and how reversing our assumptions produces magnificent results for us and our co-conspirators in learning (aka, our learners) to “top challenges facing trainers in 2023,” featuring usual suspect Sardek Love, who will be rejoining us on Thursday, December 14, 2023 for a discussion about transferring learning from one format (e.g., onsite) to another (e.g., online).

It’s hard to believe that Maurice, as founder and host, has been nurturing this particular community of learning for more than 15 years now (the pilot episode was recorded in August 2008), but the ample show notes (often prepared by Jill Hurst-Wahl) on the podcast website/blog and numerous recordings prove that we are about to celebrate the longevity and continuing value of T is for Training with the recording of Episode 350, when Sardek  rejoins us. And I, for one, am hoping to be around for at least another 350, grateful for all that Maurice fosters through this magnificent labor of love.

N.B.: This is the twelfth in an ongoing series of posts on the theme of giving thanks.

George Needham: Hope and Inspiration

I clearly wasn’t alone, upon learning this morning that George Needham passed away earlier this week, in feeling as if someone had blown another immense hole in the world.

George Needham

A tribute from his colleagues at the Delaware County District Library, where he ended a career spanning approximately 50 years in and around libraries and those who make them the community gems they are, noted how “heartbroken” they are; briefly celebrated “his distinguished career” (which included a Librarian of the Year/Hall of Fame Librarian award from the Ohio Library Council in 2022; and invited friends and colleagues to post their memories along with the lovely set of photos on the library’s Facebook page. Skimming the 42 comments posted during the first 24 hours that the post has been online, and doing the same with the more than 20 comments posted on another friend’s Facebook page in the first five hours that post has been online, provides a glimpse of what George meant to so many of us.   

He was an incredible source of inspiration to me in all that he did—creative, positive, forward-thinking, and, as if all that weren’t enough, someone with a wonderful sense of humor. The work he did with Joan Frye Williams—webinars, podcasts (alas, apparently no longer available on the Infopeople website where they were housed for many years, but there are several recordings available on Vimeo), conference presentations, onsite workshops—taught me a lot about consulting, collaboration, and teaching-training-learning—lessons I continue to pass on to others to this day by emulating the best of what George and Joan offered through their work. Their ability to seamlessly interact with each other during their learning sessions—one often completing a sentence the other had begun as if they were telepathically connected or sharing the same brain; each of them appearing to effortlessly hand part of a conversation off to the other—helped me better understand how to work collaboratively with training-teaching-learning colleagues face to face (and, later, online); it was always a skill that suggested hours of rehearsal, and conversations with them helped me understand—to the advantage of the learners I serve and the partners with whom I work—how to develop that rapport with new collaborators in moments rather than hours of actual rehearsal for any one learning event.

The lovely (all-too-infrequent) conversations George and I had at conferences, in libraries, at library consultants’ onsite gatherings in Nashville, and at Infopeople gatherings when all of us were part of that fabulous training-teaching-learning consortium serving library staff throughout California, always made me appreciative of his ability to make all of us feel as if we were the most important person in his life when he was with us. Even though he was very much (and justifiably) a center of attention wherever he went, he never left me (or anyone else I know) feeling as if he had somewhere else to be or someone more important to see. He had that amazing ability to handle the interruptions graciously and quickly return, fully focused, to our conversation—a skill I admired, cherished, and continue to work diligently to hone as a result of how effectively and consistently he demonstrated it.

I wondered, as I was thinking about George this morning, how much of that glowing memory of his warmth, his generosity, and accessibility was colored by the passage of time and how much of it was accurate. Locating a few YouTube videos showing him in action erased any doubt I had. Watching the first part and the concluding moments of his “Creating the Hopeful Workplace” keynote address he delivered for iLead in October 2013 assured me he was even better than I remembered: He began the presentation by thanking those who had contributed to the presentation; acknowledged the debt he owed Joan Frye Williams for helping develop the workshop they jointly delivered and from which his keynote address was drawn; and displayed the fine combination of humor and serious, useful, timeless content that was always at the center of what he (and Joan) did. After all, what could be more timely for so many of us now than an engaging reminder of what it takes to create a hopeful workplace that inspires the best in all of us and all we are lucky enough to serve?

Andy Havens, one of his colleagues from the years when they worked together at OCLC (a global library organization), captured George magnificently in a piece he posted on Facebook earlier today and acknowledged the challenge any of us faces in trying to capture George in one burst of writing: “I’m not going to post a link to his obituary because, like all obits, it is a smattering of scant, flimsy text that cannot do justice to the life of someone who meant so much to so many.”

But in acknowledging the challenge, he also captured something essential. The George Needhams in our lives are wonderfully complex, irreplaceable parts of our existence. And perhaps the best way we can honor them is to share the bits and pieces we know about them, and do our part to assure that the spirit behind the person is spread as far and as widely as possible…while saying the obvious: I’m going to miss him tremendously.

N.B.–For more from those who knew George, check out Episode #349 of Maurice Coleman’s podcast T is for Training, recorded November 30, 2023.

Creating, Collaborating, and Appreciating: Building Step by Step

              

Reading Oliver Burkeman’s wonderful Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals makes me realize how so many of the challenges we face in training-teaching-learning carry over into almost every other endeavor we undertake as we struggle to find/make time for and sustain a productive and satisfying sense of all we want to accomplish. We commit to completing something (a lesson plan, an onsite or online workshop, or a webinar, for example) and immediately begin thinking about numerous other distracting tasks and challenges we want to tackle and need to manage efficiently. We then inevitably and ultimately become overwhelmed by a Sisyphean nightmare of our own making: thinking about and being distracted by just one more workshop to design and deliver, just one more webinar to blast through (before starting to work on the six other webinars we want to do as soon as this one is designed and delivered). As Burkeman so accurately suggests in his own book about how the more we do, the more we want to do (and the more unsatisfying, soul-killing work we attract/create for ourselves), we end up burying ourselves under a ridiculous number of undertakings that leave us feeling completely drained rather than fulfilled.

More importantly, we miss the most important part of what we are doing: taking pleasure in the moment-by-moment decisions and actions to relish the inherent satisfaction and intrinsic value they offer, then relishing those almost magical unexpected outcomes that flow out a sense of focus that pushes distractions aside.

It’s something I again recently experienced—this time outside of the training-teaching-learning work I do, but paralleling the processes I use to produce pleasurable results in that consistently satisfying and inspiring field—as my wife and I approached a series of interrelated projects around our house. The starting point was simple: the atmospheric river storms last winter completely battered our house and garden and, among other things, partially pulled a board away from the side of our house, here in San Francisco, and created a situation that clearly required timely attention.

“Doesn’t look good,” my wife and I agreed as we looked at that loose board, so we decided to contact a contractor we trust to see how serious the problem was and what would be involved in properly repairing it.

As long as we were going to work to resolve that problem, we decided, we might as well ask what other long-standing projects we might address while the contractor and his employees were on site (just as, in tackling a training-teaching-learning challenge, I work with the best collaborators I can find to look for multiple pay-offs from one cohesive, seeing-the-trees-and-the-forest-simultaneously effort). So we made The List. There was that unsightly hole in a ceiling we never got around to repairing after a burst pipe required that our plumber punch a hole in that ceiling to replace the pipe a few years ago. The drainpipe that had pulled away from the side of the house. The deteriorating three-foot-by-three-foot square rickety porch that served as an increasingly unsafe transition from my office in our house to our backyard garden: the wood on the porch was becoming so soft that I was more and more frequently having awful visions of stepping down from the back door onto that platform and putting my foot through the rotting wood, thereby ending up with a cast while a broken bone healed. The deteriorating, sagging fence along the south side of our yard: The storms had given it a nearly fatal push; it appeared ready to fall over the next time one of the neighborhood cats leapt on it during their daily patrols. And the back of the house was looking fairly needy: we had never gotten around to painting it during the more than 20 years we have lived here, so paint that could most charitably be referred to as a “nondescript” color was flaking off more and more frequently, exposing the underlying wood to the possibility of dry rot.

In the same way that an initial meeting with key stakeholders in a training-teaching-learning initiative plays out, our initial meeting with the contractor was straightforward. We had a clearly-stated objective: complete an interrelated set of repairs and enhancements in the most playfully creative, efficient, flexible way possible to enhance what was innately beautiful about the backyard and the house so we could take advantage of opportunities that came up at every stage of working toward reaching that goal. We discussed the possibility of tackling some of the individual projects in a series of well-timed phases so we could pay as we went. Then we discussed the advantages of doing a few projects simultaneously so workers with specific skills could do their parts of each project in a well-coordinated, carefully-timed sequence of steps to more efficiently complete everything.

But the heart of the creating-collaborating-appreciating process involved a simple step: the one the contractor, my wife, and took together as we literally and figuratively stepped back in the yard to take a larger view of the entire set of projects and began asking basic questions like “how could we best use and enhance the available space taken up by the existing porch and the underutilized surrounding area if it were replaced by a deck that addressed some of the underlying problems we had with the existing set-up?”

The design of the porch, for example, dated back to the time the house was originally built (1939) and had never been well-integrated into the backyard. For one thing, stepping out the back door into the porch to descend into the garden required a step down of approximately one foot rather than a step from one space (the space inside the house) to a space at the same level immediately beyond that door—something you don’t think about much until, over a period of many years, you find yourself reticent to use that space because, among other things, that innocuous step-down creates an unnecessary, jarring, and clumsy transition from indoors to outdoors: There was nothing inviting about it; it was simply a noticeable line of demarcation from one space to another where a more subtle transition might have served as an invitation rather than an impediment to using it. For another thing, the step-down left us with an uninviting transition space that made us quickly want to continue down the rickety wooden steps to get into the backyard rather than providing an inviting space where we might be inclined to stop, linger, and look into and appreciate the garden rather than simply racing down those stairs so we could dive into the work required to maintain the garden.

What if, we mused, that step-down became a space large enough for us to use as a place to look down into the garden, to sit and read, to take a lunch break on those days when both of us are working from home, or to sit with friends in a comfortable, quiet, attractive space when we wanted to engage in the long, meandering conversations that are an essential and appealing part of the relationships we maintain with our closest friends?

Following techniques I had learned from years of reading and absorbing the writing of an architect (Christopher Alexander) whose work I very much admire, we walked the small space repeatedly. Drew multiple outlines in the dirt to determine how wide and deep the deck needed to be to provide us with a sitting space, a well-integrated transition space from house to garden. Looked at how light hit the area during different times of day and in varying weather conditions. And how it might become a well-designed space, effectively integrated into its setting, capable of fostering wonderful conversations with friends in a place feeling as if it were removed from the city while remaining a part of it.

Slowly, miraculously, through the first of many three-way conversations we would have while construction was underway, a plan of action developed. We moved past the dilemma of taking up too much of that precious limited real estate by quickly abandoning what had been the initial, obvious plan to walk out onto the deck, then continue walking in the same direction (east-facing) down a set of steps that would end near the base of the six-foot-tall Italianate fountain we had installed in the center of the garden many years ago. Because the steps would have taken up quite a bit of space and left little room for the small gravel walkway we wanted to maintain between the steps and the foundation, the contractor suggested giving up a bit of the seating space on the southern edge of the deck by having the steps run parallel to the house rather than extend eastward off the main sitting area in a direct line eastward from door to deck to gravel path to fountain. Because those steps would lead down to another set of steps descending into the narrow garden pathway formed in the alley along the south side of the house running east-west from back to front, we also talked about the possibility of creating a small stone area at the base of the steps off the deck so we wouldn’t be stepping down into dirt or mud. (Only after the entire project was completed did we realize we had, in adding that small semi-circular stone area at the foot of the steps, created a pleasant shaded space where we could sit and enjoy lunch—as I did, for the first time, while writing the initial draft of this piece in my notebook—during that part of the day when direct sunlight makes it a bit uncomfortable to sit on the main part of the deck.)

At every stage, there were challenges to address and decisions to make: the choice of colors to use on the back wall to create a playful, cheery backdrop to a space that often is enshrouded in fog and can be a bit uninviting because of the damp chill that accompanies breezes and winds throughout the year. (We struggled with that piece of the puzzle for a couple of weeks as we added numerous swatches of paint samples to the wall so we could see how those colors looked in mid-day light as well as in the subdued light barely filtering through clouds and low-lying fog.) The repositioning of small water pipes in ways that kept them unobtrusive but easily accessible so we could hook up a hose and a drip irrigation system to easily maintain the garden. How to finish off the base of the structure in a way that would cover, but provide easy access to, the newly-created storage space we were creating under the deck. (The contractor, after exploring several options, ultimately suggested a series of fairly light-weight wooden panels, painted to match the color of the material he used for the deck, that could easily be lifted off a series of sturdy hooks so we would not have to struggle with a set of hinges and poles to prop doors open or to have to take up extra space to accommodate doors that would swing out onto paths when we needed to open them to gain access to the space under the deck.)

And step by step, what could have been seen as a set of isolated construction projects designed without regard to how each would impact and interact (or fail to interact) with other elements in the surrounding area developed into a cohesive set of elements that flowed together to create an appealing, integrated space that makes us want to move from inside our house onto the deck. Linger there to look at the trees and plants and flowers while watching sparrows, mourning doves, bushtits, robins, Townsend’s warblers, and scrub jays; red admiral and white cabbage butterflies; and raccoons and the squirrel that share that space. And continually remind us that we are, in essence, temporary stewards of a potentially magnificent space that is at once sanctuary, habitat, and a social center for those who enter it.    

Just as we often, in training-teaching-learning, design and deliver only what is necessary to meet the needs of learners in a particular moment and situation, we could have taken the path of least resistance by simply repairing the loose board on the side of the house and pushing other decisions and actions down the road. We might have even taken the extra step of repairing the board and replacing the fence, or having the porch replaced with new materials that mirrored what was already in place. But by recognizing the possibilities available to us—including those we could not initially anticipate—and collaborating with this creative and adaptable contractor who brings experience and a well-honed sense of craftsmanship and pride to the process of transforming possibilities into dreamy realities, the three of us operated in the spirit of what Burkeman pictures in Four Thousand Weeks. Focused on what was most important and enjoyable while shunting everything else aside. And produced something spectacularly appealing which continues to reveal unanticipated positive results with each new day—just as our best, most collaborative and effective training-teaching-learning endeavors produce results that extend far beyond anything we can imagine while they are in the planning stage.

Presentation Essentials: When You Need More Salt

There’s a stunningly inspirational story told in Anne Bruce and Sardék Love’s Presentation Essentials: The Tools You Need to Captivate Your Audience, Deliver Your Story, and Make Your Message Memorable. Bruce recalls the moment when she began a conference presentation before a group of people who had had far too much too drink. One of the unruly audience members, from his seat in the front row of the room, immediately begins heckling her and ultimately decides—unwisely—that it would be appropriate to throw a tomato at her. Looking down at the splattered tomato that is now on the lapel of her white silk suit, she doesn’t miss a beat: she uses a finger to scoop a piece of the demolished tomato from her coat, tastes the tomato, and responds “needs more salt.” Which, of course, immediately has the audience completely on her side as the person who threw the tomato is led out of the room, and she receives a standing ovation at the end of her presentation.

That “needs more salt” approach perfectly describes what makes Presentation Essentials so important for any of us immersed in—or dreaming about being immersed in—a career that involves an ability to engage audiences through first-rate presentation skills. The need for salt reminds us that the way we season our work with a commitment to planning, practice, storytelling, the use of empathy, a commitment to excellence, and an ability to quickly recover from whatever is thrown our way determines whether we deliver a perfectly-prepared souffle or something that is so flat that it should never have been let out of our kitchen.

True to its title, this is not a book that lingers very long on any of its important themes; it covers the essentials, punctuates them with simple graphics that summarize points to be recalled and incorporated into our work; and includes an “essentials toolkit” a with concise lists of “dos and don’ts of presenting,” a set of guidelines for creating effective presentations, and a presentation-development worksheet, among other resources.

Bruce and Love bring, to their work, years of successful experiences as engaging, effective presenters in numerous countries, and what they cover serves as a primer for new and aspiring presenters as well as a review manual with plenty of helpful reminders to those of us who have been involved in teaching-training-learning and other presentation/facilitation environments for a considerable period of time.

A particularly refreshing and helpful section, for me, came early in the second chapter (“Presentation Structure”). Although I have, for many years, been writing and presenting material in highly-interactive sessions designed to inspire positive transformation among those I serve, I’d never quite thought about the process in the terms outlined by Bruce and Love: creating that single, overarching “Big Idea Statement” that, in one sentence, explicitly expresses the problem, the expert insights to be offered, and the stakes that are driving the need for change among my co-conspirators in learning, aka, the learners with whom I am working. I always design and share sets of goals and objectives, but reading Bruce and Love’s examples, including this one (on a theme I frequently address with colleagues and learners), are immediately helping me up my own presentation game in terms of going for the direct, concise, emotionally-engaging challenge that drives the work I facilitate and the opportunities for transformation I attempt to foster:

“More than 50 percent of your virtual training content is a complete waste of time, money, and resources, leaving team members unprepared to fulfil their job duties, thereby putting your human capital investment dollars at severe risk.”

Delivered to the right audience at the right moment, that summary statement offers the invitation to and promise of change that is at the heart of what so many of us attempt to do through the presentations we design and deliver. That example alone, with the outline of the process that leads us to develop that level of challenge, makes the book one well worth reading and rereading.

“Before designing your presentation, you must create your Big Idea Statement,” the authors remind us. “The Big Idea Statement is the main point of your presentation, and its purpose is to compel your audience to reconsider what they know to be true and take action to change.”

A theme that pops up a few times in the book is the need for adaptability in our approach to designing and delivering effective, engaging presentations, and the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on our is acknowledged on page 64 and again in Chapter 10 (“Delivering Online Content”): “The Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a seismic transformation in the way presentations are delivered. Presenters are now expected to be fully capable of delivering presentations in person as well as virtually across multiple platforms. That’s an extreme example of being adaptable.” (p. 64)

For those of us who had already been engaged in extensive online-presentation work via Zoom and other platforms well before the pandemic hit full force in early 2020, the transition was hardly noticeable, but it did create a tremendous expansion of opportunities among those who suddenly, forced to go online for learning and other presentations. An area of exploration beyond the scope of this book—and one in which I’ve been immersed with colleagues for nearly three years now—is what new opportunities this rapid transformation has provided and what we can do to hold onto the best of the opportunities rather than shelving them away and going back to practices that were commonly pursued before so many of our colleagues and learners were forced to move full-steam ahead to hone their presentation skills in online environments.

Regardless of environments (e.g., onsite vs. online vs. hybrid), plenty of elements remain consistent and essential to our work, and these are the elements Bruce and Love capture so effectively throughout the book as they suggest a variety of presentation seasonings we can add to our work. The summary of “Six Keys to Audience Engagement” (on page 65), for example, are worth reviewing every time we sit down to design a new presentation:

Be Bold

Be Brief

Be Novel

Be Memorable

Be Confident

Be Adaptable

And their reminder regarding how to approach practice and rehearsal—“Don’t practice your presentation until you can get it right; practice your presentation until you can’t get it wrong”—needs to be in the forefront of our minds when we move from the design phase to the delivery phase of the work we do as presenters.

Whether you quickly read through the entire book in a couple of sittings or spend more time working your way through it by reading a chapter and then applying lessons learned, you’ll find the time spend with Presentation Essentials to be well worth the effort. And your co-conspirators in learning, action, and positive change will be among the beneficiaries of your effort.

CLA Conference 2022: Thanks for the Gifts

For three hours yesterday, I was shoulder to shoulder with a wonderful group of colleagues facilitating a highly-interactive advocacy workshop for people working with libraries and the communities they serve throughout California. These are people—Crystal Miles from the Sacramento Public Library, Mark Fink from  the Yolo County Library, Deborah Doyle from the Sonoma County Library Commission, and Derek Wolfgram from the Redwood City Public Library—with whom I interact on a regular basis via Zoom. We have—up to that moment yesterday morning when we were onsite for the preconference workshop here in Sacramento on the first day of the California Library Association (CLA) 2022 Annual Conference—been designing and delivering online advocacy training sessions through the CLA Ursula Meyer Advocacy Training Fund program I manage, and we will continue to be nurturing the online series that continues next week with a free two-hour workshop on presentation skills for library advocates.

But this was that wonderful moment when, for the first time since the COVID pandemic radically altered the way we all work, we were shoulder to shoulder in an onsite setting with a group of dynamic learners who were also relishing the opportunity to be off camera and physically (rather than virtually) together. There were plenty of tongue-in-cheek comments about how strange it was to be seeing each other’s faces without having those faces framed by the all-too-familiar Zoom boxes that provide us with (cherished) opportunities to interact online. And there was also the not-unexpected attention we continue to give to safety protocols—including those ubiquitous N95 masks so many of us continue to wear in a dual effort to avoid unintentionally spreading COVID or to contract it from unsuspecting carriers of the virus.

But when all was said and done, an underlying cause for gratitude and celebration was that all of us in that particular room were acknowledging that the gift of gathering offered by CLA was another step toward our collective commitment to creating “a new and better normal” rather than sitting passively while waiting for a chance to return to a (pre-COVID) “normal” that, in many ways, was not all that great for many of our colleagues and, frankly, many of us.

As we explored the basics of advocacy and how it is evolving in a world that, two years ago, was forced to switch quickly and (sometimes) adeptly to a world where online interactions needed to be a seamless part of our interactions and collaborations, we noted and celebrated some of the positive opportunities that have come out of the tremendous tragedies and losses COVID has brought to each of us. We even, at one point, held a brief, lively, tongue-in-cheek debate about the advantages and disadvantages of onsite vs. online advocacy. (Taking the side of arguing for the benefits of online advocacy, I was gleeful when Crystal, assuming the playful role of the judge awarding points to Derek and me as we went back and forth, ultimately and very generously called it a draw and observed that our new and better normal might be one in which we recognize the importance of incorporating onsite and online efforts into our advocacy toolkits.) And as the session came to an end, we were gratified to hear participants—our co-conspirators in learning—note the ways in which their time with us was inspiring them to seek new ways to become even better advocates for libraries and the communities they serve than they already were.

It doesn’t, however, end there. The shoulder-to-shoulder interactions extended into conversations on the conference exhibits-hall floor, moved outdoors as some of us took our lunches into the plaza outside the conference center so we could unmask and enjoy lunch and extended conversations. And, as always happens in these conference settings where friends and colleagues are unexpectedly waiting for us right around the corner, the conversations became richer and deeper as friends stumbled upon long-unseen friends and picked up right where they/we had left off.

Which is exactly what happened toward the end of the lunchtime conversation Crystal and I were having in that plaza on a warm, pleasant Sacramento afternoon. As Crystal and I were discussing another session we might soon be doing together, I felt the (reassuring) embrace, from behind me, of someone whose voice I could hear but couldn’t quite place. Relishing that unexpected embrace and the sound of a somewhat familiar voice I couldn’t immediately place, I just sat there and admitted “I have no idea who is hugging me, and I’m not even inclined to want to turn around and immediately find out who it is because it feels so good.” And when I turned around and saw familiar eyes peering out from above the mask that was covering the rest of that lovely face, it still took me several seconds to realize that the embrace and the voice belonged to one of my favorite up-and-coming librarians—someone I’ve known since the point in her life when she was still a student in a Master of Library Science program and I had an opportunity to introduce her to people who have helped shape her career.

You can see it coming: she joined the conversation for a few minutes before having to race off for an appointment she had previously set—but not before we agreed to reconvene later that afternoon to sit together outdoors over hors d’oeuvres and beverages that carried us through a lovely chunk of unplanned time we both had. And our leisurely conversation that led us from afternoon into the early evening hours before another colleague joined us briefly before each of us stepped away to join other equally lovely interactions and conversations which will, no doubt, continue today when all of us are back onsite for another day of learning, scheming, dreaming, and working with cherished colleagues to collaborate toward shaping the world of our dreams.

So again, CLA, thanks for the gift of regathering our community in ways that continue the work we have managed to do in online settings over the past couple of years—and will continue to do onsite and online for the foreseeable future. And thanks for the opportunity to carry us one step further down a road that is still very much in a state of development as we grow accustomed to, open to, and grateful for a world in which we no longer carry on, with any level of seriousness, silly arguments about whether onsite interactions are inherently better than online interactions, or vice versa. We are, step by step, embracing possibilities and relishing where those opportunities may take us—if we actively, positively are active participants in shaping the results those opportunities provide.

Lessons Imparted, Lessons Learned: Making Them Personal

The trainer-teacher-learners I most admire are those who understand that every learning opportunity we facilitate provides us with an opportunity to learn alongside our co-conspirators in learning (aka our students).

It’s an idea that inspires me to review, after each workshop or webinar or course or even a highly-interactive keynote address that encourages participants to learn with me, what I myself might learn from what we have just done together. It proves to be a rewarding, comforting endeavor each time I take the time to complete it, as I’m reminded today during a review of some of the sessions in which I’ve recently been involved.

Those sessions are a part of a continuing series of facilitated conversations, arranged under the auspices of Claremont EAP, on a few dozen workplace issues with which we all struggle at various levels. Each session comes with a PowerPoint slide deck provided by my colleagues at Claremont. It also comes with a workbook that can be integrated into the hour-long conversation. But the real payoff for the learners and for me comes from open discussions I facilitate and which are inspired by what’s in those decks and workshops. Using small chunks of the time we have together to show them slides about mindfulness in our workplaces, or adapting to change, or managing priorities, or incorporating acts of gratitude into our daily routines as I’ve done over the past few weeks through Claremont sessions with clients around the San Francisco Bay Area, is just the starting point. It’s the questions I pose in response to information contained on the slides or within the workbooks, the avenues I pursue with them vis-à-vis how those topics apply to what they are facing in their own workplaces, and the inevitable final question I pose at the end of each session—what is one thing you will do differently during the next week as a result of having spent time together today?—that brings it all together and transforms what on the surface appears to be an ephemeral conversation into what any learning opportunity should be: an opportunity to pursue positive change and to take away some level of pain that a learner is currently facing.

The conversations about adapting to change, being grateful for things we tend to overlook, and being mindful (attentive) to what is happening to us in any given moment and cherishing what it offers were not exactly at the forefront of my mind yesterday afternoon after I finished the latest offering of “adapting to change”; it had been a rewarding, inspiring day of meetings and sessions, but nothing out of the ordinary. All three of those topics, however, have been on my mind pretty steadily over the past several months as a lovely cat that has been an integral part of our lives for more than 14 years has been steadily declining in response to the progressive ravages of kidney disease. We think about her and respond to her at a deeply emotional level, but I also think and respond to her in terms of recognizing the massive change that will occur in our lives when she is no longer with us. When she appeared to be entering end-stage last September, and we were actually about to set up a time to put her out of the misery she was experiencing, we viscerally understood the importance of being mindful—cherishing every remaining moment we had with her. And when some new medications and simple, non-invasive measures suggested by the wonderful vet who has been treating and supporting her produced a turn-around none of us really expected to see, we were relieved and tremendously grateful for what the vet accomplished and for the unexpected gift of additional time we were being given with her. And we were mindful. Recognizing that this beloved companion was once again (at least temporarily) comfortable. That she was displaying as much joy as any six-pound ball of fur has ever displayed. That we might have her for a few more days or weeks. And that this was nothing but a postponement of the day, all too soon, when we would have to make the difficult decision to let her go—that moment when the lack of a decent quality of life overrode our desire to have her with us.

Those mindfulness conversations I have been having with learners have made me conscious every day—every time the cat sits on my lap and naps while I read, every time she goes skittering across our hardwood floors chasing a ball as if it were her sole mission in life to protect us from any harm that evil ball might bring us, every time she puts her sometimes damp nose in my ear at three or four a.m. to remind me that she expects a bit of attention in gratitude for all the joy she brings us—of what a magnificent gift those simple moments have become. The gratitude and mindfulness has always helped me enjoy the in-the-moment pleasures of having her with us, and helped me to not fritter them away by worrying about when her moment of departure might arrive.

So, I was surprised and not surprised, early yesterday evening, when I noticed something radically different about her. She suddenly seemed unsteady. Unsure of herself. Continually, slowly, moving her head from left to right and back again as if looking for something that remained beyond her field of vision. As if she were bewildered by what she was or was not seeing. And then it struck me. She was bewildered because regardless of how much she tried, she wasn’t seeing anything. Testing my suspicion, I moved my hands across her field of vision and saw no obvious response. I looked closely into her eyes and saw that her black pupils were filling the entire space that just a few hours ago had been mostly filled with luminescent gold-green—a color that now had completely vanished. I tried again to elicit responses by quickly moving my hands toward her face and stopping just short of the moment of contact, without eliciting any level of reaction. A quick internet search confirmed for me that sudden loss of vision was one of the signs that kidney disease in a cat was in its final stage. So, with heavy hearts and mindful that these could well be our final moments with her, my wife and I took turns holding her on our laps. Hugging her with every bit of love she had earned by being such a joyful companion over such a long period of time. Doing everything we could to figure out how the loss of her vision was going to impact her ability to function around the house. And seeing her gently bumping into walls and furniture whose position had been familiar to her over a period of many years, we were mindful of what this sudden change meant in terms of quality of life for her. So we made the call.

We’ve had to do this before. It’s never easy. But it is, for us, part of what we feel we owe to the cats who have relied on us to be there for them during the easy as well as the difficult times. The rest of the evening, of course, is already a bit blurry in our memories. Comforting her as we transported her to the vet’s clinic. Having a frank discussion about what was reasonable and not reasonable in terms of expecting her to adapt to the unexpected change she had just experienced. And what quality of life she was going to have as the loss of vision was just one of a rapidly approaching series of losses that would make her more miserable and ultimately result in her death. None of that made the decision easy. But it made it the best of the decisions we felt we could reach, given our desire to offer her the gift of sparing her additional pain at a moment when her life—and ours—had inevitably changed.

I’m numb and filled with grief today. I feel her presence everywhere around our house, and think about and visualize all the things she was doing here less than 24 hours ago. But I also am mindful of the fact that I have a great community of friends and colleagues around me who are already doing all they can to join the circle of grief and, through their caring comments, offer me a lifeline out of this overwhelming grief and back into life when I’m ready to begin adapting to the terrible change that has just occurred. I’m grateful that I have the continuing opportunity to work with people who trust me enough to help them through the small-, medium- and large-scale changes they face just as others now are doing that for me. And I’m grateful, that because of their attentiveness and dedication to lifelong learning to produce positive changes, they offer me the gift of lessons imparted and lessons learned through every interaction we have as co-conspirators in learning.

Because of a Teacher: Learning With Stories

Our greatest teacher-trainer-learners often turn out to be wonderful storytellers. Through their stories, they provide a context for our own learning. They engage us and inspire us. And they transform us. So when innovative teaching, learning, and leadership consultant, speaker, and author George Couros published a collection of stories by teachers—Because of a Teacher: Stories of the Past to Inspire the Future of Education—last year, we just had to know we were in for a treat: a collection of stories by storytellers who incorporate storytelling in their work. It’s as if we were invited to an evening of stories by some of our best peers.

We recognize, as we dive into the opening pages of the book, that we are in for a real treat. And Couros and his co-conspirators in producing this wonderfully engaging evening of learning with the storytellers do not let us down for even a moment. We know, from the title, that we’re going to be hearing teachers talk about the art of teaching; those of us involved in lifelong learning as trainer-teacher-learners recognize that we are with kindred spirits as we spend time with those teachers working in formal academic settings. We also know, if we are familiar with Couros’s “Three Questions on Educators That Inspire” series on his Innovator’s Mindset podcast, that those stories, as Couros himself writes, “have the potential to help improve current practice. And they can inspire current teachers while honoring the educators who once inspired them” (p. 3).

Certain themes flow consistently through the book. The teachers with whom we are spending time acknowledge the support they have received, throughout their careers, from peers, mentors, and administrators. They consistently cite the power of collaboration with their peers and with their learners. They are, themselves, consummate learners who learn from their own mistakes and recognize that the temporary failures we all face are part of our lifelong learning endeavors and actually make us more appealing and accessible to our own learners because, through our actions and admissions, acknowledge that we, too, are human and fallible.

There’s something absolutely universal and appealing about many of the stories, and I found myself appreciating the pleasant, transformative experiences I have been lucky enough to have had as I read these storytellers’ variations on the themes we shared. Steve Bollar, in his “The Art of Relationships” chapter, for example, recalls how his art teacher nurtured his growth by providing a safe space—her classroom—for him to work before the formal beginning of the school day. When he suggested “letting a few of my friends hang out in the morning with me,” the teacher readily agreed so that, “by the end of the school year, there was a sizable group of students hanging out in the art room before the school day began.” Hearing that story produce an effect akin to being struck by a (non-fatal) bolt of lightning, for it vividly brough back memories of the high school history teacher who provided a similarly safe and stimulating meeting place for many of us when we were in school. Furthermore, it brought back memories of how creatively that teacher approached his own efforts to nurture our growth as learners and how it created a lifelong desire for me, in working with my own (adult) learners in a variety of settings, to create those same types of open, welcoming, dynamic learning spaces that produce the results my co-conspirators in learning and I produce whenever we meet face to face or online.

There are numerous gems among the gorgeous stories. Deidre Roemer, for example, reminds us that “the power of a caring teacher can be felt for a lifetime” in her “Inspiration for a Lifetime and Beyond” story (p. 33). “Making students feel welcome in their learning environment is a critical first step for building strong, lasting relationships as an educator,” Mary Hemphill writes in “Teaching Full Circle” (p. 36). “It’s all about relationships,” Tom Murray remembers hearing a cherished mentor say in “Fingerprints of Impact: The Legacy of a Mentor.” “‘If you make that the core of all you do, you’ll have amazing success in your career’” (p. 43).

George Couros

The first third of the book, capturing stories about the teachers who inspired these teachers-as-storytellers, leads us naturally into the second section: stories about administrators who inspired our peers in Because of a Teacher. Couros himself sets a nice tone for that section in his opening story, “When Someone Believes in You.” He recalls feeling as if he had completely destroyed his chances of being hired into an assistant principal position by being drawn into serious arguments during his interview for the position. Discovering not long afterward that he was being offered the job because the principle wanted someone who would disagree with him when disagreement was productive, Couros walked away with a valuable lesson: “Archie [Lillico, the principal who hired Couros as his assistant principal] and I had a ton of disagreements in our time together, and that made us both better at our work. Isn’t that the point of education? Shouldn’t we want to learn new ideas and take actions to best grow in our pursuits?” (p. 56)

Couros, one page later, recalls an earlier interview completely comprised of talking “about the things that made me passionate and the things that excited me. It felt less like an interview and more like a conversation about education with colleagues in a staff room. Looking back on it, I realize that was intentional. The typical interview process doesn’t happen often in our everyday practice, but those conversations do. How we interact in those spaces really matters.”

We read (and hear) these words. We reflect on what they suggest to us. We feel inspired by them and want to immediately work them into our own practices. And by the time we finish reading the book and relishing what the stories suggest to us in terms of possibilities  in our lifelong learning landscapes, we realize we have absorbed what Couros and his colleagues set out to offer us. We are better off then we were before we picked up the book. Because of a teacher.