Tom Haskins on our Inner Teacher

In 2008 this blog post, growing changing learning creating: Relying on inner teachers, from Tom Haskin’s caught my eye enough to cause me to save the URL in a draft post. Revisiting it today, it still has resonance, but far beyond the classroom teaching context of the post itself. Please, after scanning the snippet below, go read the full post. Substitute what ever domain is yours for Tom’s as a classroom teacher.

Dawn on Skagit Bay, with Ika Island in the foreground and reflections on the tidal flatlands.

While blogging for the past year on related topics, I’ve come to the following realizations about the nature of a compounding solution in education:

  1. When we assume each student has an inner teacher within their minds, we will stop interfering with the discovery, cultivation and trust building with that inner teacher. The inner teacher will come to the fore of the students learning experiences and and reconfigure how they picture learning occurring. Problems with a particular learning challenge or patterns of learning efforts will get worked out between the student and the inner teacher who already knows what the underlying problems are.

As I read Tom’s words they resonate for me as a practitioner of Liberating Structures and more generally as a process person who deeply values learning, reflection and action. How do Tom’s words resonate for you?

Thanks, Tom!

(I’m having fun going through the detritus of draft blog posts!)

2 thoughts on “Tom Haskins on our Inner Teacher”

  1. I’m with Tom. Witness and try to stop fixing people.

    Discovery, curiosity and kindness are possible if someone feels safe.

    I like inner Family Systems for a process to manage meeting uncertainty that pops up when we are learning line this… But that’s just pointing to one path.

    What if liberating structures is secular prayer helping us understand our true nature wise woman or man? Pattern dancing with others.

    The undivided self creates problems to help us understand the mystery, the poetry of life.

    1. Tim, are you referring to https://ifs-institute.com/ ?

      I often wonder about safety. I keep seeking another word because I don’t think we can always create “safe spaces” or even a true sense of psychological safety. So far the most concrete offer I can make is to acknowledge the lack of a sense of safety!

      Love your observations on patterns! 🙂

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