Teaching as a creative playground.

ByKim Hermanson

Teaching has always been a creative playground for me–a way to explore things that fascinate me and experiment with new ideas.

Peter Vaill wrote, “The essential starting point of artistic consciousness is acknowledging that something is more than I can possibly know.” That place of the unknown is mysterious and juicy. We don’t know what we’ll discover.

Holding an attitude of artistic consciousness is how I like to teach. As soon as I thoroughly understand my subject matter, I grow bored.

When I teach what you know, I bore you. And when I teach what I know, I bore me. So what I like to do is teach what I don’t know.

When I enter a teaching situation as a learner, mystery is present. There’s space for a greater wisdom to speak.

That’s what makes teaching alive.
 
 

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