We can learn from those who came before us and who have experienced what it is we yet need to learn. As important as what is to be learned might be, perhaps the greater import needs to be placed on the teacher and on the relationship between the teacher and the student. That relationship can mean the difference between the learning being facilitated or its being hampered. The relationship is based not just in an intellectual grasp of the pieces that constitute the learning but an emotional grasp as well. The relationship is not just based in the imparting of facts and methods but a sense of trust and confidence both on the part of the teacher as well as the student.



Although it might sound strange that the teacher needs to trust the student...it is trust in the student's ability to learn, to ask questions, to be willing to make mistakes, to put forth whatever effort it might take in order for the learning to take place. The teacher's trust goes to the point of placing as much emphasis on how the student might arrive at a conclusion or answer as is placed on the answers themselves. This trust is a magical element that might best be described by the reader's remembrance of their favorite teacher or professor. Contained in that memory is the sense of knowing that the confidence the teacher had in the student enabled a sense of what little children are able to bring to learning new things.

A child who hasn't been exposed to adult fear and doubt experiences neither. An adult might say "I'll try" while a child will say "I can do that!" The yearning to learn on the part of a child is an insatiable need that is never-ending...something which adults may have forgotten in the pressures of dealing with the vicissitudes of life. But adults can regain that same sense they once had as a child which may have been stifled along the way. Realizing that the process of learning simply has basic steps associated with it and that each step will bring us to an end result can bring a good deal of confidence when we might feel overwhelmed or confused. It can become the difference between "trying" and "doing it."