Teachable Moments

When I was in my forties, a manager several levels above me instituted a program called New Age Thinking for all the employees in his laboratory. The seminars he sponsored featured relaxation and meditation techniques, visualization, affirmations, and self-realization.   I clearly recall my reaction when asked if I wanted to attend the voluntary seminars … I like the way I think just fine, thank you.  Twenty something years later, some of these techniques are part of my day-to-day disciplines but smack dab in the middle of my arrogant forties, I wasn’t teachable.   I didn’t know I wasn’t teachable … in fact, as far back as I can remember, I believed that we are here to learn from every experience.  But my preconceived notions and insecurities … usually manifesting themselves as arrogance … kept me from doing so.  I needed some Teachable Moments, which life was only too willing to provide.

In education, the notion of a Teachable Moment was popularized by Robert Havighurst in his 1952 book, Human Development and Education as a situation which arises that makes a student particularly open to learning from the discussion of a particular topic.   Barach Obama recently expressed a wish that the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Gates would be a Teachable Moment.  Gates himself said that my entire career as an educator has been devoted to racial healing and improved race relations in this country. I am determined that this be a teaching moment.   Teaching moment comes closer to what teachers or politicians mean by Teachable Moment … an instance in which a prescribed concept can be taught to someone else.

In the circles I travel, a Teachable Moment is a time at which I am open to learning something, most often brought on by a situation outside my usual routine.   I like to think that the something I learn is God’s will for me.   Unfortunately for us as a species, we are more frequently brought to our Teachable Moments by difficulties … if not crises or tragedies … in our lives.   We seem too inclined to accept good times as our due instead of looking for lessons there.   Recently, I read a post on (life)lessons, one of my favorite blogs.  In Breaking open, the author expressed a wish to Find the lessons hidden within the craziness that is (her) life.   She seems to have reached a Teachable Moment.    I’ve spent many journal pages and many nights awake hunting for the lessons in such moments … sometimes, I’ve succeeded in finding them.   But as I’ve aged, I’ve found that often, simply accepting the situation … without hunting for the lesson … is enough.   The lesson is more likely to find me when I’m relaxed and open than when I’m search frantically for it.   I think that’s called relaxing into life.   What a concept.

What do you think?  Do you have Teachable Moments?  Do you have Teachable Moments in good times?

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Tags: 12 Steps, acceptance, gratitude, meditation, mindfulness, perspectives, spirituality, teachable moments

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