I am still learning

I spoke to Ben a few days ago. We had one of our "significant" conversations. He loves teaching but the Japanese culture doesn't respect the teacher quite as much as it should. Ben says he is tired of bowing and scraping to younger people with less experience and poorer qualifications. Sadly, he doesn't think he is going to be able to advance much further in this area. 

"I want to be a leader in my family," said Ben. "I want to be a leader in my organisation. I want to be leader in my society."

Well - he's started in the right place. Teaching and learning - and a willingness to learn and to teach - are at the heart of life. Indeed, they are foundational to the concept of discipleship that is at the heart of the Christian experience. "We are disciples OF Jesus" making disciples FOR Jesus is our church Mission Statement and this is something that strives to make us both Teachers and Learners. 

Peter Senge writes (in The Fifth Dimension):

Most of us at one time or another have been part of the greatest team, a group of people who functions together in an extraordinary way – who trusted one another, who complemented one another's strengths and compensated for one another's limitations, who had common goals that were larger than individual goals, and who produced extraordinary results. I have met many people who have experienced this sort of profound teamwork – in sports, or in the performingarts, or in business. Many say that they have spent much of their life looking for that experience again. What they experienced was a learning organisation.  The team that became great didn't start off great – it learned how to produce extraordinary results.

A "learning organisation" is a team that is open to new ideas and willing to learn and it tends to be made up of people who are not only teachable themselves but have come to the realisation that the desire to learn and continue learning will always make us better people. 

One might think that schools, colleges, universities and the like are classic examples of learning organisations but sadly, this is not always true. Box ticking to meet the demands of the latest government idea often drive teachers into cynicism and inertia. When we focus too much on the process we tend to lose sight of what we are really doing and for whose benefit. 

It has been my privilege to meet some wonderful teachers (in and out of schools) and to have the even greater privilege of teaching others. I am immensely proud of my children and now feel able to take some small measure of pride in the contribution Kim and I have made to their development. 

I hope and pray that I never tire of learning, growing and "running with perseverance the race marked out for me". 

I hope I never stop learning. As I pore over another essay for my Master of Ministry course I look up at the plaque on my wall and Michaelangelo's words:

I AM STILL LEARNING