Teaching Is The Best Way To Deepen Learning

New year's resolutions aren't something I usually do. However, this year, I did. Maybe it was more of an inspired idea than a resolution. But, it came to me while I was on my daily walk on Kamba farm. The resolution was to give my first agroforestry training right here on the farm.

Out of the Blue

Come August 2022, and I really had not given it much thought. Like with most resolutions, I had practically forgotten it, and did not have it on my mind anymore. Isn't it funny how sometimes the things you let go of come in the most delightful ways?

Well, one day, I get a message from a friend who works with farmers through an NGO. They asked me if I could give a course on pruning to a group of women from the NGO. I didn't have to think for long since teaching farmers to prune sounded exciting. Also, it's one of those extraordinarily tactile and fun activities that I personally love to do on the farm.

Additionally, pruning does not seem to be a core practice for farmers here in India as it is where I come from. Trees here are often slashed rather than properly pruned. Therefore, being able to speak on this subject matter was even more enticing.

The next steps

Having accepted this opportunity to fulfill my resolution, I realized it was time to hit the ground running. I drafted a rough outline of the theoretical content I wanted to share and structured and sequenced it with a few notes.

I know that what I prepared had all the information the farmers would need to understand pruning. However, something was missing. The content was ready, but I didn't want to be the type of teacher standing in front of a white board going on and on. It's not my style. I like to engage, educate and entertain.

Again, the idea came to me out of the blue. Minutes before the group of 10 women arrived from two different NGOs; I was hit by an inspired idea that led to a truly personal experience. The idea was to start the training by sharing their name and their favourite tree in our introduction round.

That idea allowed me to convey my entire content by referring to the list of around 15 of their favourite trees. I even got to know the trees that our farm staff like, which was an added piece of information. Doing the training this way made much more sense than my earlier theoretical preparation.

Through this new, more personal approach, another unexpected but very welcomed insight came to light.

Learning through teaching

During the training, the questions that were asked forced me to clarify some of the content in ways that I had not anticipated. In one case, it even made something clear to me that I had previously not realized.

There's a quote by an American writer and poet, Mark Van Doren that goes, "The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery." I had always presumed it meant assisting discovery in the student, but after this experience, my perception has changed.

Teaching is the best way to ensure that you have understood something thoroughly; that's nothing new. But, to experience it again after quite a long time was an excellent reminder. Also, while teaching you have to make things explicit that you have understood without knowing or rationalizing why.

The training session with the women made me feel like myself. I wasn't just the teacher; I was one of the participants and had learned more than I could have dreamed of just by passing on my own knowledge.

Do it all over again

There is no doubt in my mind that this will not be the last of such training sessions. Agroforestry is a vast topic, and I'm eager to impart whatever knowledge I have and learn from each interaction.

I think the following Chinese proverb sums up the whole experience the best: If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.

Not sure what plans will unfold for me next, but I'm game for sowing rice, planting trees and educating people!