Following Directions

As educators, we sometimes mistrust the learning journey. We are uncomfortable with the unknown in learning because, in school, we learned that the path to succeed in life is through structure, compliance, and following directions. These elements are one way to learn, but not the only way.

Always following directions tell us there is only one correct answer. In practice, directions guide the beginning of a learning journey. Directions are the road signs in the process of exploration, discovery, and transformation, even though we may think of directions as the fuel to learning. As the education process evolved, directions became normalized as the only way to learn something. Giving and following directions also became the pathway to judge another person's learning capability.

Some people like directions to begin and support their learning journey. They enjoy the structure of knowing where to go next. Other people want to explore an unknown path of learning that engages in exploration to find where the individual can grow from where they started.

Trusting the learning journey is trusting ourselves and believing we can do the work, explore our questions, and make discoveries. In the search for answers, many ideas will not work, but the lessons we learn along the way will help us grow as learners. Our ability to grow and learn with others comes from understanding the purpose of directions and how they fit into educators' lives.