Thinking About Dirt

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
~Plato

I am one of those people with a strong helper personality. It's served me well in the jobs I have had in the past. However, I will confess that my new position really scares me.The trick here is that I'm not working with students any more. In those relationships I was the one with the knowledge and the experience I needed to impart upon them. Now I am working with professionals-people who in some cases have a great deal more education than I do. So how do I go about "helping" these people without coming across as the savior who was brought in to fix their institution? One of the reasons I applied for the job in the first place was the chance to work with this amazing program. It's already so good and staffed by experts in their field. I know I don't have all the answers, but my goal is to make a difference wherever I am.

Earlier this week I attended a conference called "Presentations That Make an Impact." It was developed by Jim Knight who works with KU and does instructional coaching. Despite the large balance now on my credit card, I am so thankful for this opportunity. I learned a great deal but not just about how to present. I learned a lot about people and how to relate to them. One concept really resonated with me. I'd like to share that with you now. The concept is about helping people. In relationships there are 5 truths when it comes to offering assistance. They are:

1. People don't often realize when they need help.
2. People take it personally when you offer help.
3. People have to be involved in creating a solution. If you do the thinking for them they won't engage.
4. If people perceive you as putting yourself one up and them one down, they won't accept assistance. (Think here about men stereotypically not being willing to ask for directions.)
5. Unless people care about the goal, they won't work to achieve it.

What I loved about this notion of helping is that it goes to the heart of who we are as thinking, caring human beings. I love to help others but struggle to ask for help myself. And frequently I don't realize how badly I need help until it's too late. I've also developed a new way of looking at my role at NCCU. At first I thought about how I've struggled for years trying to get students to do what I tell them to do. Because the audience is so different now (i.e. not students) my relationship must be different. No longer am I the teacher, but the facilitator of learning. And then I realized that even when working with students, I need to take these principles into account. No one likes to be told what to do, and people want an opportunity to solve problems for themselves. College students are no different. Given the needed information, they can make informed choices for themselves on how to proceed.

So now my understanding of my new job has shifted. I'm not necessarily here to provide all the answers. We have over 30 people in the University College with many years of experience in a variety of areas. My job is not to control the learning environment but to present information in such a way as to promote the ability to make informed choices about what to do in our profession. How wonderful! We can learn from each other. And how amazing would it be if we took this approach with our students? What if we made them equal contributers to the learning process? What if we gave them choices in they way in which we solve their problems? What if we listened more than we talk to them? Or even at least as much. In order to reach the people we want to help, we must equalibrate the conversation so that all participants have an equal voice. What an amazing world we would have if we all tried to approach each other in this way!

I'm interested to hear your thoughts. What do you think about the principles of helping? Are they realistic in the higher ed environment? And how can we better help our students knowing this? Please post a response below (it can be anonymous). I hate to think I'm having a conversation with myself! :)