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What my students taught me

The trouble with calling us "teachers" is that it implies our purpose is to teach. 
Not necessarily to inspire learning. 

The trouble with calling them "students" is that it implies their purpose is to study. 
Not necessarily to be inspired with learning. 

But teachers can't teach what we don't know. 
And in this life, no one can know everything.
Or anything really. 
At least, not anything worth knowing. 
We can preach and we can assess but that's not truly teaching. 

And students won't study what they don't care about. 
And in this society, no one cares about everything. 
Or anything really. 
At least, not anything we "teach" in school. 
They can memorize and they can test but that's not the same as learning. 

So what if the teachers stopped trying to teach? 
Because there's more to life than what any one person can learn, so there's more to knowing than what any one person teach. 
And that's the scary thing about teaching. 

And what if students stopped trying to study? 
Because there's so much in life that any one person can learn, and there's so much knowing that they might discover if we let them. 
And that's the exciting thing about learning. 

But if teachers are so busy teaching, and students are so busy studying, there's not much time left for learning. Or living. Or loving either one. 

What if we just tried learning together? Exploring the world, enjoying the world, enriching the world around us. 

What if there were no teachers and no students? 

What if we were all just learners?

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