A teacher’s journey — the zone of unconscious competence.

A teacher’s journey — the zone of unconscious competence.

As a teacher I have heard myself say a 100 times to my emergent readers as to how important it is to learn to read like an expert and experience that joy of expertise. It is not about sounding like an expert to the external world. It is about the practice and effort and the feeling of becoming an expert from within. It is this feeling that silently helps them progress in life, the art of journeying through ups and downs of conscious competence and reaching a stage of unconscious competence. The conscious competence learning model is certainly one of the most definite routes to finding that deep truth hidden within ourselves, from our soul.

As someone who enjoys driving, a skill that I have developed to some kind of expertise over 2 decades, the rare moments when I found something more than happiness , rather an unexplainable sense of absolute raw emotion vibrating at the highest frequency of living, was when I drove effortlessly. It has become an involuntary part of my muscles in the body and brain. There is something that emanates from the deepest part of the being that comes with reaching that level of excellence with repeated practice, success, failures and sheer resilience.

Today I am asking myself , what will it look like to live life like an expert? Trust in the process, remind myself to stay calm, feel secure. Even on the days I don’t feel these I tell myself that is is just a milestone in the journey. Hence not regretting the past but rewiring to look at them as opportunities to learn and celebrate the learning of failing,falling, trying even if that means I do not see the rising immediately. This means not worrying about the future for it is not the grandiose outcome but thriving the commute.

Moving towards this zone is definitely one of the most addictive forms of human engagement. But what about my reader seeing letters that are flying, my student with autism who is struggling to regulate his body.. The journey for some of us in some spheres can be long, but as teachers we can support them by setting achievable targets, setting them up for success through small, minute and even micro steps. This might need a different language, a different medium and most importantly trust within us to trust them.

I am developing the expertise to show them that everyone fails, but the story is just beginning with that and it is this endless loop that is going to take us into the realm of our true nature. This is the biggest service that I can do to myself and my world of tiny beings. Support them to experience and taste this pure emotion.I have stopped using erasers in my class. I tell my students to take pride in editing their work with their favourite color pen and take pride in the new learning and retain that along with their final draft and showcase those work that might look shabby to the others but that which depicts the originality of the struggles, the learnings and the betterment with confidence. I am promising myself to do my best. I have to model this great secret of living to my students and inspire them to do their best and live through the bliss of that best, which they get to define through their flaws, perfections, tears and laughter.

Today I take a vow to become an expert teacher who supports her students to move through these zones and help them navigate through these phases with patience, care and compassion acknowledging not just their strengths but their needs, and the entire spectrum of feelings including doubt, confusion, shame and sadness. And I hope to stay with each one of them in their zones.

What if one of them needs to stay in a phase for a longer time? Will I be able to support them? The expertise that I will have to develop is clearly to help them support themselves, a journey that would require me to dive deeper, scaffold these, empower them, we try and we keep trying and I will stay in this loop of trying as a teacher and as a human who is beginning to discover this magic.