Why You Should Always Be a Student

There is a path to enlightenment in studentship.

 

Anyone who has ever participated in a class or course of study wherein they were earnestly attempting to learn something has known a state of humble curiosity.

Perhaps because it is typically accompanied by the awkwardness of a neophyte, this state of mind hasn’t been treated as enlightened as it really is. If we could approach every conversation with the deference and willingness to learn of a student, we would not only learn more than others but be supremely agreeable.

There is a perfection in the student’s humility and open-mindedness reminiscent much more of mastery than of apprenticeship, so that any master should strive to be eternally a tyro.

Epictetus wrote about Socrates’s student-like humility:

For remember that thus Socrates also universally avoided all ostentation. And when persons came to him, and desired to be introduced by him to philosophers, he took them and introduced them; so well did he bear being overlooked.

Moreover, the student is the best teacher. The “teaching effect” has become a popular topic. This effect describes how we concretize our understanding of a subject by teaching it to another. Through the process of making our knowledge on a subject simple and organized enough to be communicated, we refine our understanding of it. However, there is a deeper power for advancing our knowledge in the student: It is in asking questions.

A well-placed “why” can open up a universe of new revelations. Asking “why” has always been the key to all locked doors. Any who bless us by trying to learn from us, give us the most powerful form of teaching available. A truly gifted teacher would have their students teach them.

Mastery is overrated; be always a student.