Genuine Authenticity: Thoughts about Yearners and Schoolers

Yearners and Schoolers, by Seymour Papert is a great paper with a lousy title. It outlines, literally outlines, the way that a teacher should find and use their own style while teaching and communicating in general. I would like to point out and comment on a few points that particularly spoke to me.

First, half way through the first paragraph the author writes ” You must work to discover who you are.” Through my own life I have realized that the “work” that must be done to discover yourself is service to others. For me, this service has happened in both volunteer and paid capacities. It was times when I was truly “present” for the people that I was with and focused on their hopes and needs instead of my own (for a change). It reminds me of a quote from D. Todd Christofferson. He said “The more we serve [others] in appropriate ways the more substance there is to our souls, we become more substantive as we serve others. Indeed, it becomes easier to find ourselves because there is so much more of us to find.” Discovering who you are, in opposition to popular opinion, does not come from focusing on yourself. Instead, counter-intuitively, it comes by focusing on others. I’ll post a link below to the video that I heard this quote from.

Second, in the second paragraph it says “it is good to adapt techniques that best conform to our individual style and authentic teaching self.” I have learned from personal experience that it is best to observe the way someone else does something, mimic as closely as possible, and once the basic concepts are understood, adding your own style to make it yours (sorry this sentence was so general). “Conformity” has become a dirty word in the modern era, and in many ways, conformity is toxic. Still, if you are consciously conforming in order to make improvements it isn’t bad.

Finally, the last item that I would like to comment on is in Section I.A.1 which simply says “Be genuine”. We live in a time where people idolize others to the point where they begin to lose parts of their own identity. People are increasing losing the ability to generate original thoughts. They act their way through life, trying to be the person that they think others want them to be. I find that I am happiest when I am striving to be the best person that I know I can be. This is my genuine self. It isn’t my natural, current self, but it the best version of me and I’m working hard to get there.