The Greek root meaning of the word “educate” is ‘to lead out’. Socrates (via Plato) spoke about learning coming from within, from the soul, saying that an educator’s job was to help a person find the learning already there inside, and to help the person bring it out into the world. In this same vein, Socrates saw himself as “midwife” to the truth. He believed that truth is born from genuine inquiries, questions, and open-ended curiosity about life.
I had the good fortune, many years ago, to be involved with an educational program for young people, Philosophy for Children, through which we helped K-12 children and young people reason about their ideas, thoughts, and beliefs, encouraging both critical and creative thinking skills. The teacher’s role was to facilitate the discussion, opening up questions, asking for reasons, sometimes noting inconsistencies and/or contradictions. It was not to fill young minds with that teacher’s favorite thoughts or answers to the questions being pursued. As result, I got to hear all kinds of ideas being tried out by young minds (which might otherwise not have seen the light of day). Lucky me!
I remember a time of working with a 5th grade class (in a Seattle public school). One day, we were talking about the difference between the mind and the brain. Some thought they were the same. Others thought it wasn’t so simple. After talking about it for awhile, with students offering different views on the subject, one 10 year old boy suddenly said, ‘I’ve got it! it’s like a fish tank!’ ‘Oh reeeally,’ I said, ‘can you tell us more?’ ‘Yes,’ he said with happy confidence, ‘the tank is the brain, the water is the mind, and the fish are the thoughts!’ Okaayy, wow, bingo! We all thought that was pretty cool, and I’ve never forgotten it. To add, another little boy (new to the US, having grown up in India) then quickly countered with, ‘no, no, no, the mind is bigger than the brain…the brain and everything else is inside the mind!’ I never forgot that either.
So what has this got to do with Psychology? Everything!
It seems to me that therapists, counselors, coach-practitioners (like myself) should be trying mostly to help draw things out of/from their client’s deepest core resources, not put things in. Granted this may take some work of clearing away what is clouding the issue and/or no longer useful. However, the basic point is, each of us is unique and while we all need support, help, and at times removal of accumulated debris, no one knows us better than we know ourselves! It’s just that most of us have never been encouraged to tune into this self-knowing potential. From day one, we are filled up by everything and everyone else, so much so that we often lose track of how to start again to locate what is inside us, our most intimate and enduring depths, faithfully waiting. I guarantee, we knew something about this as children, we just didn’t always know we knew!
So, here’s to the containment of tanks, the flow of water, and the variety of fish within all of us (and all within Brahman containing the all and everything of everything that ever was)!
