How We Learn

           One of the most startling experiences I had as a trainer was the day a white supremacist attended one of my classes. In fact, it was the one about cross-cultural customer care, and dollars to doughnuts he wasn’t there by choice. Chances are good his boss he required him to be there.

            Nor did he come in wearing a badge that said, “White supremacist / misogynist,” but by his remarks and behaviors, it was a safe bet to assume he was made to be that way.

I had a feeling he’d linger after class, and sure enough he did, because by then it was obvious even to him that his attitudes were offensive to the others. No one sought him out for conversation; when he spoke you could hear the eyes rolling in the room.

            He was intrigued that my classroom rules included “Speak as an ally” and “There’s no such thing as a dumb question.”

He began our conversation by saying, “I know I come off as a conservative right wing nut, but my dad was much worst.”

His personal story was sad to me—made sadder by the conviction he felt his dad did what any good father should do: require his son learn to dominate women and children, learn to shoot guns because all masculine men should enjoy killing, and learn to assert his own value by denigrating others who appear different. Any challenge or disagreement was met with physical blows and derision by the old man.

He chuckled indulgently and derisively about gays and lesbians, shook his head over the failings of other races, and prided himself on having his wife “under control.” (He praised the Chinese, probably because I was the only other person in the room with him).

After 9/11, knowing himself to be too old, he called up his old Marine sargeant and begged to re-up: “Please let me kill some Muslims.”

When that was not possible, he cheerfully took a job with a local penitentiary as a guard, where he felt repurposed in protecting the rest of us against some of the “human faeces” under his watchful eye.

Finally there was a pause and he seemed to be asking, “So what do you think of that?”

I’d seen white supremacists mouthing off in TV documentaries but, set apart and alone, free to speak as an individual, I found him more pitiful than repellent.

“I know the jail must be chaotic,” I said, “but you must feel your life is so boring and closed off.”

He was silent so I got the feeling he was considering it.

“It must take a great deal of effort to maintain all the things you believe in,” I said, “and it must get in the way of any learning which for me is where all the fun is in life.”

“Aw yeah, lifelong learning, I got all that,” he waved his hand.

“That includes learning from other people.”

I broached the idea that each person is a walking collection of stories, and that learning should be like lighting small fires of imagination, versus filling a human vessel. If you think you can learn that way, no one is beneath or above you.

Not sure if he bought any of it.

We live in a period of impatience, incivility, and strife-ridden civil discourse, further enabled by social media and e-mail. Depending on who you’re with, if you don’t ape the attitudes of the prescribed Democrat or Republican, you risk social disapproval. I’m not sure when it became more important to “win” by converting or kicking down the next guy, than by simply taking the time to hear them out.

Under these conditions, learning becomes a risky venture because you have to first navigate the minefield of social ouster. Small wonder I’ve found most people speak most freely when with like-minded others, but we learn more in settings were differences abound. It’s just that no one’s making it safe to be in disagreement.

Our most gifted teachers use humor, laughter, and game-playing to engage children in learning something risky and new. In order to learn, we have to make ourselves vulnerable and demonstrate how much we don’t know, so of course our questions will seem dumb. By leavening the lump, these teachers are saying, “Who cares? Glad you asked.” Mistakes are made more freely, enabling more learning.

All I know is, it would not have increased my own humanity if I’d insulted that white supremacist for being what he is, at a point when he was asking to learn.