Teaching as Vocation—Part I: The “Flow” of Teaching

The following excerpts of David’s upcoming book, Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach: Reflections on Education as Transformation through Dialogue (Summer, 2014), are used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

In the course of finalizing a series of autobiographical reflections for my upcoming book, I had a dream that was illuminating for me.

“I am Going to Enjoy This.”

I have been retired for several years now. And I have not done any teaching during that time. In my dream, I had been invited to go somewhere to give an informal talk or lecture in a lounge at some unidentified seminary institution. I was pleased to be doing it.

However, I was worried that too few people would show up, concerned that it might not be worthwhile for the school to have invited me. But I was reassured as I walked down the hall when I saw about 30 or so people moving into the lounge area, some I recognized from seminary. And I thought this to myself: “I am going to enjoy this. When I taught before is when I experienced ecstasy.” Then I woke up.

The Ecstasy of Teaching?

Actually, ecstasy is a word that does indeed make some sense when I think about my experiences as a teacher. I am not talking about ecstatic experiences where one seems to be outside oneself with incredible joy and the thrill of life. That kind of ecstatic experience would overwhelm me as a teacher (not that I do not relish them when they happen); and, frankly, it would overwhelm students and stifle the learning process with an ocean of emotion. Rather, I am talking about a quiet ecstasy that relishes the interaction among the participants in the learning process in experiences of meaningful dialogue, mutual questing, insight, laughter, and transformation.

I have had moments in which I would stop and become deeply aware of my joy, and I would spontaneously say to the class, “You know, I would not sooner to be anywhere else, with any other people, doing any other thing, at any other time, than I am with you, right here, right now.”

Maybe ecstasy is not quite the right word. After all, the word does literally mean to “stand outside” oneself. By contrast, what I am speaking about is a matter of being fully within oneself. It is embodiment in and as myself in relation to who and what is around me—being wholly present in that time and place. It is being embodied in relation to all the other embodied persons in the room as well as the material surroundings and the cultural ethos.

The Flow Experience

Maybe the best way to explain it is with the concept of “flow.” A University of Chicago researcher, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, studied sports figures regarding those optimal occasions when there is an incredible synchronicity between the archer and the bow and the arrow, the target, and the entire context in which the event occurs (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience).

Most sports people talk about it as being “in the zone” or being “unconscious,” when everything seems to flow in an incredibly natural, creative, flawless, and almost un-self-conscious way. It is critical to note that one is “in the zone” only occasionally. After years of persistent practice and play, there come times when it seems as if the body is perfectly attuned to perform at a level not usually experienced and with the greatest of ease. One cannot conjure up these moments. They just happen.

Characteristics of Flow

I think the same can be true for teaching. You spend many class periods when you are living and open to have such flow. You read widely, prepare class plans, give lectures, facilitate discussions, give feedback on papers, grade exams, and advise students. And all of it is a kind of low-level flow, wherein there is deep satisfaction for what is happening.

Then there are those intermittent times when it all seems to come together in a concatenation of interactions in which you are inseparable from the seamless web of what is taking place, and everyone seems to be caught up in a zone of the human spirit that transcends the ordinary.

In these moments, each of us seems capable of saying and doing unexpected things we had not experienced before. And they seem to be just the right things to say and do in that moment.

Transcendent Teaching

Although I don’t “work” for those moments, I nevertheless look for those moments. As I said, they cannot be contrived or manipulated or forced. One can only seek to create the conditions for them to happen. And when they come, I am on high alert, eager to keep the interaction at this level for as long as possible.

Sometimes I will begin to share on a subject in a way that transcends my normal conversation in class, and I try to bring the class along with me into it. Sometimes a student will say something that seems to reach down to a deeper level of sharing that potentially goes plunging into the subject at a different level or that seems to go beyond the subject at hand to some matter of human significance. I can think of a few specific words practically blurted out by students:

•  “Why won’t anyone take my illness seriously as a marginalized social location?”
• “This book we read has led me to dramatically change political perspective. I am not the same person I was last week.”
• “Wait, stop, you’re presenting way too many challenging ideas for this class to handle at one time.”
•  “I feel emasculated by this conversation about the liberation of women. Why do I have to be put down to raise others up?”
• “That was racist comment you (another student) made; take it back”
• “I’m a Christian and I know what I believe, I don’t care what the Gospel of Mark says.”

These comments have the potential to dive down deep with the whole class and stay there awhile. There is a lot to unpack and the issues matter to the students. Often the comments shock the whole class into a new level of attentiveness—in which something special can happen.

Cultivating Flow

Immediately, when something like this happens, I linger and seek to maintain that depth as long as possible. I may try to name the significance of the comment for the rest of the class. I may invite the speaker to say more or invite others in the class to share what they are thinking and feeling.

Then I listen very carefully. In these moments, silence and openness are often my best allies. I am acutely alert to the dynamics of the whole class, even though I will usually let the class go on its own for a quite a while. I try to bring everyone into the zone of interaction. At these times, I need to know “when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em,” when to speak and when to listen, and what to say so that everyone stays in that space and everyone’s words are honored.

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