Second-person self-awareness
In advice given to prospective students, my former piano teacher, James Boyk, suggests:
I’m not the teacher you want if you want to be passively turned into a pianist and musician instead of actively turning yourself into one.
This statement so concisely and wonderfully conveys my position on education and self-improvement. Its attitude absolutely informs the celebration of cognizance in my writing here, but so far, my suggestions in that regard have been for personal action. There’s a role for others in self-awareness, too: my teacher might expect his students to take ownership of their education, but that doesn’t mean he mentors passively!
The “1 on 1” meetings between employee and manager might strike you as a venue for second-person self-awareness, but these house tremendous opportunity for passivity: generally, the manager suggests how his employee might improve his performance. If only one could achieve mastery simply by following others’ instructions! All we’d have to do is carefully note what our bosses say in those meetings and then execute those directions.
No, I suspect level-jumping changes originate from within. The teacher’s role, then, is to inspire, to provide objectivity, to develop the student’s taste and understanding so he can find his own weaknesses, and to make sure he can find the tools to defeat those weaknesses once he understands them.
Many advocate personal professional journals: every day, write down what you’ve done, what you’re going to do tomorrow, what you could do better. I keep one, and I think they’re a good idea. But, to crib again from Jim, a second-person journal can provide incredible perspective and self-understanding. After every lesson, his students email him a detailed summary of what they’ve done, what they’re going to do, and reflections on the lesson’s contents. He then responds actively to the student’s self-analysis, calling out particularly effective or misguided ideas, and guiding their development. He’s published some examples about halfway down this page.
We exchanged tens of thousands of words in this manner over two years, and I progressed all the more for it. And critically: this practice helped me learn to teach myself—the ultimate goal, since I would be eventually moving away. Now, I just wonder how I can apply this technique to my present pursuits.