HEAR To Make You Think?

Hear To Make You Think

Last January, I had the opportunity to serve as an adjunct professor at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. I was responsible for educating 11 young men and women that took the course: Service in a Cross-Cultural Setting, Cultural Barriers to Social Justice, Milwaukee which was better known as CCS-300.  Leading up to the class, many individuals shared with me that this was always a course that was difficult to teach since many students put the course off until their junior or senior year and came in with preconceived notions. This part was not foreign to me because the truth of the matter is, we all have preconceived notions that create our schemas, better known as our biases.


At the beginning of the first class, I stated to them that "I am not here to change you, I am here to make you think?" Just for a point of reference, I always add a question mark after the word think because I believe that thinking requires a strong ability to ask questions. I believed firmly in this ideology because change is often the byproduct of challenges that lead to shifts in paradigms or belief systems. Maya Angelou once stated, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." This can only happen through deliberate and intentional thinking.

Thinking is the catalyst of change that allows us to challenge the status quo. Here are six themes that stood out to me from John Maxwell's book, How Successful People Think.

1) Remember that people want what was, not what can be. (10)

2) If you want to become a good thinker then start preparing yourself for the possibility of becoming unpopular. (83)

3) Popular thinking loves the status quo. It puts its confidence in the idea of the moment, and holds on to it with all its might. As a result, it resists change and dampens innovation. (86)

4) Sharp people sharpen one another, just as iron sharpens iron. If you want to be a sharp thinker, be around sharp people. (XII)

5) Reflective thinking enables you to distance yourself from the intense emotions of particularly good or bad experiences and see them with fresh eyes. (73)

6) Good thinking is hard work. If it were easy, everybody would be a good thinker. Unfortunately, many people try to live life the easy way. They don't want to do the hard work of thinking or pay the price of success. It's easier to do what other people do and hope that they thought it out. (83)

CCS-300 was a huge success for me. Many of my students encouraged me to teach a four-credit course or at a minimum teach this course again because I challenged their way of thinking. I was able to bring first-hand accounts of various Cultural Barriers to Social Justice and they decided to shift their belief systems. This was accomplished by creating a learning environment that accepted differences of opinions but challenged conventional stereotypes and belief systems. The students engaged in philosophical debates where they were responsible for creating an equitable system that would promote social justice.

The class mantra of, I am not here to change you, I am here to make you think stuck with me. I decided to apply it openly in all arenas I ventured into. My mother shared that this did not come as a surprise to her, because as a child, I always asked questions and sought the purpose behind all actions. It is no surprise to me that my daughters are very similar. A special group of educators, that I had the pleasure of working with, shared with me that I taught them how to think critically. Rumor has it, that they would rehearse the potential questions I would ask with other educators prior to a meeting. The true power in this level of thinking was their ability to refrain from solving adaptive problems with technical solutions.

Welcome to my updated blog site, HEAR To Make You Think? HEAR is a play on words. I believe change comes when we embrace the opportunity to have our paradigms challenged by truly hearing what people have to say. Paradigms that have been challenged/shifted require us to decide on a course of action. That decision is yours, and yours alone. For that reason, I could not think of any better way to relaunch my blog than beginning with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Thank you for HEARing me and remember, I Am Not Here To Change You, I Am HEAR To Make You Think?

Sources

Maxwell, J. C. (2009). How successful people think: Change your thinking, change your life.