I have a theory. It’s a little convoluted, so stay with me now. The basic idea is this: You never really know how much you know until you are in charge and someone on your crew screws up. Then you figure out if you have your stuff together or if you have no clue. Because if someone on your crew screws up, you have to explain to them why what they did was a mistake, and how to correct it in the future. And if you don’t get it, you won’t be able to explain it to them either.
Allow me to explain through an example. As I have mentioned, I work during the summer at a venue called Celebrate Brooklyn! as the lighting director. However, when I started there I was an intern, and really knew nothing about the lighting industry. I mean, I thought I knew what I was doing, but really I had no clue. Well, I guess that’s not quite accurate either. I had a pretty good understanding of what was going on, and I had a fairly solid grasp on the design aspect of lighting and production. My real shortcoming came in practical application and technical ability.
So my first summer out at the park I made a lot of mistakes. And I mean a lot. It really felt like everything I did was wrong and that I would never be able to get things together. Fortunately for me, I worked for some really great people. My boss (the guy who was the lighting director at the time) was patient, attentive, and helpful. He always made sure that not only did I understand what I was supposed to do, but the reason why and the logic behind why I was doing it. He made sure to teach me so that in the future I would be able to handle it on my own without his direct guidance. Even the crew heads of the other departments made sure to take time to teach me and help me learn about their aspects of the production. I can honestly say I learned more at Celebrate Brooklyn! than any other place, save my training at college.
My third summer at the park I was made the Lighting Director (and the guy who used to be the LD was made the Production Manager/Designer). It wasn’t the first time that I had been put in charge of a crew of people, nor was it the first time I had to manage inexperienced people. It was, however, the largest and longest running production I’d ever been put in charge of. And, since CB! relies heavily on intern labor, it was also the first time that I was expected to actually teach the inexperienced crew members, rather than just manage around them. I had to make sure that these kids, most of whom had just graduated high school, knew what they were doing and by the end of the summer at least had a basic understanding of how to work in this type of production.
I’m not going to claim I’m the best teacher or always most patient one, but I really did try to make sure that my interns knew what was going on and understood why we did things the way we did them. I tried to make sure they could recognize their mistakes and understand why they were mistakes, and how they could avoid them in the future. Most of the mistakes they would make were small, and simple to correct. However, every now and then they would really screw the pooch on something and I would have to work very hard to correct things. I won’t go into the mistakes at this point, but suffice it to say some of those foul ups were…well, they were doosies. Like, really. Wow. Sometimes I would wonder if they had ever listened to a word I’d said.
Anyway, the point is, sometimes when they screwed up they would be able to correct it themselves. Other times I would have to correct it for them. Either way though, I always had to have the answer (even if it meant I had to take a second to go look it up myself and pretend I knew all along), and always had to be able to explain the situation to them so that they understood why what they did was a problem and how they could avoid it in the future. If I couldn’t explain it to them, then they wouldn’t learn anything from it. Or if I just did it for them without explaining it to them, they wouldn’t learn anything from it either.
But during this process, I really began to realize how much I knew. If they hadn’t made those mistakes, I would never needed to explain it to them. And if I never needed to explain it to them, I never would have realized how well I understood the concepts myself. Additionally, it really clarified to me which concepts I didn’t understand very well myself, and which concepts I only barely understood.
So I guess I have a side point: I really like teaching. First I like it because I really enjoy helping other people learn, especially when it’s a topic I am passionate about it. Second, I like it because I teach myself in the process.
Maybe I should go into teaching…
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“
~Fizz
