The first days of class are what I remember best from my time teaching. Covering syllabi, mispronouncing names on the roll, trying to wrap up early to build goodwill with my students.

The first days of class are what I remember best from my time teaching. Covering syllabi, mispronouncing names on the roll, trying to wrap up early to build goodwill with my students. I rarely knew any of them yet.

At the beginning I focused on orientation —not only of students to the subject, but also of students and myself to each other. Getting to know my students activated me as a teacher. I wasn’t really useful to them until I could assess where they were and where they needed to get to.

I’m not a teacher anymore, but I still love teaching. In fact, that’s what our team’s latest project — a new marketing website — was all about.

We’ve made sites detailing what Pathwright can do before, but they started to feel like dry lectures. This time, we tried to understand better both where our customers are and where they’d like to go. In other words, we practiced being teachers. Online education is tough to get your head around, so we outlined the three (only three!) steps involved. What Pathwright can do is only important when it helps you do what you need to do.

I’m not sure if helping you understand your journey (whether you become a Pathwright customer or not) is what you’d expect to find on our front page, but I hope it’s what you actually need. We committed to that approach and launched the new site last week. Check it out if you’re curious.

This project left me thinking, “What else am I working on that’s a teaching project in disguise?” I’m starting to see chances to help folks learn everywhere. And, more humblingly, I’m seeing lots of areas where I need to be taught myself.

Conveying anything new is still teaching, no matter the medium, just as learning is still learning even outside the classroom. The topic is almost inconsequential—what matters more is where someone needs to get to. Helping them just takes observing where they are and finding their path to the next place with them.

What are you working on right now that could put you in the teacher’s seat?

Before you read this, pause and take a look at everything you’ve learned in the past month. …and done? Of course not.

Before you read this, pause and take a look at everything you’ve learned in the past month.

👀 Take a close look at what you’ve learned…

Of course not. Unless you’re an unusually studious and visually-oriented notetaker there’s nothing for you put your eyeballs on and look at. We humans haven’t come up with a way to visually show a learning journey.

But if there were a way to look back at a learning journey, or to look forward at what we want to learn next, what shape would it be in?

This may come as a surprise, but at Pathwright, we think learning looks most like a path. As a path, learning is…

Connected: No matter how spontaneous it seems in the moment, everything we learn is connected to something we’ve previously learned — like steps in a path.

Active: Real learning happens when we reflect, apply, and act not just watch and read. Passively absorbing content without action is like sitting on a path enjoying the view and going nowhere.

Progressive: Learning doesn’t really happen in giant leaps or light bulb moments. Learning happens as we struggle step-by-step towards a destination and make discoveries along the way.

Meandering: Learning isn’t like a highway fading straight into the horizon or like a neat grid of city streets. Learning is more like a connected series of winding paths we stumble on, explore around, and even carve our own paths from.

Communal: Paths are best taken with others and learning happens best with other people.

Whenever I’m teaching, thinking of learning as a path helps me remember a few core principles:

Every new idea or concept must be connected and built on a previous one. It’s impossible to teach someone something entirely new.

Paths are best taken together. How can I encourage “togetherness” even if I’m teaching online, at a distance?

Learning is active, not passive. Watching and reading doesn’t move people forward unless it’s acted upon.

As a teacher, I’m primarily a guide that helps people choose the right path and arrive safely at their destination.

As a course designer, I’m primarily a path maker (or “pathwright”) who creates a path through the chaos of information and ideas that I and others can guide people down.

The true shape of learning is a path — not a syllabus, a classroom, or a video playlist. As teachers, our primary job is to make paths and guide people along them.

Everything Is a Teaching Thing

The Shape of Learning

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