I love the thought of celebrating our teachers.We all learn, first by imitation and then by inspiration. We take tools that others have created before us and put them together in creative combinations that suit our new needs. And often we find it hard to admit that learn from others. Does it really matter where we get our inspiration from or who we have been imitating? To me what matters is that we can be inspired. Amongst the things we learn is the need to be original, but honestly, how many people do you know that have invented something that didn’t exist before, entirely from scratch? Mostly we improve what others have created before us.Others inspire us whether we accept it or not, this is because we are social beings and imitation is part of what makes it possible for us to be social. What’s to celebrate in all this is the inclusion of others in our experiences and the acknowledgement that essentially everything we do is possible because we include others in what we do.We all follow the footsteps of those before us and leave a path behind us. Often we leave behind a path well trodden by others and more often the path we tread will not be named after us, it will just be improved by those who walk in our footsteps.
Celebrating our teachers is cultivating our relational capacities, like love and friendship. It also encourages learning and creativity rather than the hunger to be approved by others.
