Transformative Power

My dad is an innovator. He thinks hard and fast, he fails and learns quickly, he solves problems with rigour and passion.

He’s always been a tinkerer. A skilled craftsman who can whip up marvellous creations at the drop of a hat to solve problems around the home. All he needs is a free day, a garage full of carefully organised tools and his trusty ute to ferry bibs and bobs from the hardware store.

As a kid, I remember watching him intently, how he worked. I still do. He murmurs to himself, hand-draws plans and measures twice, cuts once. He has his nuances, his rituals, his mantras. He knows himself as a learner.

His face lights up when a new project arises. He squints his eyes, looks up and around as he ponders and voices possibilities out loud. When he hits the pinnacle of his thinking, he squints his eyes again, looks intently, uses his hands to gesture perfection and then he starts creating.

My dad is a deeply committed and focused learner. He can fail and learn fast, he’s self-aware and he’s confident in his abilities. He collaborates in the ideas phase, often needing to voice his ideas and share his grand plans before diving into ‘the zone’ and tinkering in isolation. His deep curiosity drives his speed; he’s hungry to solve, to create, to innovate and there’s no stopping him once he gets started. He learns in an innate way.

He’s a divergent thinker, my dad. He runs two small businesses that arose out of his innovation. I wonder if his teachers ever noticed this quality in him at school; did they really see him, hear his ideas or really know him. I wonder about how his experience might have been different if he was looked at with Believing Eyes; if his skills were harnessed rather than left unseen.

My dad attended the local boys grammar school at a time when a new narrative wasn’t even a blip on the horizon. He tells me he ‘did okay’ at school but didn’t really enjoy it. He was likely The Curious Child who poked and prodded in the times when you were supposed to be silent and compliant. After school, he followed the expected path and got a job but it wasn’t until his early 30s that he left the mundane behind and started his first business employing his innovative mind.

When I was at university and then when teaching in the classroom, I often thought of my dad and his learning. The way it ignites his soul. I still do. He is what I aspire to reveal in learners, that authentic thirst and hidden voice. Through reflecting on myself and my dad as learners, I have come to appreciate more deeply how valuable being seen is. There's such power in being seen and heard, for it is then that we might be transformed. It is then that we might begin to tell ourselves a different story about ourselves; a new Narrative Identity might begin to emerge.