Years ago, while enrolled in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Kansas State University, I learned the concept of ‘each one teach one’. It’s a principle which promotes the idea that individuals can make a positive impact by sharing learned knowledge to help each other learn. In short: if you learn something, teach it to someone else.
Later in life I saw this principle used in various fields I worked in: with service staff during my time in hospitality management in NYC, alongside ReSurge International surgeons in Asia while on documentary assignments, and more recently with university students during my time teaching here in Italy.
In these modern times where so much information seems so easily accessible to everyone, it can often be easier to just say “look it up, or Google it”. I believe we’re slowly turning into a society where we just expect people to ‘do their own research’ and get the information on their own somehow. Or perhaps worse, when we realize they don’t have that knowledge, we think less of them or exclude them simply because “they should know”. I challenge you to step away from that mindset.
Try to spend more time with people who have a hunger for knowledge. Answer their questions, no matter how banal or naive they may seem to you. Don’t leave willing, open minds to their own devices to find the answers they seek, especially young ones.
YOU be the one that teaches one.
Fidel Everywhere 