Dr. Jenny Gordon on LinkedIn always writes thought provoking posts and in a post, she asked about the mantra’s we go by to help us be ourselves.
So, being who I am, I thought about the people I train or come by on a day-to-day basis and went off on an off-topic ramble which went like this…
‘…I hate it when people call themselves stupid or call other people stupid, (particularly if they don’t know something that the insulter thinks is general knowledge-which is rarely life changing anyway). I always say, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know until you do know’. It applies also to so called ‘Common sense’ as what is common sense to one person, is a learning curve for another…’
I deleted this on my response to Jenny’s post and now, here I am because this led me on to thinking. On what pedestal does one need to be on to be in a position of such judgement that one can call other people, ‘Stupid’ and what is common sense anyway?
It’s an incredibly judgemental and deprecating thing to call someone that and you would have to be pretty flawless…no you would need to be ABSOLUTELY flawless… to be able to get away with calling someone stupid.
I remember reading an article about a young father who spotted his 4-year-old playing with a snake with a stick. Without thinking, he grabbed the snake and threw it away but not before the snake, which was an adder, bit him and he wound up in hospital for a few days being treated for the bite.
Having read this, I went onto the ‘Readers Comments’ (which over the years have become more and more venomous in themselves).
Half of the comments called him stupid and threw in the ‘Common sense’ line whilst the other half of the comments had no idea that in the UK there were venomous snakes. Well, they do now! But if you have never been told or taught this, how would you have known?
As far as I know, we only have one venomous snake in the UK, which is the Adder, but I am happy to be corrected on this.
I can only think of one thing worse than being called stupid and that’s feeling it.
No one should be made to feel stupid and being in a training room (or remote learning) learners can feel exposed and vulnerable, particularly if they haven’t had a great time at school (no matter how many years ago that was). But they should not feel fearful of being laughed at or made to feel stupid in front of all their peers. For some learners, showing off their knowledge is something they are keen to do, for others, it takes a lot of courage to participate and will only do so if they trust the trainer and their peers to be respectful.
As a trainer, you can gain that trust by treating everyone with equal importance and reminding yourself, and them, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know, until you do know’
I have yet to meet a stupid person.