The truth is I'm not sure I care enough about the welfare of students. I found myself employing the Socratic method with trainees since I really feel that the stronger students need to learn to think for themselves. As far as other strategies I'm not sure I have many names for them or would even begin to know what they actually did in terms of allowing people to learn more easily than what is already out there. Basically, if people are going to really master a network of thinking where they are in contact with many people, they need to learn to ask better questions, of the people they are servicing, of themselves. Then there is the whole trial and error method. But I guess it's a harsh self-indictment to say I don't care at all, and probably not true. But you learn the value of detachment quite quickly, of detaching from someone who maybe might not be grasping a particular subject matter. You can learn so much from the way that people react to their own mistakes, their own swirling feelings of helplessness in the process of trying to force the benefits of repetition upon themselves.
What seems more uncomfortable rather may simply be the growing pains of having to watch emotionally those people who are not quick to apply new knowledge quickly. Like watching those cute little mice in a maze going down the same path thinking that they will find the same reward even though they have already had that reward removed from them on other occasions. There is that internal battle that I go through frequently imagining that I am at the root of their demise. I didn't point out the correct information or place the proper tools in their way for learning to occur. If I had been clearer, perhaps they wouldn't be so confused, etc. So you try to find other methods, separate approaches that might stimulate their ability to see what is already there. Plato/Socrates believed that the answers are innate, that they are already apparent to the student, so that it remains the burden of both the student & teacher to illuminate the truth within. No matter how philosophical we get with it. All this mention of learning disability throws a knuckle-curve into the Platonic model simply because sometimes people fall victim to the delusion that they have blocks to learning that cannot be removed, and that they have to work around them, and if they can't it's because they are predisposed to not gaining any understanding. Hence, learned helplessness.
But I am not even remotely that far in that process for anything like that to be conclusive. Not even close, they have the entire industry being blown into their faces successively and they are expected to swallow the entire basket of tricks within weeks. It didn't happen for me like that and I seriously didn't think I would be employed there nearly as long as I was. Sometimes, I still begin to think that it is an entire miracle I was ever passed into the next phase of development but they kept seeing to it that I show up on their doorsteps, ready to work through another day.
The fact of the matter it always seems that when I ask people why they don't like to learn they say they just don't have the time nor patience. It seems patience is the one virtue on which people are short, that and resilience. Ask anybody if they play chess and they will likely tell you it's too hard or that they don't understand the rules. SO it stands to reason that if they don't understand the rules, and can't get beyond the reality that there are rules at all, they will seldom even attempt to play the game.

I met a guy the other day who collects rubies. And opals. Just goes out to various rock quarry sites and finds larger gemstones-- he says-- and stashes them unto himself. I was taken aback by the fact that he brought them in to show me. You always wonder if someone is fibbing you or if you're talking to a guy sitting on a well, ruby mine... I mean if he's got these stones in his possession but hasn't done anything with them, then how wise is he. Even so, I thought of it differently, though my discriminating mind was still wrapped in cynical laughter. I turned the entire thing on its side, and imagined to myself, that here is a guy for whom these stones, ruby or otherwise, were precious to him. Maybe he's looking at the value of such a thing as a stone in terms of the weight of it, market value. It's the value that a given society and industry has attached to it... what you can get for precious stones.... but maybe he just enjoys going to look for him. The idea of hidden treasure or found treasure etc. It is this idea of the diamond in the rough that seems to drive us to gather beautiful things to ourselves, because of its worth to us and what it will afford us.

So this just keeps going on this hypermania I have thinking that the quicksand is eventually going to pull me under. But I don't feel it strong this evening. There's a minor sense of purpose, but I often wonder why it is that experiences that I think will be incredible turn into nightmares. Looming overhead. Why do I even think that? You know that you fit in somewhere in the grand microcosm. You just don't know where... the movie Hurlybuly seems to always come to mind,- Eddie (in a cocaine induced pre-comatose state) played by Sean Penn practically baying at the moon that this universe doesn't care one speck of our lives... I don't want to lose my faith like that, she loves me, I just don't feel it. At any rate, I'm thinking that the priorities I have in line are possibly to finish this training class or whatever you want to call it. Look at a possible school. I'll do it. I'll look at that. I have to let go of the woman on Friday. It's done, and if by some act of wild providence we cross paths again, we'd know what to do. You think it's strange but occasionally there is an attraction that is returned and given back... in the end, it's search for the between. Heidegger, Husserl, Nishida, Watsuji. All those philosophers who examine that closeness between two people, the intimacy between two people you crave... You were out living life. You were trying to and that was when you went off the reservation. Maybe not the smartest of ideas looking back on it now, but you can't hold back anyway. It's killing you. The looking back is killing you. I'd like to find a working a strategy for now. Something other than ducking and hiding whenever presented with a crack in the fissure.

So there is-- and has been since the debacle now 9 years ago in the spring of 2001 when the fit appropriately hit the fan--been the question of energy, personal energy and how to expend and conserve that energy so as to be more productive. Some people have great energy, and I believe I am one of those people but I have always has had difficulty harnessing that energy in such a way that I'm not flopping and floundering about as if I was a fish out of water. I have to look at what is going on in my life, the current trend being several competing goals which are colliding and at times, erasing each other. I should be quizzical about what happens in my life.
I took on this business training new hires, with just 6 weeks of in-class experience how to do my job, which let's face it, I have grown to occasionally contempt, and which I feel is tedious & needlessly stressful. But this is so much like teaching or at least my experience of teaching it is strangely funny. Why I get stressed out during such experiences, the constant dwelling on the idea that some of the "students are not "getting it" which seemingly some are not. They are just plain not where they need to be. But that percentage is small, miniscule really. 2 out of 7 but my perception is that #1 there are not enough resources offered by management to really support this large of an opeartion, i.e. they didn't really think through the whole picture of bring people into the mix. My thought has always been that the powers that be don't know what it takes to really, trully train someone on how to do this particular job. The main function being that of customer service rather than merely filling the shoes of someone who can or cannot work that position.
But my mental position has been one of absolute bewilderment at the fact that I cannot seem to simply deal with the constant barrage of questions, problems and concerns of each of them as they go throughout the day, mainly those of the technical variety. Basically I find myself thinking I have overextended myself and I won't be able to get through it without compleyely engaging in a tirade of epic proportions. But as yet, I've been able to monitor my progress. Someone (CR) suggested that my ability to manage the situation may determine to the corporate world how I stack up as a manager. The thing is you never want to take on the title of manager in any capacity unless are 1) getting paid to perform the fulfilled requirements of a manager and 2) have the backing involved that you might need to perform the duties of a manager. But it begs the question, why do I always feel like these operations would all work if the environment suited me? I want to adapt but I feel like I'm always at the mercy of someone else's "say-so" .