The tree that grows to its full potential is the tree that drinks sunlight, the tree that is not covered up by the shadow of the forest.

It can be said that the purpose of a tree is to grow and reach its arms out for the sun. All of Life follows in this same sacred process. All of Life understands the devastation of depriving one of their potentials, often felt most deeply in the loss of the life of a child.

We can understand that for a person, we grow farther than our bones allow. For us, learning about information and our world is our sacred process of growth. Just as our bones would grow crooked if we were to put a barrier in their way, we too will grow crooked if any barriers are put in front of this process.

It can be said that the key element to learning is the freedom to learn.

The death of learning then is anything that inhibits the freedom to learn.

We can recognize this by the emotions evoked in the process of exploration and discovery, wonder and curiosity, these elements paramount to the human experience. The loss of such things is known to be the death of spirit.

We must take great care to not interrupt this process. Anyone who has ever tended to a plant can appreciate the delicacy required to not damage it, or risk the plant remaining stuck in a stage of its development that it will never grow out of, instead withering and promptly dying.

This is where any teacher must be mindful. After absorbing from sunlight ourselves, we can strongly desire to share the fruit of our trees, the realizations gathered from our explorations. In this excitement we must be careful.

This may seem simple and obvious, or irrelevant and unneeded, but when unaware, we run a great risk of running this grave error. This is because we have to identify that there are always two lessons. The shallow, far less important lesson is the content, the information given. The real lesson resides within the delivery, the action of teaching itself.

This is because the teaching itself is a lesson. The way we teach is an action, and actions do always speak louder than words.

Delivery of content sounds complicated, but this could only ever be simple, as it only ever could speak from one of two voices.

This is the voice of the death of thought and development.

This is the lesson teaching that the content itself has become more important than the process of learning.

This is the lesson that teaches that the content is of such importance that it is to be accepted without question, without critical thought.

This voice always says we do things because we should.

This voice always says, 'because others do, and because I do, you should too'.

This is, always has been, and always will be, the voice of the system of a society that resists change, is prohibiting the ability for one to become independent of themselves, to become one who leads sheep instead of being herded by the wolves.

As soon as we have absorbed content, we carry the risk of speaking as this voice of death ourselves.

This voice encourages, inspires, and excites. It breathes excitement into content.

This is the lesson that says, I give you all that I have to offer. What is mine is yours. I would like to share with you!

What are you interested in? What would you like to learn more about?

This voice offers from what is available, it gives but does not tell, it will show you fruit and information but never hand you an answer.

This voice will always ask you to find and seek out the answer on your own.

This voice may hold your hand through the darkness, but it will ask you to lead the way.

The brilliant caricature of a teacher is the character to whom you ask a question and receive back a mischievous grin, a fleeting glance with a glimmer in their eye as your answer. It's the look that says, "There is more to this mystery here, if you look for it."

Offer others the keys to caverns of treasure, rather than weighing them down with bags of heavy gold.