I wanted to spend my week in advisory discussing and focusing on the idea of taking control of your own project, of owning a project, of agency. I missed two days last week — the first time in twenty years I missed two days in a row — and there were mixed results. Some students advanced their projects while others did nothing.

It got me thinking about the work I still do that I want a teacher or a coach for as well as the things I do that I’d like to do on my own. And last night, as I worked on a project with my son, which he had put off until Sunday night, I tried to have the conversation about how one takes control of one’s own work, even when you still need help.

How do you take control of your own work, even when you still need help?

Today, though, I asked the following: why are there teachers? What do teachers do? When do you need teachers? When do you not need teachers?

You need teachers when you don’t know what to do next.
You need teachers when you aren’t self-sufficient.
You need teachers when you don’t know something or a skill.
You sometimes need teachers to simply just monitor students.
You need teachers to help us figure out what we know and don’t.

You don’t need teachers when you have a room of peers to help you.
You don’t need teachers when you’re home.
You don’t need a teacher when you know what you want to do and you can figure it out yourself.
You don’t need teachers to go to the bathroom.
You don’t need teachers to do well on our report card.
You don’t need teachers when it comes time to put into play all of the lessons they’ve taught you.
You don’t need teachers when you’ve learned enough to teach other people.

One place we went quickly in the conversation was that there are “teachers who aren’t in schools” and that “you can learn from people who don’t have much education.”