“There’s far more wisdom to be gotten from a community of practice with a similar intention than there is from a teacher.” Joe explains that someone who just learned to release their anger has a capacity that even the teacher doesn’t have — the electricity of fresh learning. A community has people at different stages learning different things, teaching each other naturally.
Community reduces fear during integration because of relatability — people going through the journey together can hold each other through the disorientation. It also provides a container that prevents the collapse into teacher worship: “There’s something natural in us that wants somebody to know what the hell is going on, to have the answer, so we can feel safe.”
Joe teaches because he loves accessing group intelligence: “One of the places I get the most insight, I learn the most, is to watch a community access its deeper intelligence.” The weakness of community is when the whole group collectively decides the teacher is special, and the teacher buys into it — then the whole system locks up.
The best teacher-student relationship is one where the teacher “doesn’t see themselves as better than or worse than or equal to you, but they see themselves what best can be described as you.” Their role is to point you back to your own truth, not create dependency.
Related Concepts
- Community amplifies transformation
- Teachers and students co-create dysfunction
- Charismatic figures validate unmet needs
- The best teacher just went through it