As a Teaching Artist today, my motivation in facilitation is to aid youth development, to give an opportunity to develop new skills to take away for new avenues of their continued self-exploration through doing, in other words experiential learning. Social Emotional Learning is also an important element of my practice as it’s clearly evident that youth of differing abilities have self-esteem issues and social skills, not necessarily correlated with obvious intellectual advancement. I can’t parent, but I can give them a place to safely explore new things to do, to perhaps reframe ideas about self, and new ways they can continue to nurture themselves on their own.

At a prior job I was using a restroom I usually don’t use and was stuck by the dispenser not dispensing paper towels. A guy showed me the trick to get it to dispense and I thanked him. From what I could tell he was with the group of people who are mentally handicapped (there was a program with my workplace and their facility that got them jobs there). So this is a possible 4+ SD gap between me and the person who taught me how to use a device.

I’ve been in a lot of jobs in my early years and frequently learned from people of average or below average IQ. Crystallized intelligence, familiarity, whatever you want to call it, is important.