Ana Tijoux, Bruce Lee

Coming back from Chile I found many despaired looks from some of my almost graduating Strategic Design students. They needed to send their thesis for printing today but neither their document, nor their strategy was set on place. Their written document seemed like a dishevelled client with a weird costume. Not neatly tailored, some loose words on the wrong places, some ideas they only understood because, well because it was 3 a.m. and they lacked focus so they set them somewhere with the intention to get back to them but unfortunately forgot they were even there in the first place.

After six straight hours of pulling and pushing, correcting, questioning ideas and jotting down insights they came about to some coherent meaning to their project. Stars aligned, meaning to a universe of ideas came to life, and the strategy started beating by itself. One of them started crying, the others followed. It was a beautiful thing to watch. I'm willing to bet, these students were not really pursuing a good grade but they were actually frustrated with the lack of a conceptual fruition.

I forget, but get constantly reminded, teaching is all about empathy and connections, about building relationships and commitments to others ideas. Yet it is I, (in a Bruce Lee voice) who gets to learn these lessons every time.