Teachers open the door

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.

Chinese Proverb

The meaning of the quote

In the late 1940s, a prisoner in Massachusetts sat down with a dictionary and began copying it onto paper by hand, starting at the letter A. He was Malcolm X, still known as Malcolm Little then, and nobody had assigned him the task.

In the book The Autobiography of Malcolm X, he explains that his letters from prison embarrassed him. He couldn’t find the words to say what he meant. A fellow inmate named Bimbi, who could talk about almost any subject, had shown him what a well-read man sounded like, and Malcolm decided he wanted to sound like that too.

Bimbi opened the door. Nobody could walk through it for Malcolm, so he did it one dictionary page at a time. Once he knew the words, he could read the books in the prison library, and he read them in the hours after lights out.

This quote splits learning into 2 jobs. A teacher can explain, recommend books, correct your mistakes and point you toward the right room. Only you can do the reading, the practice and the failing that follow.

The saying matters more today than it did in a prison cell, because doors are everywhere now. Free courses, YouTube tutorials, podcasts and libraries are all one click away. Plenty of people collect them like keys and never step inside a single room.

Action steps

Walking through a door is a physical act, so treat it like one. Here are 4 ways to get across the threshold.

1. Pick one door and stay with it for a month.
   Choose a single course, book or teacher for the skill you want. Close the other tabs. Malcolm didn’t switch dictionaries halfway through.
2. Give it the same 20 minutes every day.
   Attach it to something you already do, like your morning tea or the bus ride home. A small daily habit beats one heroic Saturday.
3. Try the problem before you look at the answer.
   Struggling for a few minutes feels bad and works well. The book Make It Stick explains why pulling an answer out of your own head sticks far better than rereading it.
4. Bring your attempt to your teacher.
   “Here’s what I tried and where I got stuck” gets you a much better answer than “Can you explain this?” Teachers open doors wider for students who are already leaning on them.

The dictionary sat in that prison for years before Malcolm touched it. It changed his life only after he picked up a pen. Your door is open right now, so go in.

Resources

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Book)
• Mindset by Carol Dweck (Book)
• Peak by Anders Ericsson (Book)
• Make It Stick (Book summary)
• The willingness to learn is a choice (Article)
• Autodidacticism (Wikipedia)