Remember the last scene in Oz in the 1939 movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” when Dorothy learns she has the power she needed all along to go home to Kansas? A good reminder to recognize and trust what we know, that the most sustainable lessons are learned from experience, and to be patient in our teaching for the moment where the student or colleague is ready for the learning. For now as I let go of the holidays and start the final semester of the year, I surrender to these realities of real learning.
DOROTHY Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
GLINDA You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
DOROTHY I have?
SCARECROW Then why didn’t you tell her before?
GLINDA Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.