I love teaching and have been told that I am good at it. However, the results tell me there is still room for growth.

I love to pick apart something to a level that, quite frankly, annoys some people. I will obsess over what seems forever to examine what could be done better.

This photo of me looking at some Union Students’ work captures my intent. I think a long time before I open my mouth to give feedback. Even after thinking about it, I could still have used a healthy dose of tact to deliver those thoughts.

photo by Dennis Fahringer

There are three main things that many would say are contributing factors to the resistance to learning:

1. Motivation—Many things impact this, from needs and desires to the environment that can create push. I have watched training at Chick-fil-A and noticed that making something a game seems to increase motivation. People can see the reward for their learning.
2. Intelligence—We all have strengths and weaknesses; sometimes, the subject matter is beyond our capacity. Often, we talk about Intelligence Quotient, Emotional Quotient, and other descriptors that get to the core aptitude.
3. Teaching—There are good teachers and bad teachers. The best teachers do a great job presenting their material in ways that engage the different learning styles.

Here are The Seven Learning Styles:

1. Visual (spatial): You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
2. Aural (auditory-musical): You prefer using sound and music.
3. Verbal (linguistic): You prefer using words in speech and writing.
4. Physical (kinesthetic): You prefer using your body, hands, and sense of touch.
5. Logical (mathematical): You prefer using logic, reasoning, and systems.
6. Social (interpersonal): You prefer to learn in groups or with others.
7. Solitary (intrapersonal): You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

However, I continue to come up against one thing that creates a resistance to learning. 

 #4 Resistance to Learning: Psychological Cost of Learning The most significant obstacle I continue to come up against is asking adults, significantly, to “change their ways.” A great example of this within my profession was those who resisted switching from film to digital capture. With film, some photographers were highly competent, and the switching to digital was a significant blow to their world. 

When teaching storytelling, I find that students often think they are already very competent in some areas, when in reality, they are just like those who were shooting film before they switched to digital. There are three ways people will go through this:

1. Crisis—For some, it was finding out that film wasn’t all that available or the expense was too great.
2. Hitting Bottom—Just like an Alcoholic who loses everything and is on the verge of death. Just like those who go to a rehab facility, some change.
3. Learning Environment—This is like a workshop where people are exposed to the learning curve and do not have to change, but often due to the safe environment in which to learn.

This is similar to a great storyline as well. If you think where you are is because of your competency and, in reality, resist the inevitable change necessary for survival in this field, you will soon hit rock bottom or have a crisis.

My constant prayer while teaching:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Good teachers care enough to evaluate their teaching but realize that the student is responsible for their learning. So, while teachers do their best to make learning as entertaining as possible and engaging to the different learning styles, resistance is still present many times.

There is the point that the teacher allows for the student’s failure because while we try to create a learning environment, some students will only learn from a crisis or when they hit rock bottom.

The wisdom in knowing when the success of the student is more their issue than it is mine is really about not giving up on them, but letting go of it is my problem. My life coach tells me this is not OVER thinking things.

Here is the same photo, but I am showing it to you in 4 different ways. The top image is what we call the Little Planet view.

It would help if you had special software to do all these photos. Some Apps exist to help you create pictures similar to these with your phone–just not as consistent and precise as the way I did it with a tripod, fisheye lens, and particular nodal head on the tripod.

iPhone Apps
Android Apps

Photo #2 360º Panoramic gut stretched horizontally

Photo #2 is the same but extended to a large horizontal photo. Often this is cropped with less sky and ground to give a more strip print. This photo would then be like the inside of a cylinder.

Photo #3 Cubed 360º Panoramic

Photo #3 is the same photo, but instead of how it would appear inside a ball, this is how it would appear inside a box. Again, the first four panels are the sides, then the top and bottom are the last two.

This last one is an interactive 360º panoramic. You can watch it; it will rotate and let you see the 360º cylinder, or you can click on the menu arrows to go up and down or change direction. You can also just put your mouse and, while clicking and holding, drag the image up, down, and sideways to control it yourself.

I own a Kodak Carousel projector. For me, it was a magic lantern to the past. I loved how simple it was to operate.

I regularly created slideshows for my work, synchronizing two or more projectors to a soundtrack. The audio tape had two tracks: left and right for stereo. One track was for mono sound, and the other was for code to control the projectors.

The other day, I got hooked on the TV show Mad Men. According to the show’s pilot, “Mad men” was a slang term coined in the 1950s by advertisers working on Madison Avenue to refer to themselves.

I watched the show yesterday about the agency working with Kodak on their new slide projector, which they wanted to promote the wheel aspect of the tray.

This scene is not only a masterfully written explanation of what advertising executives do but also gets to the heart of the power of photography.

Here is that scene for you to watch.

While the power of images is used all the time by Madison Avenue to hook us on products and services, I think Don Draper’s image selection in the pitch gets to the real power of photography for the individual.

I love this speech by Don Draper:

Technology is a glittering lure. However, there is a rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash if they have a sentimental bond with the product.

In my first job, I was in-house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter, Greek, named Teddy.

Teddy told me the most crucial idea in advertising was ‘new.’ This creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.

However, he also discussed a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. This bond is delicate but potent.

Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia means ‘the pain from an old wound.’

It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.

This device isn’t a spaceship. It’s a time machine that travels back and forth, taking us to the places we long to return.

It’s not called ‘The Wheel.’ It’s called ‘The Carousel.’

It lets us travel the way a child travels—around and around and back home to where we know we are loved.

Fujifilm X-E2, FUJINON XF 18-55mm, ISO 6400, ƒ/3.2, 1/220

Yesterday at our church, I took a few photos to preserve such a fun service. I shared this photo on my Facebook page, and many shared it. People loved it not just because their kids were in the picture but because of their own “nostalgia.”

I loved it because this year’s church created a unique family service. So often, parents of little toddlers feel pressured to keep their kids quiet in a “big church” here; they want the families to feel welcomed.

I have never seen this many kids at our church during a Children’s Sermon.

Fujifilm X-E2, FUJINON XF 18-55mm, ISO 3200, ƒ/3.8, 1/500

I also captured my daughter singing as part of a quartet. I was incredibly proud.

Today’s photos help me remember and appreciate my wonderful family. This photo is from Easter 2001, fourteen years ago, when my daughter was just two years old.

We might not be showing our photos on a Kodak Carousel projector anymore, but the image lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.