An Unwanted Education

I just started graduate school and my first assignment was to start a blog. I like blogs. I like happy blogs about cooking or scrapbooking or the mundane things other people do each day. I never thought my first entry in a blog would be sad. The morning after my first class, I received a phone call at about 8:15 a.m. I was getting my children out the door for school and wondered who would be calling. A quick glance at the caller id told me it was my sister. She lives in Phoenix. The minute she said my name, I knew there was something terribly wrong. My brain wanted to reject the words she was saying. "Something horrible has happened. Mark is dead." No! Once those words are said, they can't be taken back. Hope for a miracle or a recovery or a mistake or whatever are gone when those words are said. Mark, her husband of 17 years, was killed when he lost control of the motor scooter he was riding and crashed into a tree. We talked and cried. My heart was breaking for her.
Later that night as I tried to digest the assigned reading for my new class, my thoughts kept returning to her. "We will use the term education very broadly to describe all experiences in which people learn. Many of these experiences are unplanned, incidental, and informal." (Smith and Ragan) My mind wanted to add "Many of these experiences are cruel, heartbreaking, and unimaginable." My sister was definitely gaining an unwanted education. What is she supposed to learn? How to live without him? How to raise two children alone? How to run his business? As we talked and cried together, there was one thing that she kept asking over and over. "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"
How do I answer that question? It was a question that was at the same time both rhetorical and begging an answer. Is there an instructional design module anywhere that gives instruction on what to do the day after your husband dies? Of course not. She couldn't decide whether to take a shower or sweep off the back porch. How does she begin planning a funeral and facing all the other challenges that have just begun to come her way? That is where the teachers comes in. "...the term teaching refers to those learning experiences that are facilitated by a human being." A human being who has experienced it and lived it and lived through it. Someone to walk her through the steps and give her encouragement along the way. Isn't that what teachers do?