“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
That quote, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, unduly portrays teachers as being better at telling others how to do something than knowing how to do it themselves.
Of course, not all teachers have failed at doing what they teach others to do. I’ve found this especially to be true of people who spend years toiling in a profession and then share their real-world experience and knowledge as college professors. As a mass communications major at Virginia Commonwealth University in the 1980s, I learned the most from people like Jack Hunter and Joan Deppa – teachers who had been or still were journalists and editors and who knew what we would face as reporters.
My mentor in corporate communications is Les Potter of Vienna, Va., who is somewhat of a legend in our profession. Potter’s career spans more than 30 years and includes positions in corporations, non-profits, huge consulting firms and his own practice. He’s traveled the world, helping to plant the seeds of strategic communication in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A former chairman of the International Association of Business Communicators, he has received its highest honor – IABC Fellow – and is always among the most popular speakers at its international conferences. It makes me tired to think about all this man has done – never mind that Potter has spent half of his life in a wheelchair due to an accident.
You would think a guy in Potter’s position would be content to sit back and bask in the glory of a job well done. But a couple of years ago, in his late 50s, he decided to take what he felt was the natural next step of his career. He became a visiting professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Towson University. That’s not all. He also began working on his doctorate in Instructional Technology at Towson.
Ask anyone who knows him – and that includes thousands of communication professionals around the world – and they’ll probably tell you Potter is the last person they’d think would need to go back to school. One of the things I admire most about him is his appetite for learning. Even as Potter has mentored me through the years, he always makes me feel as if he’s learning as much from me as I am learning from him.
Nothing illustrates Potter’s attitude toward learning better than the fact that, just last week, he created a blog: “More With Les” at lespotter001.wordpress.com . He didn’t join the multitude of bloggers because it’s the latest fad. He did it so he could learn the new social medium as a participant and then transfer his knowledge to his students.
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Read his reasons for blogging, which always appear on his blog’s home page:
1. To continue learning by blogging for current and former students and friends.
2. To help prepare my students for successful participation in the social media revolution (and me, too).
3. To enable my current and former students and friends to help me be a better instructor.
4. To connect current and former students with my incredible network of professional friends and colleagues, and vice versa.
I can think of no better reason to join the fray of new social media – and I can think of no better person to join it.
