Dr. Grauer's Column - The Captain and the Poet

The Captain and the Poet
by Stuart Grauer

Recently I discovered an educator named Jennifer Johnson because we share a publisher. Her work introduced language that felt at home to me — Jennifer seemed to be naming something I think many of us have long sensed: the “Captain” and the “Poet” within each of us.

Right away, I began imagining how, everywhere in schools, faculties, and teams of all kinds, this naming could help.

Why We Become Teachers

Jennifer began as a teacher, a profession she seemed to carefully choose. She later ran an education department, then moved into system leadership. Her “captain” seemed to be moving her through a predictable career. Eventually she left the public system altogether after years of what she experienced as political pressure and institutional strain. Her “poet” was driving her to the unknown, or at least something harder to define.

Her story will make many teachers relate, whether you have left the system or stayed in it and evolved. In my own case, leaving public schooling and the normal pathway that most teachers navigate was not a rejection of traditional schooling. I was never running away from anything—I was just seeking something — though I couldn’t have named it at the time.

Looking back now, if I had to name it, I think what I was seeking was freedom:

Freedom to create a school around relationships, not systems.
Freedom to learn outdoors.
Freedom to trust young people’s inclinations as natural learners.
Freedom to teach as a human being, not a function.

Many educators feel a similar pull at some point. Students do too. Parents sometimes recognize it first. There is often an epiphany moment when someone thinks:  There must be something else closer to where I feel pulled.

Lifelong Learning Is Not About Skills

Jennifer said something powerful: “Lifelong learning is not a commitment to skills — it is a commitment to ourselves.”

Schools often talk about preparing students for careers. But beneath that practical goal and obsession and stress over grades or college prep skills lies something much more meaningful and essential, and that something absolutely has to be addressed directly if we are going to feel happy and fulfilled. Young people are trying to discover:

• Who am I?
• What am I drawn toward?
• Where do I belong?
• What is my contribution in particular?

Teachers, of course, engage in these questions, too. Ironically, teachers spend their careers helping students answer these questions while sometimes postponing the same questions for themselves. This is because so many among us try to separate their teaching life from their private life. You cannot! Real teaching is an identity we are always working on.

The Captain and the Poet

Now let’s drill into Jennifer’s framework, which is simple and profound.  Each person carries two forces.

The Captain

• organizes
• achieves
• plans
• performs
• moves forward
• gets things done

The Poet

• imagines
• feels
• notices meaning and purpose
• values relationships
• creates
• listens inwardly

Schools, and modern life generally, often seem to reward the Captain: Grades. Deadlines. College admissions. Résumés. Productivity. Or at least many people come to feel that way.

Students quickly learn how to strengthen their Captain because they think that’s required. But many begin losing contact with their Poet. You can see it happen in high school:

• the artist who stops drawing/surfer who stops surfing,
• the calm and funny student who seems to be distracted from these natural ways, feeling that college admissions stress is required of them,
• the curious child who stops asking questions and moves to the corner of the classroom,
• the joyful learner who becomes anxious about performance and outcomes.

Adults are not immune. Teachers feel it. Parents feel it. We become very good at doing — and sometimes forget how to become or to evolve. This is not a new finding. Very similar ideas appear in all of these traditions, studied over time and by many teachers:

• Buddhism—awareness of continual becoming versus automatic doing
• Aristotle — human flourishing (eudaimonia) as becoming what one is capable of being
• Taoism — wu wei (effortless action vs. compulsive doing)
• Christian contemplative tradition — being before doing
• Indigenous wisdom traditions — growth through relationship and balance (often in the natural world)
• Today’s developmental psychology—lifelong growth and transformation

When Things Feel Out of Balance

Jennifer suggests that well-being and identity are inseparable. People struggle not simply because they are busy, but because parts of themselves are not being expressed.

Many teachers and students today are not tired of teaching and learning: They are tired of environments where their Poet has no voice. When the Captain runs alone, life feels pressured and defensive. When the Poet leads without structure, dreams never take form. Healthy lives and healthy schools seem to include both.

The Poet gives purpose. The Captain brings it into reality.

A Question for Students

You, students: Maybe you often think adults have everything figured out. Well: We don’t.

One of the most hopeful moments in secondary education is when students realize that adults are still learning how to live meaningful lives too … and that learning is not a weakness, it is the healthy life expressing itself.

So here is Jennifer’s question worth asking yourself: What part of you feels most alive?

Is it solving problems?
Helping people?
Creating?
Leading?
Building?
Exploring?

Our future will not come from choosing one identity once and forever—choosing right away might feel like a relief, and when others do so you may feel envious, or lacking—that’s the Captain speaking. And yet, think about how much of life such an early decision may cut off—the Poet. What if your future comes from learning how your Captain and Poet can work and grow together, and what if this is happening your whole life? What if you never arrive? And what if that’s the beauty of it all?

A Question for Teachers

Professional development often focuses on strategies, techniques, or technology. But what if the deeper work is personal? For every great teacher I’ve ever known: Personal development is professional development.

Our students sense instantly whether the adults around them are living authentically. We have to bring in our curriculum and our real self, both. When teachers are reconnecting with curiosity, creativity, and purpose right in the classroom, those classrooms change — often without any new or different written curriculum. Those teachers are listening—the curriculum becomes not a goal, but just something we can engage in together. For my part, I often feel like the curriculum is a kind of excuse or springboard for me to connect and relate with students—the real work.

Jennifer says: Our students learn humanity from humans, not lesson plans.

A Question for Parents

Parents naturally want success for their children. But success without identity becomes fragile. Jennifer notes, balanced teaching provides that identity by focusing on:

• how to think and keep that curiosity alive and up front,
• how to care,
• how to recover from setbacks,
• and how to listen to their own inner compass.

In other words, helping both Captain and Poet grow strong together.

The Deeper Work of Schools

Jennifer founded her Captains and Poets program (https://captainsandpoets.com) to help individuals and teams rediscover this balance. It is striking how widely the idea applies:  classrooms, leadership teams, athletic programs, organizations inside and outside education. Because at its heart, education has always been about one thing:

Helping human beings become whole and connected—or at least to trust that this is possible. Even though we’ll never fully get there. It’s the striving that’s the thing, and that’s never in vain.

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