I saw this movie with a friend of mine today. I had initially told him that I probably couldn’t stomach it because it seemed like the kid was being abused. He encouraged me to go and I finally relented.

On the way out of the movie we both reflected on what we got from the movie. He said that the conductor, Fletcher, reminded him of a coach he had from elementary school football. He said that coach took all of the fun out of football.

I told him about a boss I had who had been hard on me lately. She said in one conversation that she knew she had been riding me hard but she thought I was just “that frickin’ good.” She was in no way like Fletcher. She didn’t cut me down or attack me verbally, she just wanted me to be the best. I came out of the situation a better nurse and she came out with me respecting her more than I had previously which was pretty high to begin with.

I thought back to one of the professors I had in college. Her name was Dr Ruth Sims. She taught me microbiology and biochemistry and she knew her stuff. She also knew how to teach. That genius forged a hunger in me for scientific discovery that has still not been quenched. Without that professor I wouldn’t have made it to nursing school and now I teach my patients every day in my job.

When I first started this blog I had quite a few people who wanted me to help them with their blogs. The two that asked were missionaries. I declined to help them because I didn’t launch my own blog, I had a friend launch it for me and I just wrote. Neither one of these people offered to pay me for my time either.

They wondered how I got the traffic I got. I couldn’t tell you how I did that. All I did was write because something told me I could do that. I think it was God who put my blog out there because I don’t even think I am Google ranked, nor do I care.

I could see that if I offered to help these missionaries I would be going down a very rocky path. These people would sap my strength and my time to teach them how to write like I do and I am not someone who can teach that, I just do it.

I didn’t like Fletcher at all but I could see myself acting like him if I ever tried to teach someone how to write. It is always good in any arena to realize your limitations because if you don’t, you may turn out to be a cruel beast like Fletcher was.

My take away from the movie is that it was not the kid that didn’t know how to play the drums right. It was the teacher, or conductor, who should have stuck to performing because he didn’t know the first thing about teaching.

It is one thing to be an expert in your field, it is a far greater feat to be able to teach someone else how to be an expert.