To watch children playing in a sandbox is to get a master class in human dynamics in action. It’s an opportunity to watch interaction and collaboration in a pure form and to see different personality traits come to the forefront.
There are the natural leaders, getting others excited about the project and enlisting their help. There are the enthusiastic collaborators, who are also leaders in their own way, who are quick to offer their advice and experience in the service of creating something new. Then there are the kids who reject the team approach and go off on their own and play in their own corner—and the difference usually shows in the results. The sandcastle built by the team, with each person taking ownership and providing leadership, with each contributing their best skills and knowledge, can be an impressive work of art. A sandbox full of kids working together like this is a wonder to behold.
As you get older, it’s easy to lose sight of how invigorating a collaborative “sandbox style” of learning and creating can be. We tend to start following our own agendas, and the more entrenched we become in our way of doing things, the more we tune out other influences. This can be especially true in a profession such as dentistry, where most practitioners do their own thing in their own practice environment and are content to stay in that comfort zone.
But why not recapture that kind of pure child-like passion? Why not jump back in the sandbox and re-discover what it means to learn in a truly collaborative environment?
This is a big part of our philosophy at Spear. We don’t just provide instruction, we bring dentists together—in our Faculty Club, in online forums, at our hands-on workshops where mentors work side-by-side with participants, and in our study clubs where GPs and specialists form close-knit learning circles in their own communities.
It’s all about surrounding yourself with people who share your passion and who see your higher value. It’s about being around people who have knowledge and special experience to share and who put the fun into professional growth.
What does your learning community look like? Do you take a solo approach to CE, or are you surrounded by others who make the journey more interesting? Take a look around and ask yourself: who is in my sandbox?
