I recently completed a day-and-a-half-long workshop with my wife to educate us about the causes and treatment of chronic pain and fatigue. As we introduced ourselves, I noted that each of us had been either directly or indirectly affected by these conditions from anywhere from five to fifteen years. “We have much to learn from each other,” I thought as we finished introducing ourselves.

Yet during much of the rest of the workshop, the instructors, using PowerPoint slides and videos, lectured about the underlying causes of the chronic pain and fatigue and the best practices to be used to address them. They preached to us about the importance of developing personal goals aimed at assisting us to implement those practices that seemed most relevant while giving us little time to develop them.

The instructors departed twice from this “preaching-at-us” mode. About midway through the program, they led us through a series of basic stretching exercises, and towards the end, they guided us through a series of deep breathing and visualization activities. At various points of the workshop, they told us that former participants especially liked, and benefitted from, these activities.

While sipping a coffeeless chocolate chip creation at Starbucks, I thought about how the instructors’ preaching made it much harder for us to talk with each other. I wondered if other participants shared my annoyance of having to sit through lectures about stuff I already knew. I thought about how much more empowering it would have been if we had been allowed to benefit from each other’s experience. I reflected on how participants viewed the stretching activity and relaxation exercises — the only skillbuilding portions of the workshop — as most valuable. And I remembered how I spent nearly a year running workshops aimed at improving customer service skills of New York City taxi drivers, where I quickly discovered that cabbies learned much more and were less grumpy if I created a supportive space where they could talk with each other about driving more safely, handling uncooperative passengers, respecting police officers, and working within the laws governing the treatment of people with disabilities instead of preaching at them about the best practices of these areas.

To be sure, the nurses running the chronic pain and fatigue workshop had more experience assisting people with chronic pain and fatigue than Dunbar, my guide dog at the time, and I had driving a taxi in New York City rush hour traffic. On the other hand, I can’t help wonder if we wouldn’t have learned more about nutrition, sleep, and managing stress if we had been encouraged to share our favorite healthy recipes, our most effective strategy that assisted us to fall asleep, and our most effective stress-reduction approach instead of listening to well-worn facts about these topics. I also wonder if the time would have been better spent if each of us had been allowed to develop two achievable goals to work towards with the support of others in the room instead of sitting through familiar information about depression and anxiety.

We educators often forget that while conveying information involves communicating it in a way that is understandable and relevant to our students, building skills involves creating a supportive space for people to practice them. In either case, encouraging participants to share their wisdom empowers them and invigorates the learning experience.

This chronic pain and fatigue workshop reinforced my belief that knowledge should be used to build skills, and that we should all try to promote more practice rather than preaching at those we’re trying to reach.