The Problem of Expertise

“Who is that 3D printer for?” Glenn asked me through a wry smile.

“What…?” I murmured back, throwing a quick glance in his direction barely acknowledging his sincere and challenging question. I went back to my task quickly, feeling that maybe this time I’d finally leveled the damn printer bed.

“Who is it for?” He repeated, this time in a pointy-er tone.

“Glenn…what!? It’s for the kids. What are you even talking about!?!” I snapped back, now frustrated with the printer AND my prying teaching partner.

“You’ve had that thing on your desk for two weeks now, fiddling with it. How many kids have seen it, let alone had the chance to use it?” He added.

“Um…” I stammered. “Uh, well… Casey maybe? Junia was interested so she helped me unbox it but… no one really I guess.”

Here again I was drawn lovingly into another important lesson in the care and safety of my partner Glenn Williams. Have I told you about the one time he enthusiastically told me, “that’s an awesome prototype!” Intending sincere encouragement but only succeeding in crushing me into a paste? I’ll have to tell you about that one too… It’s a doozy.

Glenn Williams is a master teacher in every sense of the word. If you know him, you already know that. But if you ask him, he’ll deny it. Which too, is part of his influence and charm. On our first day working together in our shared office he asked if we could make our space, “like a locker room.” Knowing Glenn to be a man of character, I quickly set down my initial fear that it was gonna get real misogynistic, real fast.

“You know…” he continued, “can we please just be honest with each other about everything and hold each other accountable?” What I didn’t realize that day was that he was setting a tone in which he could both invite my critique and safely offer his own. I didn’t know that because he chose to show me what he meant by making a self-deprecating joke about one of his very real insecurities. “Oh, so you want us to flip each other shit?” I asked. “Yeah he said, can we do that?”

I know now that wasn’t his ultimate goal, but he was an incredible teammate and team-builder who was intentionally leaning into our shared sports playing and coaching experiences and trying to build a partnership where we could both truly be ourselves. But if you ask him about that day, I doubt he’d remember it. He has so internalized what it means to be a good teammate that I doubt he put any conscious thought into it.

And so it was in the fall of our second year together, that one morning Glenn asked me, “who is that 3D printer for?” I felt safe with Glenn. Our relationship had grown tremendously beyond the initial bravado and one-upmanship that initially bonded us and still made us giggle. We’d been through deep challenges together trying to help build a unified Language Arts, Computer Science, and Humanities learning experience for high school kids in a new project-based school. Many of our days the previous year ended with Glenn saying, “Well, I need to wash my car before I go home. That way, at least I’ll know I’ve actually accomplished one thing before I go to bed.” Starting a school is hard. Learning to radically collaborate is hard. Being vulnerable ALL THE TIME is hard.

And so that morning, unraveled by his question, I was invited to be vulnerable again. I knew what he was getting at, but I’d prefer to ignore it. I wanted to learn to master that 3D printer. I was the one who did the research. I was the one who picked it out. I was the one who helped write the grant to get it. I… I… I… Me… Me… Me…

Looking back, I can see