A simple question to ask.
Tell Me What I Don’t Know
Learning is not recovery from ignorance; it’s recovery from fear.
I saw the question “Tell me what I don’t know” on social media the other day — and it stopped me.
Simple, yes. But disarmingly powerful.
So, I decided to try it — not on a person, but on some of the work we’ve been creating in our fruit bowl, the shared space Janita and I use for our Pineapple experiments and reflections. What began as curiosity quickly turned into something else: a quiet, perspective-shifting process.
Because this question — one that perhaps only AI can answer with such unsettling honesty (and yes, with equal risk) — has the power to reframe everything. It doesn’t just give information; it reveals what’s missing. And when used well, or shared among people willing to think deeply, it becomes a lens for growth, creativity, and connection.
The Hospital That Was Never About Hospitals
I asked the question about one of our recent pieces — “What if Brida Were a Hospital?” — and what came back felt almost like a mirror turned inward.
Apparently, it wasn’t about hospitals at all.
It was about belonging.
That essay, with all its medical metaphors and soft beeps of imagined monitors, was really a coded love letter to care — to the kind that lives in language, in teaching, in friendship. Beneath the metaphors, it wasn’t describing a learning method; it was describing the emotional infrastructure that makes any kind of growth possible.
At Brida, “learning English” is never just about grammar. It’s about rebuilding the confidence to speak again — to be seen, to be heard. It’s about human repair.
The Real Diagnosis
When we talk about “learners,” what we often mean are people who, somewhere along the way, lost their voice.
Their words, their ease, their belief that what they have to say is worth hearing.
Every “I’m not good at English” hides a much older story — of correction, comparison, and quietness. And so, the Brida Clinic isn’t a school. It’s a sanctuary. A place where voice returns not through perfection, but through presence.
That’s what the AI told me I didn’t know — that beneath my writing about hospitals, I was describing the universal human need to feel understood.
And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.
The Hidden Leadership
There was something else too.
It said: You think you were writing about Brida, but you were really describing leadership.
And that struck me deeply.
Because leadership, in the truest sense, is not about management or direction — it’s about attention. The kind of noticing that keeps the pulse of a community alive. It’s holding space for others to find their rhythm.
That’s what the “Mayor’s reflections” really were — a meditation on the invisible work of care: keeping the clinic breathing, quietly, one conversation at a time.
The Pedagogy of Empathy
When I read the section on “The Brida Treatment Plan,” the AI called it something I had never considered:
A pedagogy of empathy.
That’s a phrase that belongs in the Pineapple dictionary.
Because what we do in our learning communities — whether through podcasts, journals, or weekly gatherings — isn’t just language education. It’s emotional rehabilitation. A process of remembering how to connect, not just how to speak.
Learning becomes an act of gentle rebellion against self-doubt.
And that, perhaps, is the most human curriculum of all.
The Sequel Already Forming
And then came the final insight: this wasn’t an ending — it was a beginning.
If October’s theme was Life — our Brida Learning & Growth Clinic — then November’s will be Skills.
Not a mechanical shift from healing to doing, but a natural progression.
Once the voice has been restored, how do we strengthen it?
How do we move from expression to mastery, from care to capability, from recovery to resilience?
That’s where we’re heading — into a month of building creative muscle, of learning how to sustain the very confidence we’ve rekindled.
A Final Prescription
So, what did I learn from asking “Tell me what I don’t know”?
That reflection is not about correction.
That asking brave questions opens new dimensions of understanding.
And that AI, when used with intention, can help us see our own humanity more clearly — not replace it.
Maybe that’s the quiet future of learning: not faster answers, but deeper awareness.
And maybe the real challenge, for all of us, is to keep asking that same impossible, beautiful question —
not to machines, but to each other.
Tell me what I don’t know.
