Magic Umbrellas and Quiet Goodbyes: Lessons from Mary Poppins
I remember watching Mary Poppins as a little kid, somewhere in the 90s of the 20th century. Being a Dutch kid and not speaking English that well yet, I had no idea most of the time what Mary and all the others were singing, but I was certainly touched by the magic. Mary suceeds to inject a lot of wonder in the life of the kids in the movie, and into mine.
For kids, Mary seems to have magical powers, as she flies in and out with an umbrella, tidies up rooms as if it's a fun game (and a spoon full of sugar), and steps through street paintings to imagine a whole fantasy world inside them. But one other moment in the movie is dear to my heart for a more serious reason. As Mary flies in for the first time and discusses her terms as a nanny, she insists on being hired based on many of her own conditions. And with that, she tries to look beyond a set of preconditions and rules that were set by the nanny advertisement. It shows that rules and conditions are merely set up by people like you and me, meaning they can be changed at any time.
I like to compare it with something I often mention to my software development students: I have never been hired into a software development job where I already was an expert in the programming language and framework that the company used. What I did know, however, is how to program. A new language is merely a new tool to get used to, and technologies you have not yet much experience in should not stop you from applying. Mary certainly had an eye for that.
Next to the children, there's also the intriguing story of Mr. Banks, the father of the family. He goes through quite an interesting transformation. From being a very serious bank worker who spends little time with his children, to a man who repairs and flies a kite with them towards the end of the movie. For that transformation to happen, he experienced a hard and confronting moment in his life, as he is fired from the bank he works at (funny, by the way, that the man is actually called Mr. Banks). It shows that sometimes such a traumatic event is necessary to see the beauty of life and the alternative way you could live it.
Students have these moments all the time, when a difficult theory or process finally clicks for them. For example, it's always great to see if some programming concept finally makes sense for them and they're able to use it from that moment on in the software they write. It's something they'll benefit from for the rest of their careers. Funny thing is: you have little control over when those moments happen, but you can create an environment where the chance of such moments happening is high. Mary does the same with the children and with Mr. Banks: she offers all kinds of examples of how life could be lived, hoping that one of the examples triggers something in the family.
Towards the end of the movie, Mary indeed sees that her job is done, as the family has come back together and starts to do fun family things again. It's like a scrum master in a development team who notices that he needs to do less and less work in a team that's functioning better and more autonomously over time. I've had the same experience in a learning and development role at the company I worked for. Over a couple of months, I set up a career advancement scheme for the company and helped a lot of people in the product department to step up through the junior-medior-senior ladder. After a while, I found that the system did its work well and also didn’t necessarily need me in it anymore.
That realization made me look beyond the company and towards new challenges, which finally resulted in me changing careers and becoming both a middle school and university teacher in the field of computer science and software development. It shows that my role at that previous company had come to a natural end. I like to create things and start things, but am less happy if I need to continue the same kind of work for a longer period of time.
Just like Mary, I’ve come to realize that my role in people’s lives—whether as a teacher, coach, or colleague—sometimes has a natural end. When the environment is right, when people grow and start finding their own way, that’s when I step back and look toward new challenges. A teacher's life is automatically set up like that anyway, as you guide students through their studies for a couple of years and then say goodbye at the end, when they have their diplomas in hand. (Although I'm always available for a quick chat or as a sparring partner after their graduation as well.)
Watching Mary Poppins again reminded me that it’s okay to move on—not because you’re no longer needed, but because the people you helped are now exactly where they need to be.