Not As Important As They'd Like To Think

I don’t know if it’s bullshit or the truth that teachers are considered “a shaper of minds”? Mostly I think it’s bullshit. As a teacher, at best I would consider myself a “facilitator of thought” – and even that’s pushing it.

Of course, that’s only when you think about a teacher’s role in terms of content, which is how most evaluate the validity of the classroom, honestly.

I’m not sure that I disagree with that as a barometer in terms of who should be considered a “good” teacher and who isn’t. Students go to school so that they can learn something new each day, and I’m not sure that I provide that when it comes to content: or that I qualify as someone that knows the content at a “Mastery” standard (another qualification).

Basically this is how I feel: anyone can be compassionate and know more than someone who has (often) zero prior knowledge of a subject. That doesn’t/shouldn’t make them an authority over any subject.

When I have to tell people that I’m a teacher, I do so with the kind of embarrassment of pointing out a beat up, disheveled car in a parking lot. I’m hesitant to claim ownership over such a revered profession – even if that reverence is misplaced, ungracious or phony. People already know how they feel about teachers (or, rather, people know how they should feel about teachers): they have memories of their favorite “teachers”; they always have a sympathetic face and/or comment about how the pay is unfair because they know it’s “such a tough, thankless job.” Except here’s the thing, even after all that praise and compassion, they still think they could do the job just as well. And quite honestly, they probably could for the most part. Hell, I “learned” in one year.

The idea of cynicism isn’t often something I cling to, so this really is nothing more than the suppressed truth. Something I’ve always felt, but never fully articulated because by doing so I knew that it would devalue what I do. Which in turn devalues who I am. (Right?)

That is, unless I don’t think of myself as a teacher. Unless I focus more on my (um) importance on my ability to facilitate thought.

And even relying on that as a descriptor makes me squeamish because it implies that my thoughts should be the impetus for theirs. Like their own brain paths aren’t good enough to allow them to think for themselves. Seriously, all of these people telling us teachers that we’re “under-appreciated” and “underpaid” really has gone to our heads, huh? You’ll be hard-pressed to meet a teacher that isn’t willing to discuss all the ways that they are “under-appreciated” and “underpaid,” and it’s all because teachers buy into the idea that what they do is among the most important jobs available.

Saints aren’t saints because they claim to be.

Please don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think teachers don’t do anything important. I do believe that there are certainly things that every student should know before they embark on the world (grammar and punctuation, for example) and that teachers do play a part in helping them learn. My point is simply that the system as it’s set up – giving the teachers the façade of power in classrooms and over other’s minds – is an abomination and needs to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. Trying to patch holes when there’s structural damage makes no sense.

In order for this to be a success, instead of teachers thinking that what they do is so important and necessary, they should be focusing on what the students need. Truly need. Not making a veiled attempt at connecting to their interests by playing a rap song every now and then. In order to be a good facilitator you need to have a definitive starting point, a message that you’d like to share (with the knowledge that they might not grasp/believe/want to hear/understand what you’ve set up) and an end result for when it’s all over. Then (and here’s the tricky part), you need to be willing to allow them to think for themselves and not insert your own opinions and goals as facts.

Instead, the class should be structured in such a way that active thinking should count always as active learning. As a group, teachers need to get off of their horses and realize that what they do is only moderately important to the longevity of an individual’s life. You may get lucky enough to truly inspire one person for real that sticks with them for any extended period of time – this goal, by the way, shouldn’t be any different for any other person – you should always be trying to inspire others.

However, the moment that a teacher presumes what they think is more important than a student’s individual thought, that’s where the bullshit becomes a heap.