When I think back to high school I
can’t tell you much about what I ‘learned’. I can’t tell you the dates to any
great war, I can’t tell you how I felt after reading Hamlet, I can’t even tell
the name of most of the equations that were drilled into my brain. So hearing
that one might think that high school was a waste, that it didn’t work, but I
disagree. While I can’t tell you any of those arbitrary facts I can do
something better. I know how to learn those dates, what’s more I can reflect on
them and think about them in the context in which those wars happened. I can’t
tell you how I felt about Hamlet then but I can tell you about it now. I can
dissect it and study it, I can use it to explore myself and my own views. And
math, well I can calculate tip! Math’s never exactly been a strong suit for me.
I guess my point is that teaching isn’t about learning facts, I don’t even think
teaching is about what’s happening right there at that moment when the student
sits in their chair and the teacher lectures.
I
believe that teaching is about building people, and what I mean by ‘people’ is
someone who can enter the world and function successfully with all the tools
handed to them. My students might not know the fancy names for all the types of
poems out there years after they graduate but they’ll be able to read a poem
and hopefully appreciate it. I believe that those fancy words are useful as
tools to help bridge the concept of poetry to a student’s brain, each new tool
helps them take one step further down the poetry bridge, to extend the
metaphor, and with hope and skill those students will be able to find their way
back on their own. I say this because as teachers we won’t be with them the
rest of their lives. Eventually we have to let them go and hope they can find
their way back on their own. As a teacher I think one of the most beneficial
things I can do for my students is give them an opportunity to be independent
and prove themselves.
