I have had these thoughts previously. I have written
and spoken about being a teacher previously. It began when I thought about my
father, Rabbi Joseph Spector, as a teacher and what he thought about being a
rabbi. I have represented his thoughts as follows: “A teacher is the ear that
listens, the eye that reflects, the hand that guides, the voice that
encourages, the face that does not turn away.” I wanted to be a teacher, but I
have strayed from his guidelines. I have come to think of a teacher as someone
who helps others to have questions – that is someone who admits to not knowing
or understanding something, who commits time and effort to finding likely
explanations, who is open to alternative explanations, and who is willing to
examine and re-examine assumptions. Rather than a voice that encourages or
comforts, my voice has been more one that challenges and provokes.
Over the years, I have taught philosophy, computer
science, educational technology, program evaluation and related subjects. My
first and only academic love was philosophy. I recall using that challenging
voice to discourage one of the most inquisitive and brightest students I ever
had in class. I had marked up, using a red pen, an innovative dialogue the
student had written in the style of Plato – this was prior to the advent of
personal computers and the Internet. The student dropped the class after
receiving my feedback. When I next saw him some months later, I asked why he
dropped when he was doing so well. He said that there was nearly as much of my
red ink on the paper as his typewritten black ink. I said that was because I
thought his work was especially promising and merited as much constructive
feedback as I could manage to offer. He said he took it as general criticism
and decided he was not going to do well in the course, even though his paper
had been graded very highly. I stopped using red ink after losing the most
promising student that I have ever had.
I also reflected on why I had been so challenging in
my feedback. I thought about several incidents in which I had received
challenging feedback from teachers whom I regarded highly. Challenging feedback
seemed to work for (or on) me. Perhaps not everyone is like me (it is certainly
true that not everyone likes me). Anyway, I have tried to soften my approach of
getting students to have questions a bit.
I have also asked many public school teachers in
recent years why they became teachers and remained teachers. These were
primarily elementary and middle school teachers working in poorly performing
rural schools in the southeastern part of the USA. There was a consistent
pattern to their responses involving two things. First, they grew up in those
communities and wanted to stay and work there – teaching being the most stable
jobs available. Second, they had grown to like many of the children and wanted
to help them overcome years of neglect in their education and upbringing.
Is that why I became a teacher? Did I remain in this
profession for such praiseworthy reasons? [I wish I could say yes, but that
would be a lie.] Those questions reminded me of what Bob Gagné told me more
than once while working together at the Human Resources Laboratory in San
Antonio – namely, our job was to help people learn. After retiring from Florida
State University and while working at the Lab, Bob and his wife Pat had become
volunteer tutors to underperforming and underprivileged children in San
Antonio. His advice to me was more than high-sounding words – help people
learn; he lived those words even after retiring.
Help people learn … and ‘people’ is an inclusive term
that includes oneself.