Or you can just click through to the video here here but since I can’t actually embed it…
If I hear one more ed reformer say, ‘It’s all about the students!’ I’m going to scream. (And yes, TED peeps, I’m talking to you.)
When I stood in front of a class, it was all about me. I was the main attraction on the center stage, and not by accident; that’s sort of what happens when you focus the students’ attention on your lecture. Now, I didn’t ignore my audience; any good performer knows you can’t do that. But neither was I serving up knowledge like some Pythian waitress of the Platonic forms, or letting them determine the course content, or ‘empowering’ them to tell me what class should look like or (God forbid) what standards should be used for measuring grades. I was, in fact, modeling effective leadership strategies by acting all, y’know, leaderly, in the admittedly old-fashioned and authoritarian sense of being in charge.
I suspect the ‘it’s all about the students’ theory was thought up by rationalizing parents who want to believe that the entire world values their children as much as they do. But imagining teachers as parents is a huge mistake; it prevents students from learning perhaps the most important lesson of all, namely what grownup relationships look like outside the family unit — and that includes future political relationships, by the way. Democracy is about everyone getting a vote, sure, but it’s not about everyone getting their way.
Not that anyone remembers that, now that parents have started teaching their kids that life is all about them. Apart from the ramifications for the greater good, this has put teachers front and center trying to fight the rising tide of narcissism: literally writing out the social contract on each syllabus, and regularly informing students that they are not, in fact, the center of the universe, teachers are bound to be punished as messengers of heartily unwelcome news.
Unless…
Someone imparts the idea of civic duty so effectively, there’s little to no argument, meaning they are a leader, meaning (at its best) they can impose their will on others with the willing consent of said others. (At least that’s how Augustus did it, that tricky bastard.)
I’ve already documented my distaste for Stand and Deliver and its teacher-martyr-mongering ilk. Yet, as a friend recently pointed out, Dead Poets Society got one thing right: Keating’s admittedly pathological cult of personality really motivated those fake students. And yes, it’s true, if you do it right, that can work in real life — but, unlike in the movies, it doesn’t have to mean sacrificing yourself to the kiddies. Some of the most self-important jackasses I’ve ever met are really good teachers. They believe their own greatness, you see, and so the students do too. And so they willingly listen.
We need to recognize teaching as the leadership position that it is. Stop yelling about teacher accountability if you won’t let them hold the students accountable, which is what real-life managers will eventually do anyway. Stop telling little Suzy that she’s the leader of tomorrow and start encouraging her to recognize Mrs. Smith as the leader of today.
Putting students in charge of their own education misses the point entirely. If we really want to make education relevant to real life, we should imagine it as a model for future interactions. While the model does not have to be hierarchical in any sort of fascist sense, there will indeed need to be both leaders and led and no, not everyone will listen to you like Mom and Dad do.
Best case scenario, making it ‘all about the students’ assumes that teachers are mere mouthpieces for the greatness of polynomials or sentence diagrams. Worse case scenario, it makes teachers low-level service providers to student consumers who get to be the deciders. Either way, it’s yet another excuse not to recognize teachers as leaders in their own right, and it’s no good.
Death threats can be sent to the Institute for ‘My Child is Special’ Studies, Boulder, Colorado.
While I am a proponent of differentiated learning, I heartily agree that students need to be accountable, and that they don’t get to call the shots on a regular basis (having some autonomy, under carefully selected circumstances, is beneficial and can be great motivation).
When I taught college writing and literature, it was incredibly important that students not “run the show,” although in a seminar-style class they are bit-actors in it.
Terrific post!
Well, sure, at higher levels there may be a bit more of a shared cast…but I guess then the prof would be the director? And I agree that some autonomy can be useful in a classroom — but it still has to directed to the larger purpose of the class, hence the need for a teacher!
Another great post! Love your blog!
(You can find me blogging here: http://www.girlandotherthings.wordpress.com and here: http://www.upwrite.wordpress.com)
Excellent thoughts!
And transforming teachers into “low-level service providers” makes it oh-so-easy for parents (and politicians) to justify not paying teachers what they’re worth.
I thought about what you said on teachers “serving” knowledge, and I had to name-check “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” I am fond of the lingo on that show, and they often use the verb “serve” in a fascinating way. “She’s serving face,” or “She’s serving glamour.” It turns the verb into something new altogether, and something that a teacher could use. The drag queens show that it is possible to “serve” a little something to an audience, but serving and being the center of attention aren’t mutually exclusive.
That’s a nice way to meld to the two ideas….I like the idea of making RuPaul into some sort of pedagogical model. Look good, sound good, work it — all excellent advice for a teacher anyway! I think I’d be ‘serving fierce’!
I re-tweeted.
Great post!!
Oh Lord, yes. I TAed a freshman-writing-reading-critical-thinking-balderdash course last semester, and the biggest problem I had was that almost all of my students had been brought up by their parents with the “if you did it, it goes on the fridge, you beautiful center of the universe you” mentality. Having to basically teach them how to be responsible human beings and to respect other people’s time (read: mine) should not have been my job…..but that being said, if I had the attitude of everything revolving around them too, when would they learn…? On a somewhat unrelated note, I find it completely ridiculous that my college has lowered the requirement to pass a gen-ed course to a 1.0 average grade.
Education just can’t be a consumer-run operation, because sometimes you have to give the consumer what s/he doesn’t want (a big old F) in order to give them the opportunity to have a(n) (eventually/possibly) valuable education.
I agree, consumer-run education is a contradiction in terms, which is why I think education is going to the drain so quickly. But I really don’t know what to do in a world where you can’t tell people that they, or at least their work, is just average!
Again the teacher as the duke. Brilliant. Perfect. I finally get the meaning of the lyrics to, “The Duke of Earl”..ly seventeenth century English prose. And while we are at it an oath of fealty wouldn’t hurt any student I have ever known if the prof was as astute to his responsibilities as your blog says he should be. Blog potentis. Truly inspirational.
I’d be down with an oath of fealty. But it’s true, I’m not as opposed to unilateral power (in certain circumstances) as many people today are.
I always understood the “all about the students” comment to mean that the purpose of teaching was the students, i.e. you teach not for your own pleasure but because we need/want to learn. That having been said, I don’t disagree with this post.
Well, sure if you’re going to go around interpreting things reasonably…but honestly, I don’t think that’s how most education reform people are using it. And I think we should re-think the value of teaching for you own pleasure; apropos to my previous post, I think if you’re invested in it, you’ll probably be a much better teacher!
Not surprising that you started your post with an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. While he is an iconic leader of the civil rights movement – one of the most important times in recent history – King was a certain type of leader. Your post seems to me to posit that leadership can only come under the rubric of that formal leadership role that King represents. There are some wonderful interpretations of civil rights leadership that show there were many different kinds of leadership roles – especially at the grassroots level – that made the civil rights movement so successful in changing the very fabric of our society. Those other leadership roles can look very different than what you describe here. For example, sociologist Belinda Robnett found that “bridge leaders” at the local level were critical for the movement. Ella Baker was fantastic at finding and raising the skills of those kinds of local leaders in the process of building up what she called “participatory democracy.” I agree that we should see our best teachers as leaders. So, let’s acknowledge and celebrate that there are many kinds of leadership roles.
Actually, I’d say you’re starting from Living Colour’s image/interpretation; I was just posting the link to the video because the song seemed apropros.
If I had a metal band I would write a song called “WoPro’s on the Warpath” because any song with that title would rock. I agree with you most of the time and pretty much here as well. Of course we know I’m more idealistic, but only inasmuch as working with students go. I believe you can have the sweet student-teacher breakthrough and you don’t even have to be a martyr. I think I do it and my life’s pretty good by which I mean there’s not enough drama in my career (yet) for a reader’s digest article let alone a Hollywood flick.
Oh, I’m not denying there can be sweet moments — I just don’t think there will ever be enough to justify teaching as a career, at least with the current system in place. That’s our main difference…but I’m sure you bring it in the classroom too
While I don’t disagree that teachers should be in charge, I don’t accept that teaching is about teachers. Look at the etymology: from the Latin educare “bring up, rear, educate,” which is related to educere “bring out,” from ex- “out” + ducere “to lead.” A teacher leads not for his or her own benefit, but to “bring out” the best (i.e. highest potential) of students. Otherwise what’s the point?
Blogging from Haiti,
Kathy
You’re assuming every student has a “highest potential” that can be reached in a classroom and on that we probably disagree; at a certain point it just became obvious to me that all we were there to do was to act like babysitters, or perhaps nannies, socializing the students so they could function like adults. And of course the Romans would have considered twenty-year-olds as dumb kids anyway so I think they would have agreed with my methods. educere most definitely requires a dux!
I’ve said on my own blog in numerous places that education is what we make of it, students and teachers alike (though I tend to emphasize the students’ responsibility to make a greater effort in their education). So I suspect that any teacher — certainly any college or university professor — who feels like a babysitter isn’t really willing to make more than that of the educational experience.
That sounds like I’m knocking you. Sorry about that — I’m really not. But you did get out of teaching for precisely that reason, yes?
Anyway, I think Kathy raises a good point, but I wanted to expand on it a bit, because a few years ago I had what you might call an educational existential moment and began wondering what, if anything, I should call myself in relation to what I actually do in a classroom. Education (or, nominatively, “educator”), with its connotations of child-rearing and leadership, didn’t really do it for me. In fact, I eschewed the term. After a long list of possibilities (which I outlined in a blog post of my own, though I won’t intrude by posting here unless you want me to), I settled on what I figured was the best term to describe what I do in the classroom — what my preferred and practiced approach to teaching is. The term I settled on was “student.” As I wrote on my own blog post, the word “student” comes “from the Latin for ‘zeal and affection’ and the verb connotations of ‘to be zealous,’ ‘to seek to be helpful,’ and ‘to apply oneself.’ I wish my students were in fact more zealous in the pursuit of their education, but I include this here because I consider my role as a student as essential to — perhaps indistinct from — my role as a teacher, and I adore that part of this definition that encourages us to ‘seek to be helpful.’”
Just thought I’d share that and see what you thought.
On your first point, my question is, where does that feeling come from? As you might guess, I think it’s external, from a system that coddles parents, more or less ties K-12 teachers’ hands on pedagogy, then expects college professors to “clean up.” You may disagree (I suspect you will) but my second question is, how many teachers feel this way and just aren’t saying it? My guess: a lot, which again argues for a more systemic problem that needs to be addressed as such.
I’m not a big fan of the etymology argument to be honest, mostly because if you’re going to do it, you’re really going to have to go back to the cultural context of the original language. If you do that, you’ll see the Romans were all about cults of personality. And unquestioned authority, beating the students, owning slaves etc. Also, Latin is dead, honey! I love it, but if the root meaning isn’t relevant to today’s meaning, and can’t be brought back….also, the Romans would have called their students discipuli. So guess what that’s related to…
I don’t know that we need to go back to the root of the word in its original language. I think we just need to go back to the point at which that word entered the English language, and ask ourselves why we chose to import it. I love your comments about the Romans, but I’d also point out that while the Romans may have called their students discipuli, we chose to skip that word and import a different one, which is less rooted in discipline/discipleship and more in active, engaged learning. Why was that?
Not a choice, an accident! If historical linguistics shows us anything, it’s that language usually spreads in an agreeably random manner — pre-modern-media, pre-modern-Rupublican, anyway.
Hmm, I thought that historical linguistics showed us the opposite. Language does not spread randomly, but due to events and circumstances – i.e. the Norman Conquest accounts for the borrowing of roughly 10,000 French words in the English language. Which words were borrowed depended on the circumstance; for instance, we have several French words related to religion- chaplain, cardinal, mercy, nunnery, chastity, sermon, baptism, humility. While Latin was the language of the church, French was the vernacular of the court. These words were borrowed into English as a result of the Normans imposing their terms upon the common man – i.e. the Englishman.
So maybe, the word “student” being chosen over “discipuli” had more to do with how the ruling class viewed education, or was starting to view education. It’s possible that the idea of a disciple was being left behind for the idea of a student.
Also, great blog. I’m enjoying the articles.
It’s the idea of “choice” that bothers me. All I meant by “random” is that it’s not anyone’s choice, so the words we use today, for example, are random insasmuch as our standard English vocabulary has been pre-determined by a long series of events, some accidental, some not. And even the Normans didn’t exactly choose to change their language, you know? Similarly, no single person, or even a dedicated group of people, sat down and said “hey, let’s use the word ‘student’ because it reflects our beliefs”. So yes, institutions and events have had an influence, to be sure, but that’s not the same as choosing.
I actually assume no such thing. I only assume that I can’t know who can reach his or her highest potential unless I try. I assume that it’s my responsibility as an educator to try my best to make a difference. No, it doesn’t always work. But it’s worth the effort for those few times that it does. I have seen kids grow and change and become beautiful adults who give to the world, as well. Just last month I had dinner in Miami with a student I taught 25 years ago, who is an amazing, brilliant man and now a dear friend. I have seen education change lives.
Again, we disagree. I have come to despise the idea that a few beautiful moments or students can possibly make up for the overall price (financial and psychic) of teaching in a broken system that devalues the very teachers who run it.
Now, everyone is different. If you job works for you, then it works for you and I can’t possibly argue about your feelings. But I can argue that imposing this ideal as the norm is harmful as it insists that all ‘good’ teachers may as well be martyrs for the amount they’re supposed to be invested in/rewarded by their teaching. Simply put, it’s setting an unrealistically (and unhealthily) high standard, and while that’s held up as a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, it’s actually cutting down on the numbers of good teachers by making it a truly unattractive profession to be in for most people.
Also, my point was that the current system literally doesn’t let any student reach their highest potential, whatever that might be.
I basically agree, but I want to disagree. I know that students today expect that they should be given everything, and that they shouldn’t have to work for it. At the same time, when I can get classes to engage as collaborators in the learning process, I feel like I am more successful. Then again, that takes a lot of work and drains my energy in many ways. Maybe, at least when it comes to higher education, the problem lies in the fact that not everyone is ready for education, but everyone is welcomed into it.
Ah, now that is an honest response! Yes, I think the idealistic party line tells us we should want collaboration in the classroom — but it’s simply not possible IMHO. K-12 education isn’t teaching critical thinking at all, so there’s no way colleges can just jump in. And the work and energy drain is a major issue that isn’t being addressed; this is why I encourage people to thinking of teaching as a job, a mere job, and nothing more. Otherwise, you get caught up in the psychodrama of the students, the admin, and the rest of the world imposing ridiculous expectations on you.
I second WoPro’s comment: this is an excellent response! I disagree with her in that I believe this kind of cooperation IS possible — not probable, perhaps, but definitely possible, because, like you, Lisa, I’ve seen it happen in my own classrooms — but WoPro and you are both absolutely right about the too-seldom addressed issues of academic psychodrama, and the level of preparedness in today’s students combined with lax admission standards in today’s colleges and universities.
Short version: I love this response.
Thank you. It helps to know that I am not alone in my thinking. I’ve just begun to explore the issues/problems of education in one of my blogs, but I’m still not sure what I really want to say. I know that I am burning out, but I want to do more than just fade away or quit. I’ve committed too much time to what I am doing now to just be able to say “this is just a job” although believe me, I have tried.
Well, although I promote the idea, I also promote the idea that, if you’re a good teacher, it is very difficult to separate yourself from your work that way (especially if you are grading late into the night!). I wasn’t a bad teacher, but I had to leave for my own well-being — I was deliberately disengaging, and it was still driving me nuts.
I don’t assume everyone has to do the same, but I do think the burnout issue needs to be addressed somehow. You might check Post Academic’s post on identifying burnout, coping with it, and preventing burnout.
(*you probably can’t hear me over the sound of applause *)
Fabulous post, per usual. Like you, I shimmer and glitter and shine in my classroom. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get my point across and, yes, I have been known to break out into song. But, as you suggest, it is a relationship between teacher and student and the idea (I think) in its original inception was that teachers actually knew a whole boat-load more than their students. These days, I’m not always sure. The system is so very broken. And, honestly, I have had to teach a few little Suzies about respect because it is actually a foreign concept to them; their mothers, out on the street; their fathers, in prison; they were stuck getting passed to people who meant well but were not family members – and, let’s face it, these Little Suzies were very sad and scared and depressed.
Sometimes it’s hard for a teacher to sparkle through all of that chaos.
On the flip slide, I’ve also taught at private schools where students have clearly had the student as consumer mentality. “My dad is paying 12K for me to be here, so entertain me.” Both of these paradigms suck and make teaching difficult. Give me an engaged learner in any environment, and I’ll shake my groove thing and light up like a glow-worm, and I promise that kid will learn.
I bet you do! The little Suzies who are ‘underprivileged’ (for lack of a better word) are a separate problem — and by separate, I mean one that the school system shouldn’t be expected to fix. I mean, sure, after school programs can help tremendously, but (contra Stand and Deliver) individual teachers can’t be the solution to a vast social problem. And overprivileged, too, is its own problem as you point out. True that it’s hard to shine in either case. But you know what Pink Floyd says…
Pretty much all I have are Little Suzies. I got one to quit smoking dope a couple of weeks back (she’s 12), but now she’s back on it, and Mom’s complicit (though she lives with Grandma). Broke my heart…again.
But I am a model of the “Cult of Personality” teaching style, and at times I feel a little guilty. It feels like a mixture of chicanery and gummy vitamins. Still, my biggest, thug-est group was transfixed when I showed them Michelangelo’s sculptures, particularly the Pietà. I’d been talking about proportion, and they immediately recognized that the Madonna was outrageously tall. I reminded them that this was a mother who had just lost her son and was cradling him in her arms, and my voice caught a little. The unspoken truth is that their mothers worry daily about losing them to the cartels, the drugs, and the peripheral violence, and I think that crossed most of our minds. They went uncharacteristically silent while their rockabillyesque, streetwise art teacher shed a tear for dead sons everywhere. Michelangelo now gets mad props in that class.
Sorry. Rambled. Mea culpa.
Oh, you’re allowed to ramble anytime, Sister. And it sounds more like you’re having Stand and Deliver moments than Dead Poets moments…which, don’t get me wrong, are very powerful indeed and undoubtedly beneficial to the students. It’s just that, in real life, what does this model do to the teacher’s pscyhe? Especially in the long term? That’s the question nobody asks when they say it’s all about the students and act like these moments make everything okay.
How on earth did we get to this point?
“The idea (I think) in its original inception was that teachers actually knew a whole boat-load more than their students. These days, I’m not always sure. The system is so very broken. ”
What is it that the teacher is assumed to “know” or not know in this claim?
A first-grade math teacher knows less about math than her students?
A teacher of anatomy knows less anatomy than his students?
A professor who has studied [fill in the blank] for years knows less than her students about [fill in the blank]?
Jesus, I hope the “system” ain’t THAT broken!
Is this the logical result of the “student centered approach” to school?
It seems to me that the “theory,” or the HOW we might learn anything has taken precedence over that which one wants to learn. Hey Prof . . . what’s the classical terminology for this difference?
I don’t think there is one — as I mentioned above, the ancients wouldn’t have put up with this bunk at all. The Romans, especially, didn’t really care about he theory, and the Greek stuff kind of assumes you want to be there, which I guess was right because there was no mandatory public education.
Fellow UT alum here (1994). I just found your blog and am completely pissed I didn’t learn of it sooner! I married a school teacher and also teach part-time at a local uni so your posts really resonate. Great stuff and keep it up.
Well, good for you, fighting the fight. Thanks for reading and commenting. Keep it up!
[...] The Worst Professor Ever reminds us all that teaching is a performance art and is therefore in one sense teacher-centered rather than student-centered [...]
[...] As much as I don’t like the idea of consumer-driven education, this was one arena where I had to give in: there was no point in trying to exert authority in an influence-based culture. Hence my post on why teachers are better if they are cults of personality. [...]
Thank you. I needed this. Someone who was actually honest about education and didn’t just spout some teaching jargon about, “You just need to connect with the students and everything will be rainbows and sunsets.”