I'm not sure about something I wrote yesterday — in the post Blessed are the sense makers. Specifically, I'm a little unnerved by this sentence:
Students should feel (dare I use the word?) entitled to full explanations — we owe it to them, because that's what we're there for.
Two aspects of that line worry me.
Kristin — who is slated to be our school's first teacher when we open up with a kindergarten through first grade in 2016 — pointed out the first. I read her the post, and the following conversation ensued:
Kristin: Goodness, that sounds scary!
Me: Really? Whyever so?
Kristin: Well, I certainly don't know everything there is to know about everything! I can't give a full explanation to every one of my students' questions.
She was worried that this idea that students are entitled to full explanations makes it sound as if, in order to teach at our school, one would have to be some sort of nuclear-enhanced super-genius. (Now, for the record, she is. She's the sort of person who graduated summa cum laude in English and tutors high-level math. And she's conversant in science and philosophy, and cooks and bakes, for heaven's sake.)
Second, I worry that the "we owe it to them" phrase makes it sound as if teachers should be 'data butlers' — sensible-shoe-wearing incarnations of AskJeeves.com who hectically buttle (a real word!) information to passive students.
Both of these are bad.
But there's a danger in going too far in this direction — toward emphasizing that teachers need not be Einsteins or data butlers. Because: maybe they do?
We do need our teachers to be smart — very smart.
This job will regularly require a lot of independent research — so much so, normal classes will take Fridays off, so teachers can study and prepare lessons. Teachers will become mini-experts on a whole range of topics; it's only by delving so deep that they'll be able to draw students into authentic love of the subject. (This, if you're wondering, stems from the Imaginative Education angle of our school. They've just revamped their website — check it out!)
And we do need our teachers to do a little data-buttling!
Some educational environments put the onus on students to discover their "passions" on their own: the teachers in these schools aren't leaders, but merely facilitators. We'll be going in a different direction. In our school, both teachers and students will be expected to do the puzzling out together: it takes a village to make sense of the world. So the students will be serving the students — doing some extra work to help answer questions. But the students will be serving the teachers, too. The relationship won't be obsequious.
So, in sum:
1. No Einsteins need apply. (Though I've no beef if they do! Particularly if they can pull off the "I look seemply amazeen und I haven't vashed my hair all veek!" aesthetic.)
By that, I mean prospective teachers don't need to fret that they don't already perfectly understand human history, the physical sciences, math, and literature (and are also able to write elegantly, draw beautifully, and cook deliciously). Because we'll help them move toward that.
2. Teachers aren't mere data-butlers — it's not their job to fill passive minds.
Rather, they're job is to engage in a back-and-forth relationship with students, bringing them into a similar love of the subject matter.
What matters, then, is that prospective teachers be thrilled at the idea of constructing expertise, and thrilled at spreading that skill to others.