Ravens and Teachers

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Humans, it is claimed, have a theory of mind.  What this means is that we know what others are thinking, or better, at least we can anticipate what they might be thinking.  This allows us to be self-aware and live in a complex society.  We can see someone else and infer what’s going on in his or her noggin.  This is often considered a uniquely human trait, but I’m not sure how widespread it is.  You see, I frequently run into the situation where someone expects something of me without telling me.  It happened just recently with an organization to which I belong.  I’m a very busy person.  I suspect most of us are—not having time to accomplish everything we need to get done.  If someone wants something from me I have to be told what it is and I have to be told in detail.

One of the things my students always said was that I was a good teacher.  The reason for this, I think, is that when I explain something I back up a bit before the beginning.  I try to assume no knowledge on the subject before going in a bit more deeply.  This method works because of my personal theory of mind.  These people wouldn’t be taking a class on this subject if they already knew the stuff I could assume.  For understanding something new, things have to be explained thoroughly.  That doesn’t mean taking a lot of extra time, but it does mean not assuming others know what I know.  For many people this is difficult.  We’re all busy.  We tell others “Do this,” without explaining what exactly “this” is.  The results are predictable.  It happens all the time in work emails.

I’ve recently written of teachers and ravens.  The effective among the former understand the value of full explanation.  The latter have a theory of mind that allows them to go as far as to try to fool others by giving not enough information.  We might learn a lesson either by sitting in the classroom of the former or by watching the ravens that skulk on the edge of civilized areas.  What they have in common is the ability to realize that others operate with limited information.  In order to learn, information has to be conveyed and conveyed well.  Even now colleagues at work are surprised at when I explain something that it’s done thoroughly and clearly.  When I receive information it’s often piecemeal and frustrating.  The reason, I infer, is that we don’t spend enough time paying attention to either our teachers or the ravens.

Image credit: Wikipedia Commons, public domain

Thanking Teachers

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Those who know me personally are often surprised to hear that my high school gym teacher was one of the most influential people in my life.  It is true.  He, and a handful of others I can still remember by name, set me on the path of knowing that I should be a teacher.  It is a very important profession, habitually underpaid.  To hold the future in your hands is a responsibility like no other.  I complained, like all kids do, about having to go to school.  Once there, however, I was fascinated by the learning.  I still am.  I think of those women and men who really wanted to mold young minds.  Who knew they’d never be paid as well as their peers, but who had a message worth preserving.

I suppose I’m thinking about them because I recently watched Dead Poets Society again.  It’s a poignant thing to do since Robin Williams’ death, but the movie makes a powerful statement about teachers.  Knowledge, once planted, grows.  I don’t name people on this blog unless they say I can, and although I’ve connected with a few high school teachers through Facebook, I don’t bother them in retirement.  I can say, though, that one English teacher, my German teacher, a couple history teachers, a math teacher, and my gym teacher made significant impacts.  The math teacher, of course, helped me realize that my thinking process veers in quite a different direction from equations and proofs.  Ironically, now I tend to think that way and often think I could’ve done it, but I needed several years for the ideas to settle into place.

Thinking of them by name may not be a daily occurrence, but in my actions I live out what they taught.  I’m not sure what leads a young person to pursue a teaching career, but clearly some of them have gifts that make them influential in lives long after the classroom relationship ends.  The young mind is receptive in the way that a more experienced one tends not to be.  Even as we reach our teens the natural confidence of youth seems to take over for many.  We might still, however, listen to those with more experience.  Teachers, under-paid and often having to take summer jobs to makes ends meet, are almost as influential as peers.  The twenty years of my life from the age five on were under the sway of teachers.  Time set aside for learning.  It wasn’t nearly long enough.

Teaching Peace

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Teachers, preferably unarmed, are some of my favorite people. While the travesty of a government muddles along in the District of Columbia I think back on my own education and wonder what went wrong. I’m sure you knew kids who hated school; I certainly knew plenty. For whatever reason they didn’t want to be enclosed in a classroom with everyone else, learning stuff for which they could see no practical application. Reading doesn’t appeal to everyone. Memories of advanced math still send shudders down my spine. And what was the point of gym class if it wasn’t to make those of us who liked reading feel bad at that awkward stage of life when you discover your body isn’t as well-made as that of others your age? Education isn’t perfect, but it’s what we now need more than ever.

There’s no way that everyone will learn to enjoy reading. We aren’t cookie-cutter people. Thinking, as my own mathematical experiences demonstrated, can be very hard work. No one person knows everything. That’s why, at least in my day, after you reached sixth grade you started to have teachers who specialized in subjects. What I didn’t realize as a kid is how hard these modern-day saints have it. Pay scales are low. Hours are long for those dedicated to being good teachers—the brevity of the school day beliefs the amount of work done after hours. Increasingly our educators have to hold down a second job to be able to survive. The least we can do is learn in gratitude.

School shootings are so tragic because many of the victims are those who haven’t had a chance at life yet. We elect uneducated presidents and wonder what could possibly go wrong. Education, if done right, becomes a lifelong journey. The day that passes without learning something new is the day I come home and go to bed depressed. More than simple evolving, life is learning. Teachers are those who set us off on that track. The young, it is true, have more flexibility in learning. There are more options open to you before your thinking gets set in its way. I ran into seminarians who, no matter how much you’d offer, had already made up their minds. No education required. Perhaps what we need to teach at the youngest possible age is that school never ends. The formal classroom experience may cease at grade twelve, the baccalaureate, masters, or doctoral degree, but the learning goes on. And it’s a good thing, not some bizarre punishment. For that teachers, unarmed, are those to whom we should be grateful. If only we’d be willing to invest in them.

Adjunct Values

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Well, the internet seems to have discovered adjunct Hell. Naturally, I’m too late to be part of the statistics, but I never rule that out as a future fate. This week I’ve seen several stories, some of them on major news network sites, shocked and indignant about the conditions under which adjunct instructors live. There’s quite a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing, but journalists and academics alike are tip-toeing around the blue whale in the room. Our society does not value education. Yes, we insist on educating children to the point of basic competency, but do we really, as a society, value that education? Ask just about any teacher. These people pour out their talent and efforts to give other people’s children the boost they need to get along in life. And many of them have to work second jobs just to make ends meet. Do we expect any less of higher education? We want it cheap and dirty with guaranteed jobs when it’s done. Universities want star faculty who publish all the time. You can’t do that when you’re busy teaching all the time. And we’ve got a glut.

The glut is PhDs. We’re cheap. More accurately, we’re broke. One of the things they don’t tell you when you apply for doctoral programs is that you are signing up to be ungainfully employed for your best earning years. Universities won’t tell you that because they need the money that graduate students bring with them, mostly in the form of student loans. News flash, America: education is not cheap! Another news flash: we are fast falling behind other cultures where teachers are respected, well paid, and even venerated. Gasp! Do such fantasy lands exist? Yes, they do.

Try a little experiment: think where you would be without your teachers. You certainly wouldn’t be reading this blog, and probably not reading at all. Your employment would likely be manual labor. Your math skills would be such that you’d be easily cheated of your wages. You would probably believe in a myth about the earth being created in six days and think that was science. When I read about the societies advancing the swiftest, America does not top the the list any more. When I learn more about those societies where the cutting edge is measured by Singapore or Beijing, I find out they highly value their teachers. They are paid well. They are respected. Here, in the US, chances are that the person teaching your kids in college makes a poverty-level salary and may be surviving by food stamps. Three quarters of our higher education teaching force consists of adjuncts. Three quarters. And these people are no slouches. They’re simply the victims of a society that doesn’t want to pay for education. Listening to administrators attempting to justify their decisions makes me squirm. How much did you say that Greg Schiano, Brady Hoke, or Bo Pelini “earn(ed)” in a year? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Any old school will do

Any old school will do