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The Teacher and The Stranger by Jason Broadwater
Copyright Jason Broadwater
Please disseminate this content freely, as authorized by Jason Broadwater.
Once upon a time there was a teacher who was walking down a long and winding road. Suddenly, the teacher stumbled upon a hard object. The object was a lamp like the fabled genie lamps from stories of old. The teacher knew exactly what to do with this lamp, as would we all. The teacher rubbed the lamp, but nothing happened. So the teacher rubbed the lamp again and again, and finally a stranger appeared.
Teacher: Do you grant wishes?
Stranger: Is that what you seek?
Teacher: No. Not really. I seek meaning.
Stranger: What is meaning?
Teacher: I don’t know. I’m not a philosopher. I am a teacher.
Stranger: Is there a difference?
Teacher: Yes. A philosopher follows questions to explore the nature of existence. A teacher teaches. I have not much interest in being a philosopher, but I want to be a great teacher.
Stranger: Then have you not the key ingredient?
Teacher: The desire? That can’t be all I need.
Stranger: What else do you desire?
Teacher: I don’t know. I have so many questions. I need answers.
Stranger: Do not answers cease thought and questions continue and perpetuate it?
Teacher: I suppose so.
Stranger: Then should we not ask questions?
Teacher: Then what should I do? That’s my question. What should I do to be a better teacher?
Stranger: Well, what is a teacher?
Teacher: Someone who teaches.
Stranger: What is teaching?
Teacher: To pass on knowledge.
Stranger: What is knowledge?
Teacher: Having information.
Stranger: What is information?
Teacher: This all seems pointless.
Stranger: Can you answer the question?
Teacher: I don’t know. Stuff. Knowing stuff.
Stranger: Grains of sand?
Teacher: Yes, OK. Information is grains of sand. So what?
Stranger: When you go to the beach do you feel it is necessary to gather as much sand as you can?
Teacher: No.
Stranger: If you were able to take all of the sand home with you would you then have the beach at your home?
Teacher: No.
Stranger: What else is there at the beach?
Teacher: The ocean and the wind and the gulls and such. What’s your point?
Stranger: If we gave every child a dictionary and a set of encyclopedias would we have done our job in educating them?
Teacher: No. So teaching is more than passing on knowledge. Learning skills is important too. Knowledge and skills.
Stranger: Did you come to me for knowledge or skills?
Teacher: I came to you for wisdom. So, to be a teacher I must give my students knowledge, skills, and wisdom.
Stranger: Can these all be given as if a box of chocolates?
Teacher: Well, knowledge can. You said it was grains of sand. Skills, no. I suppose there is drilling for skills, like in sports. Wisdom, I don’t know. How did you become so wise?
Stranger: Am I wise?
Teacher: Well, you seem to have a lot of answers.
Stranger: Yet, have I not only questions?
Teacher: So, questioning brings wisdom. I can give them knowledge, drill and practice skills, and teach them to question, to think for themselves.
Stranger: So what is teaching?
Teacher: Passing on knowledge, skill-building, and provoking and allowing thought. Basically, teaching is facilitating learning.
Stranger: And how does one go about doing this?
Teacher: By imploring different teaching techniques with students.
Stranger: What is a technique?
Teacher: It is a course of action to be taken to accomplish a specific goal.
Stranger: How is the goal set for teachers?
Teacher: Well, there are standard courses of study, and I guess it’s the teacher’s job to set the specific goal and then implement a technique in an attempt to accomplish that goal.
Stranger: Where does one learn techniques for teaching?
Teacher: Some of them come naturally.
Stranger: And the others?
Teacher: From other teachers.
Stranger: Where does one find these teachers?
Teacher: Sometimes within the school where one teaches. There are also schools for training teachers.
Stranger: Are these schools fruitful?
Teacher: That’s the subject of some debate. I think it has a lot to do with whether you think teaching is a science or an art.
Stranger: What is science?
Teacher: It’s the explaining and predicting of behavior and phenomena through observation and/or experimentation.
Stranger: What is art?
Teacher: Using a medium or media to create something or some experience in an attempt to represent or create some experience of truth.
Stranger: What is a medium?
Teacher: It is a means.
Stranger: Does teaching have means?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: And what is the dominant means of education?
Teacher: Language.
Stranger: And what is language?
Teacher: It’s a system of symbols used to communicate meaning. It’s a medium.
Stranger: And how is this medium used in education?
Teacher: It’s used to teach every subject, and the students use it demonstrate learning, and teachers use it to assess the learning of their students.
Stranger: So mastering this medium would be mastering education?
Teacher: In a way, yes. The higher level of mastery of language skills the higher level of learning possible in a formal education environment.
Stranger: What is an artists’ medium?
Teacher: It depends. A painter uses paint.
Stranger: Are there schools to learn to paint like there are schools to learn to teach?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: How are artists taught to paint?
Teacher: Through imitation.
Stranger: Why is this beneficial?
Teacher: Because they learn how a painting was created.
Stranger: With what was the painting created?
Teacher: With paint.
Stranger: And what is paint for an artist?
Teacher: It is the medium. Focusing on learning the medium prepares art students to do their own work. So, in education, we should focus on the medium of learning, which is language.
Stranger: When one uses the medium of language to speak, is that art?
Teacher: It depends.
Stranger: On what?
Teacher: On your perception of that action. Anything presented as art is art.
Stranger: How does one present something as art?
Teacher: It’s about intent and the context into which the action or thing is organized in one’s perspective or paradigm.
Stranger: What is a paradigm?
Teacher: It’s an organized perspective. A context for the observable world. It allows us to create meaning.
Stranger: What is meaning?
Teacher: It is the creating of a connection and contextualizing of that connection.
Stranger: What is understanding?
Teacher: It is an openness for the interconnectedness of all things. It affects how we think and what we do and our intent.
Stranger: What is intent?
Teacher: It is taking action with desire.
Stranger: Does everyone do this?
Teacher: All do. Yet, in different ways. I mean, just about every conscious action is driven with intent. It comes from a basic understanding of cause and effect.
Stranger: What is cause and effect?
Teacher: It is a relationship between occurrences. When something happens there is an effect in the world and that effect is then a cause for something else to happen. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. It’s Einstein, I think.
Stranger: Did this relationship exist before Einstein?
Teacher: Of course.
Stranger: Did people know of it before Einstein?
Teacher: Yes. Oh yeah. It’s one of the basic elements of the observable world. Einstein just mapped out the specifics.
Stranger: Are the specifics always the same?
Teacher: Well, some basic elements of the relationship are.
Stranger: All conscious beings recognize this relationship?
Teacher: To different extents, but I would say yes. I mean some more consciously than others.
Stranger: Because of this relationship, can one say that something caused something else?
Teacher: Well, that’s where we as a culture are misled.
Stranger: Misled by what?
Teacher: No one event is the sole cause for the other.
Stranger: So cause and effect is misleading?
Teacher: Well, there is no linear, direct cause and effect. That’s what our culture needs to understand.
Stranger: What is linear, direct?
Teacher: In other words, no one thing causes something else. Everything has an effect on everything. It’s like a pebble being tossed into a pond. But instead of the ripple of effect moving outward as a growing circle on the flat plane that is the surface, the ripple moves outward as a growing sphere. But this is a metaphor that is not widely imagined.
Stranger: What is a metaphor?
Teacher: It is an image or thing or experience that serves to represent something else in a way to reveal something about that which is being represented.
Stranger: And others do not use metaphor?
Teacher: Yeah they do all the time. But most people are not conscious that they are using metaphor. It’s all black and white with a lot of people. They see contradiction in the details.
Stranger: And what makes someone believe one idea over another?
Teacher: Reliable sources.
Stranger: And what makes a source reliable?
Teacher: A person who knows what he or she is talking about; they are trust worthy.
Stranger: What makes them so?
Teacher: They are respected in their intellectual community.
Stranger: A learned Mormon is well-respected in his intellectual community, so why would a devout Muslim not believe him as he described the structure of heaven the way a scientist describes the structure of an atom.
Teacher: Religion’s different. It’s about what you choose to take on faith.
Stranger: What is inside an atom?
Teacher: Protons and such.
Stranger: And in those?
Teacher: Quarks.
Stranger: Have you seen them?
Teacher: No.
Stranger: Are you not taking the presence of quarks on faith?
Teacher: I guess I am.
Stranger: How did a scientist discover quarks?
Teacher: The scientist’s interaction with instruments allowed the scientist’s experience.
Stranger: And then where were “quarks” born?
Teacher: In the scientist’s attempts to communicate the experience.
Stranger: What media did the scientists use?
Teacher: Scientific instruments and language.
Stranger: Was this a discovery or an act of creation?
Teacher: A discovery.
Stranger: What drove this act of discovering?
Teacher: The desire to represent truth.
Stranger: What drove the writing and communicating of the discovery?
Teacher: The desire to represent truth.
Stranger: Then what is science?
Teacher: Using media to create some experience in an attempt to represent some truth.
Stranger: Is it then not art?
Teacher: I guess it is.
Stranger: Then what is the difference between teaching as an art and teaching as a science?
Teacher: Well, the idea that teaching is a science represents certain understandings and applications present in the teaching profession, and the idea that teaching is an art represents certain understandings and applications in the teaching profession.
Stranger: And what are those different understandings?
Teacher: One philosophy focuses on the creation of materials and the organization of materials by the teacher. The other focuses on how the students learn.
Stranger: Are these not all one?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: And the teacher-training schools, do they make you define and separate philosophies and choose one to follow?
Teacher: No not exactly. But they usually endorse one currently defined mode of thinking over another.
Stranger: And their students?
Teacher: Unfortunately, people are so eager to default to some form of authority. There is a serious homogeneity issue at stake in all of the arts. Artists used to be the exception, now we manufacture them in programs like MFA programs. If you get in, go to class, do your work, and pay your financial dues, then you are a certified artist. And most of these people come out thinking very similarly about art.
Stranger: And with teachers?
Teacher: It’s the same. Look at the history of education. For a while everybody thinks this, then everybody thinks that. It’s a swinging pendulum. People believe what they are told if it is told to them by an authority. They take it on faith.
Stranger: What is an authority?
Teacher: It’s a person or a group of people, that’s all. A group of people who have thought for themselves and now everyone follows them as if their ideas were handed down by some deity.
Stranger: And what is a deity?
Teacher: An authority. It’s in our programming it seems to look for an authority to lend truth to our beliefs. It’s from our fear.
Stranger: Fear of what?
Teacher: Of being alone. So we default to authority everywhere we can. I see students all the time who think that their teacher has some answer to give them. It drives me crazy.
Stranger: Did not you ask for an answer from me?
Teacher: I’m guilty of it too. But you are helping me.
Stranger: By doing what?
Teacher: Challenging me to think.
Stranger: So teachers get nothing from these teacher-training programs?
Teacher: Well, these programs can provide very valuable experiences for teachers. Teachers can learn techniques the way a painter can learn techniques. They can also hear the array of ideas that have been put forth as truth in the realm of teaching and hopefully use this experience not to collect the ones they like as if they were for decorating the classroom but instead be inspired by History of thought to think for themselves.
Stranger: What is History?
Teacher: Using media to create something or some experience in an attempt to represent truth — again, art. But the non-fiction writer is guided in the creation process by the attempt to represent what is real.
Stranger: What makes something real?
Teacher: I don’t know. Something that you can touch.
Stranger: Is hope not real?
Teacher: Something that you can experience.
Stranger: Like truth?
Teacher: And Science.
Stranger: And Religion?
Teacher: Yes. Religion is created through media (texts, stories, rituals, traditions) in an attempt to represent and communicate truth. There are elements of both science and religion that one has to take on faith.
Stranger: So, you pick one and I pick one, and then we live in different worlds?
Teacher: We can live in the same world, but there are contradictions.
Stranger: In the details?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: If you say the mind is a flower and I say the mind is a house, is one of us wrong?
Teacher: No. They are metaphors.
Stranger: If I express connection to God and/or existence through one set of beliefs, traditions, rituals, and paradigms and you through another, is one of us wrong?
Teacher: No.
Stranger: And what of this to a teacher?
Teacher: Teachers can teach about this stuff. Culture is what our collective human experience is about. We should focus on teaching different cultures and our own culture to our children. Before the world became obsessed with information and the work-force, that was what we did. Teachers need freedom of thought.
Stranger: Are others controlling their thought?
Teacher: Well, teachers are not allowing themselves freedom of thought.
Stranger: If teachers have freedom of thought will their students’ learning increase?
Teacher: Well, not necessarily. Remember that there is no direct, linear cause and effect. The teacher can’t just come in and do whatever fits his or her whim everyday. The curriculum needs structure and specified goals.
Stranger: What is curriculum?
Teacher: It is the course of study.
Stranger: What is course of study?
Teacher: It is the defined parameters of the knowledge base being covered in a particular course. For example, in an Algebra class the teacher covers what concepts and skills fit under the umbrella of algebra, and in a Geometry class the teacher covers what concepts and skills fit under the umbrella of Geometry.
Stranger: Do Algebra and Geometry each exist in isolation?
Teacher: No. There is of course overlap, but the course of study is an establishing of the focus of the course.
Stranger: And subjects other than Math?
Teacher: There’s Literature and Science and History and then electives.
Stranger: Are these taught in conjunction within a defined context?
Teacher: No. For the most part, they are compartmentalized. Science is in sub-groups like math. There’s Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc. In History, you have World History, US History, Legal Economic and Political Systems, and European History.
Stranger: Are you given reasons for the compartmentalization of education?
Teacher: Well, it goes back to the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and beyond.
Stranger: What was the Scientific Revolution?
Teacher: It was a time period in Western History in which Science as we know it was born. From Da Vinci cutting dead bodies open to draw in detail the insides of the human body to Galileo pointing his newfangled telescope at the heavens.
Stranger: Why were these discoveries important?
Teacher: They shook the foundation of our beliefs as a culture.
Stranger: What is culture?
Teacher: It is a group of people’s rituals, traditions, and belief system. This communal perception is our basic understanding of existence; it’s our context; it’s a giant metaphor we all share in bringing form to existence.
Stranger: What is existence?
Teacher: Well, that’s just it. On one level it’s just energy, like a soup. On another, it is a structure with many things, each built with atoms like bricks. And on another, it is what we experience as our experience. It is rain. It is a coffee cup. It is hope or neglect.
Stranger: Objects then are not real?
Teacher: They are real. But again what does it mean for something to be real? It is about our perception and our faith.
Stranger: Are the atoms in a cup of coffee real?
Teacher: Yes. They are as real as my fears.
Stranger: So, reality is projected?
Teacher: It’s reactionary.
Stranger: What is reactionary?
Teacher: Meaning that it is affected. Projected suggests that when you close your eyes, the image of reality disappears from the screen. Reality exists. Yet it is affected by each persons perception of it.
Stranger: What is it to perceive?
Teacher: It is the action of establishing context to create meaning.
Stranger: And actions have reactions?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: And reality was changed during the Scientific Revolution?
Teacher: Yes. The discoveries of the age were so surprising and radical that, instead of being assimilated and the culture evolving, the culture took a hard stand against the validity of the discoveries. Somehow, it became Science versus Religion.
Stranger: Does that adversarial relationship not exist to day?
Teacher: For many, yes it does. But it was different back then. Religion was the means through which the entire culture gave physical form, structure, and meaning to existence. The understanding was seen as concrete and unalterable.
Stranger: Is any understanding concrete?
Teacher: No. But though ideas have changed, many still hold this belief of thingness. The existence of beliefs as if they were solid things. There’s a fluidity to existence.
Stranger: What is fluidity?
Teacher: Having the physical qualities of fluid.
Stranger: Existence is fluid?
Teacher: Well, it’s a more inclusive and beautiful metaphor than a brick structure.
Stranger: So, the Scientific Revolution said that education should be compartmentalized?
Teacher: Not exactly. The revolution in thinking led to an understanding that existence can be observed, analyzed, and explained or predicted. We began to break up reality into smaller and more specific sections. We began to compartmentalize existence.
Stranger: What was the motive behind such a movement?
Teacher: We thought that if we took a very small slice of existence and studied it and explained it then we would be that much closer to understanding existence as a whole. We inadvertently created a new mantra: The whole is the sum of its parts.
Stranger: And this affected people’s lives?
Teacher: Completely. It created the Industrial Revolution where a science was developed for creating things and ideas. People use to live a more holistic life, when they made their own clothes and grew their own food. Now we have a food store and a clothes store. And its even more compartmentalized than that. The movement affected every thing in the Western world and beyond.
Stranger: And education?
Teacher: Public education was pretty much created during this time. The creation was driven by nationalism and a modern nation’s need to train a literate, qualified work force to meet the needs of an industrial society. Higher education was create for the noble pursuit of knowledge.
Stranger: And compartmentalization?
Teacher: This was the foundation of education. A classroom for this particular study, a building for this group of sub-groups. Even the physical nature of schools reflects the compartmentalization. The interconnectedness of existence is a concept people have been slow to understand.
Stranger: What is this concept?
Teacher: The idea that everything is connected. Not like bricks, either, but like water. Existence is a spherical spider web and a step upon a string sends out vibrations in all directions. It is a spherical spider web that morphs with each step of each of us.
Stranger: And other people do not see this?
Teacher: They’re not familiar with the metaphor, or have not really thought about it. Or, more often than not, they’re not receptive to the idea that existence is metaphor. They are still consumed with the concreteness of all things. They believe reality to be real and metaphor to be something else completely.
Stranger: And teachers?
Teacher: They are no different. Someone can have a ton of knowledge and still see the world this way. I see it in politicians, religious leaders, and scientists.
Stranger: In everyone?
Teacher: A little bit yes. But by varying degrees. People are still individuals.
Stranger: What is an individual?
Teacher: An individual is a thing, a perceived separate.
Stranger: What does it mean to be separate?
Teacher: To be disconnected. But we don’t have to see an individual as separate. We can see an individual as a center. Like a cross-section of web-strands in the sphere of existence.
Stranger: And each of us is this thing?
Teacher: Yes. But each different things. And we are also individual consciousnesses.
Stranger: What is consciousness?
Teacher: A point of view. We are each existence seeing itself from a unique point of view. Each is its own center to the sphere that is existence.
Stranger: And these have always been?
Teacher: No they come into being. I was born.
Stranger: From where do they come?
Teacher: I don’t know if it is from a place.
Stranger: What is place?
Teacher: A physical setting.
Stranger: And objects come into being?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: And other things?
Teacher: Yes. Look at ADD and other psychological disorders. A collection of behaviors has been connected to physical firings in the brain. A set of parameters has been set around these behaviors to indicate a range referred to as normal, and any individuals who exhibit behavior and firings outside of this defined collection of likeness, are labeled with this disorder. The disorder did not exist until the behaviors were grouped, the parameters set, and normal defined.
Stranger: What does it mean to be normal?
Teacher: Normality is the presence of details which combine to create in one’s perception that which is expected. Yet it carries strong connotations on top of that.
Stranger: And these are?
Teacher: Well, abnormal, which is just not the expected, is a word that has negative connotations.
Stranger: What are connotations?
Teacher: Connotations are meanings people contrive from a certain stimulus.
Stranger: Are these meanings individual or culturally shared?
Teacher: Both. An individual’s perception is greatly affected by and is part of his or her culture’s perception.
Stranger: And the whole is more than the sum of its parts?
Teacher: Yes. And as a whole affects each part, in turn it affects the whole.
Stranger: So how would you shape education?
Teacher: To reflect the fluidity of existence.
Stranger: Do away with classrooms?
Teacher: Well, no. I guess I’m talking more about curriculum than the physical shape of schools.
Stranger: How could curriculum reflect fluidity?
Teacher: Well, let’s take History for example. History in schools is mostly a chain of events explained through a perception endorsing linear cause and effect. It is also compartmentalized and separated mostly from Art, Literature, and Science. Let’s make History the study of the evolving perception of culture. Instead of a string of events, let’s focus on the relationships that exist among events and how those events reflected and shaped our evolving understanding of reality.
Stranger: Where would we begin?
Teacher: Well, first of all, let’s acknowledge the egocentric nature of experience, and let’s begin with what is immediately around us, and let’s work outward spherically. Let’s follow a strand in one direction and then in another, but let’s be sure that each child leaves each class with a larger sphere of understanding, instead of giving them a section of a straight line to call History, which seems separate and disconnected from their own lives.
Stranger: So we begin with the individual?
Teacher: Yes. We could start by teaching children the history of their school, then of their community, then of their town, then of their state, then their country, then the larger realm which includes their cultural brothers and sisters, then the human race, then the world, then the universe, always along the way making connections from each to the individual. Each concerned with center.
Stranger: And the curriculum for other subjects?
Teacher: Well, we need to examine the criticism that American curriculum is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Look at the study of Literature. We read so many examples. We may be better off reading less and doing more with what we read.
Stranger: What would we do?
Teacher: Discuss and do creative activities.
Stranger: Some examples?
Teacher: We can debate topics, role-play, create representative visual art, write essays, write fiction and poetry inspired by the work, etc. English class is half the study of language and half the study of literature.
Stranger: Is not Literature created with language?
Teacher: Yes, but so is History. And science and all subjects. Science is not the existence of things and relationships that are discovered; it is the study of those things, and that study is made communal through language.
Stranger: The dominant medium of education?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: What do you suggest for the curricular division?
Teacher: Well, we turn History into the Humanities, and we turn English into Language Studies. We should have Language I, Language II, Language III, and Language IV. We should study in-depth the medium through which all formal education is accomplished. This class should be the study of language as medium, in which we would not only analyze the medium itself but the thinking processes it enables like critical thinking and problem solving.
Stranger: So one would not read literature in Language class?
Teacher: We would study literature in language class. But it would not be to cover different authors and literary movements, that would be covered in Humanities class. Instead, Language class would focus on language and we would read literature and newspaper articles and speeches and historical texts and contracts and edicts and constitutions and scientific texts and what ever else, all in an attempt to study the dominant medium through which we teach and learn in formal education and through which our society functions.
Stranger: So, good curricular structure, good techniques, and freedom of thought… these then are all a teacher needs to be a great teacher?
Teacher: Well, a teacher must also set a good example and teach character.
Stranger: And how does a teacher do that?
Teacher: By being a good person and being fair.
Stranger: What makes fairness?
Teacher: Consistency.
Stranger: And what makes a person good?
Teacher: I don’t know. A good person is honest and cares for other people.
Stranger: What is honesty?
Teacher: Telling the truth.
Stranger: If truth is an experience of perspective and what is real must be taken on faith, how can one be honest?
Teacher: Do the best you can, I suppose.
Stranger: Is there ever an occasion when one may be attempting to be fair or a good person by not being honest?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: So how does one know when to try to tell the truth and when not to?
Teacher: I guess you just have to keep in mind the good of those to whom you are talking, the students in my case.
Stranger: What human quality allows this concern?
Teacher: Compassion.
Stranger: Is a compassionate person a good person?
Teacher: Well, sometimes kids need discipline not hugs and kisses.
Stranger: Can they not have both?
Teacher: Not at the same time.
Stranger: Cannot a father or mother say “I love you, and here are the consequences to your actions. Do you have any questions?”
Teacher: I suppose he or she could.
Stranger: Should discipline be enacted upon children out of ill-will?
Teacher: No. It should be done out of caring.
Stranger: What is caring?
Teacher: Compassion.
Stranger: What is the opposite of compassion?
Teacher: Selfishness. There are other reasons though.
Stranger: What is reason?
Teacher: The logic behind doing something?
Stranger: What is logic?
Teacher: An explanation.
Stranger: Of what?
Teacher: Of whatever you’re talking about.
Stranger: Then does not reason simply justify our desires or our fears?
Teacher: There are less selfish reasons.
Stranger: Are desires and fears inherently selfish?
Teacher: No. They could be selfish or, I guess, compassionate.
Stranger: So, if everyone experiences desire and fear, will we guide those base urges with selfishness or compassion?
Teacher: Well, I guess it depends on the person.
Stranger: And which person do you see as a good person?
Teacher: The one who works through compassion.
Stranger: And must a good teacher be a good person?
Teacher: Yes. Therefore, teachers must work through compassion.
Stranger: Must a good person be a good teacher?
Teacher: Not necessarily.
Stranger: What else is necessary?
Teacher: The skill and desire to teach.
Stranger: Is a person born with this desire?
Teacher: No, but it is developed intrinsically.
Stranger: And the skill?
Teacher: It comes easier for some. It seems to be just in certain people’s personalities.
Stranger: Do all of these people become teachers?
Teacher: No. They are drawn to other professions.
Stranger: What draws them to other professions?
Teacher: Their motivations.
Stranger: What is motivation?
Teacher: It is what gives one motive.
Stranger: And what is motive?
Teacher: A desire to do something.
Stranger: From where does this desire come?
Teacher: Well, that’s the old debate. Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.
Stranger: What motivates you?
Teacher: I guess both. I want to be a teacher because I want to do good. I want this not for any reward but because it feels good inside. But I also need pay.
Stranger: What is pay?
Teacher: The amount of money one receives for doing his or her job.
Stranger: What is money?
Teacher: Money is means to do things and to get stuff.
Stranger: And teachers are not given pay?
Teacher: They are given pay. But the private sector pays more for some people.
Stranger: Which people?
Teacher: The people with the most determination and ability and desire to learn and sharpen specific skills.
Stranger: Are these the people who would make the best teachers?
Teacher: Not all of them. Some of them are driven solely by money. The teaching profession would not benefit from having them on board. And some of them just don’t have the personality for it.
Stranger: And the others?
Teacher: Well, some people would make great teachers but choose a higher standard of living and choose a higher socio-economic class. It depends on their motivation.
Stranger: Extrinsic motivation?
Teacher: Yes. But also intrinsic motivation to succeed.
Stranger: What is it to succeed?
Teacher: To accomplish one’s goal.
Stranger: And to be successful?
Teacher: Well, that’s different. Most people have a general idea of what success is.
Stranger: What is that idea?
Teacher: Well, success is often equated with wealth. It is an outward show of accomplishment.
Stranger: So for teachers to be successful, they must be rich?
Teacher: No. I do not believe good teachers think the same way that good businessmen and businesswomen think. It is not about a bottom line for teachers. For the business world, it is about the bottom line, and the bottom line is profit.
Stranger: What is a bottom line?
Teacher: It’s a number that represents the profit of a company or person or system.
Stranger: And schools do not have these?
Teacher: Unfortunately, schools are being more and more dominated by this way of thinking. The standardized tests of the accountability movement exist to create a bottom line. But the bottom line is not profit.
Stranger: What is the bottom line then?
Teacher: Well, it’s suppose to be progress, but it doesn’t work.
Stranger: Why not?
Teacher: Well, the bottom line numbers are generated with students’ scores on a standardized multiple-choice test. When a student spends a whole semester or two with a teacher, his or her experience, growth, gaining of knowledge and skills, and quest to wisdom cannot be adequately represented on a multiple-choice test.
Stranger: What is a multiple-choice test?
Teacher: It’s when the student is asked a question and given a choice between four possible answers. As long as the student chooses the “right” answer then it doesn’t matter how he or she came up with it. So a correct guess is valued as much as knowledge or critical thinking or problem solving.
Stranger: And critical thinking and problem solving that lead to a “wrong” answer?
Teacher: Is punished, or not acknowledged or valued in any way. It is better to guess right than to think and problem solve and weigh options and to intellectually decide on an answer if that answer is not the one the test wants.
Stranger: What does any test inherently measure most accurately?
Teacher: How well a student can take that particular test.
Stranger: And how well do the students do on these tests?
Teacher: They do fine if the teacher teaches them how to do fine on the tests. It is a learned skill for most of the students, taking these tests. Some students do fine on these tests without much preparation.
Stranger: Why?
Teacher: It’s about language skills. Students from higher socio-economic and more educated households usually develop more in-depth skills with the language and therefore can more easily decipher what is being asked or tested. Students with higher levels of skill with language can also comprehend better the texts they have to read.
Stranger: Are these skills not valuable for students to learn?
Teacher: Yes. And the tests are not really the problem. It’s how they are used.
Stranger: How are they used?
Teacher: They are used as the dominant decision-maker for the promotion of students. If you fail the test, you fail the course. But that’s not even the worst way in which they are used.
Stranger: What is the worst way in which they are used?
Teacher: Teachers are evaluated as professionals based on these test scores. There’s your bottom line. Whole schools and school systems are evaluated by this bottom line. So there’s much pressure on teachers for their students to score high on tests.
Stranger: Is pressure necessarily a bad thing for a professional?
Teacher: No. But the pressure should be on being a good teacher. Not on producing high test scores.
Stranger: Is being a good teacher not the best way to produce high test-scores?
Teacher: No. There are better ways to accomplish that end.
Stranger: What are these ways.
Teacher: Drilling the test format is one.
Stranger: Why is this not consistent with being a good teacher?
Teacher: Life is not multiple choice. Life is more like open-ended questions. But the more familiar and comfortable a student is with multiple-choice questions, the better he or she will do on the test.
Stranger: And another way?
Teacher: Teach kids not to question authority.
Stranger: How does this help on multiple-choice tests?
Teacher: The test doesn’t care what a student thinks. A student does better when he or she stays focused on choosing the answer that the test wants.
Stranger: And how does this go against being a good teacher?
Teacher: If we want kinds to become wise, then we have to teach them to question and to think for themselves.
Stranger: Another?
Teacher: Another way to raise test scores is to fight against any time spent away from drilling the testing format and tested skills.
Stranger: How does this go against being a good teacher?
Teacher: The learning experience at school is so broad and multitudinous it could never be adequately measured with a multiple-choice test. How can one measure the benefits of socialization? How can one measure the benefits of experience? Actually talking to a student or reading his or her writing would be the closest we could come to evaluating the benefits of student experiences. A student is not his or her score on a multiple-choice test.
Stranger: Who says that they are?
Teacher: The education system increasingly. And a teacher is not the average of his or her students’ scores either.
Stranger: What is a teacher then?
Teacher: A teacher is often the most important person in a child’s life. If that teacher is under pressure to produce high student test-scores then that teacher is under pressure to take advantage of a powerful relationship to manipulate a specific end result.
Stranger: Is this guiding desire and fear with selfishness or compassion?
Teacher: With selfishness.
Stranger: Does this make a good teacher?
Teacher: No. It makes bad teachers.
Stranger: Should teachers then be left alone and not evaluated?
Teacher: Of course not. But they need to be evaluated by people.
Stranger: By whom?
Teacher: By other teachers.
Stranger: How could this system be accomplished?
Teacher: Introduce peer observation for starters. Let’s get adults into the classrooms. Let’s make it so normal for adults to be in the classroom that it is no special occasion or invasion of space. I know that if I had adults in and out of my classroom all the time, I would be embarrassed to do nothing. And I wouldn’t last long in the profession if I did. Let’s have teachers and administrators meet and discuss what each of them are doing well and offer up options for each other. This way we could focus on helping individuals to become better teachers, and we could make the profession unattractive for those who want to hide behind a closed door watching the clock and doing little good for kids.
Stranger: Would this aid in the recruitment of good, talented people?
Teacher: Grouped with higher pay, yes.
Stranger: Money is a valuable incentive?
Teacher: We cannot deny the powerful role of money.
Stranger: Are you given money as incentive now?
Teacher: Yes. If my school’s test scores are good then each teacher gets money. But this system has mostly negative repercussions.
Stranger: What are these repercussions?
Teacher: Well, this again rewards teachers not for being good teachers but for having high test scores. Also, believe me, teachers know which teachers didn’t make their numbers and therefore kept all the other teachers from getting their money. Plus, if you give students extrinsic rewards for doing something that they are already engaged in, you move their motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic and they lose interest in actually accomplishing the task and just focus on the reward. Teachers are no different.
Stranger: How is raising salary different from these bonuses?
Teacher: Raising salary changes the whole profession because it makes it an attractive profession to a whole new range of educated, ambitious individuals, therefore making the profession more competitive for landing a job, therefore giving schools a more qualified and abundant pool to choose from when hiring, therefore raising the bar of the profession as a whole.
Stranger: And the profession is made up of the duties and skills and aspects we have covered here all ready?
Teacher: Well, there’s other roles of a teacher.
Stranger: An example?
Teacher: Well, there’s also classroom management.
Stranger: What is classroom management?
Teacher: A teacher has to manage students and the classroom in a way that promotes learning and avoids bad situations.
Stranger: What is a bad situation in a classroom?
Teacher: Well, for starters, discipline problems.
Stranger: When do peasants revolt?
Teacher: When they’re hungry.
Stranger: For what are all children hungry?
Teacher: Love, I guess.
Stranger: What makes a child feel loved?
Teacher: Attention.
Stranger: Is attention always positive?
Teacher: No. There’s negative attention.
Stranger: What makes a child feel safe?
Teacher: Trust.
Stranger: What is trust?
Teacher: It’s believing in something or somebody. Faith.
Stranger: What makes someone or something trustworthy?
Teacher: Because it always comes through. It’s about consistency.
Stranger: How can a teacher create consistency?
Teacher: With structure and rules and consequences.
Stranger: Can teachers enact consequences with compassion in their hearts?
Teacher: Yes, they can.
Stranger: If consistency gains trust, what else does it gain?
Teacher: Respect.
Stranger: So when you ask a student to do something, why should he or she do it?
Teacher: Out of respect and trust.
Stranger: Are you automatically given these?
Teacher: No. And when you have them, you can lose them fast.
Stranger: How do you keep them?
Teacher: Consistency through compassion.
Stranger: And what is better than solving a problem?
Teacher: Having the problem to never occur in the first place.
Stranger: How is this accomplished?
Teacher: By having the students’ trust and respect.
Stranger: What can you give them to receive these things in return?
Teacher: Trust and respect. But sometimes they take advantage.
Stranger: What do you give them then?
Teacher: Consequences.
Stranger: And what are consequences?
Teacher: Repercussions of their actions.
Stranger: Are these ill-will and hate from an individual with authority?
Teacher: No. They are consistent consequences developed from the person in authority having compassion for those under his or her authority.
Stranger: What is authority?
Teacher: Power.
Stranger: What is power?
Teacher: The ability to control the actions of other people.
Stranger: What does it mean to control?
Teacher: To exercise one’s will over something or someone else.
Stranger: So a teacher must control his or her students?
Teacher: Yes. But that’s not a bad thing the way it sounds.
Stranger: Could you explain?
Teacher: Well, you’re looking out for their own good. It is compassion that drives your decisions while exercising authority over the kids
Stranger: Should you control their every move and thought?
Teacher: No. You have to allow them to take some control over their own lives.
Stranger: And how does one do this?
Teacher: By allowing them to exercise choice.
Stranger: What is choice?
Teacher: Being able to select between options.
Stranger: And this is power?
Teacher: Limited power. The options have been chosen by someone else.
Stranger: So the teacher provides options and the students exercise choice?
Teacher: Yes. This allows students to adopt some power over their own lives and to not feel as if they are being constantly controlled.
Stranger: Why is this advantageous?
Teacher: Well, it makes them have trust and respect for the teacher. They feel engaged and invested in what they are doing if they had some choice in it.
Stranger: And what are they doing in a classroom?
Teacher: Learning.
Stranger: Is this an action?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: So they must be doing something… what are they doing?
Teacher: Listening, talking, reading, and writing.
Stranger: Are they sitting or standing?
Teacher: Sitting of course.
Stranger: For how long?
Teacher: For the whole class.
Stranger: So they use their brains, their eyes, their mouths, their wrists, and their fingers?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: What does the rest of their body do?
Teacher: Stay still hopefully.
Stranger: What is it to be still?
Teacher: Not to move, or not to move much.
Stranger: Is there anything that is still?
Teacher: Yes, rocks.
Stranger: Of what is a rock made?
Teacher: I don’t know. Rock.
Stranger: And inside?
Teacher: Atoms.
Stranger: Of what are atoms made?
Teacher: Quarks and tiny particles.
Stranger: And of what are they made?
Teacher: Energy.
Stranger: Is everything made of atoms?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: And atoms are made of energy?
Teacher: Yes. So everything is made of energy.
Stranger: Is energy ever still?
Teacher: No. Energy is motion. But it’s necessary for a young person to learn to be able to sit still for an extended period of time. This is a necessary skill to be an adult.
Stranger: Yet is stillness necessary for learning?
Teacher: Sometimes.
Stranger: And other times?
Teacher: No.
Stranger: Could organized motion enhance learning?
Teacher: Yes. It could. If well organized.
Stranger: What is organization?
Teacher: It is the meaningful coordination of events or arrangement of things.
Stranger: And for something to be well-organized?
Teacher: Then every event has meaning and contributes to the effectiveness of the whole or every object’s placement has meaning and contributes to the effectiveness of the whole.
Stranger: Is it necessary for a teacher’s classroom to be well-organized?
Teacher: Yes. For the teacher to be an effective teacher.
Stranger: Yet some people are better at this than others?
Teacher: Yes, but all teachers should work to be more organized. Not anal… organized.
Stranger: What’s the difference?
Teacher: Being anal is losing site of the purpose of organization. If you are more concerned with the placement of an object than with the role of that placement in the effectiveness of the whole, then you are anal.
Stranger: And what is it to be effective as a whole as a teacher?
Teacher: To create the highest level of learning possible in each class, and for each individual.
Stranger: Are individuals unique?
Teacher: Like snow flakes.
Stranger: Do individuals learn differently?
Teacher: Yes.
Stranger: And how does one measure this level of learning in a classroom?
Teacher: With assessment.
Stranger: What is assessment?
Teacher: Measuring.
Stranger: What does a teacher use to measure?
Teacher: All kinds of stuff. Tests, quizzes, formal writing, informal writing, participation, oral and written response to questions and prompts, projects, and other stuff I can’t think of at the moment.
Stranger: And what do these assessment tools measure?
Teacher: Different skills and knowledge.
Stranger: What does any test inherently measure more than anything else?
Teacher: The ability to take that particular test.
Stranger: If a student improves his or her ability to take a particular test, is the teacher then successful?
Teacher: Not really. Successful at teaching a particular testing format but not necessarily in teaching the more important skills that would be applied in any testing format.
Stranger: What can a teacher do to be sure that a student is not just sharpening the skills of taking one particular kind of test?
Teacher: A teacher can vary the types of assessment by which their students are assessed.
Stranger: And against what standard should a student’s work be measured?
Teacher: An overall expected standard and a standard of growth for that individual.
Stranger: And what should be measured?
Teacher: Knowledge and skills.
Stranger: To what end?
Teacher: So that they have them.
Stranger: Why do they need them?
Teacher: To grow.
Stranger: To become physically larger?
Teacher: No. So that their sphere of perception grows.
Stranger: How is this accomplished through learning a fact or a skill?
Teacher: Through contextualization.
Stranger: What is contextualization?
Teacher: It is the process of assimilating an experience and growing and shifting and changing due to this assimilation. It is the fitting of something into your understanding of the world and thus growing your understanding.
Stranger: Is learning different from contextualization?
Teacher: True learning is contextualization.
Stranger: And what does a great teacher do?
Teacher: Leads his or her students to true learning through compassion for those students.
Stranger: Is this the answer you were looking for?
Teacher: It’s is more a challenge and a question.
Stranger: Are you disappointed then?
Teacher: No. I am different now.
Then the teacher looked down at the ground and smiled and said, “You are a great teacher.” When the teacher looked up again, the Stranger was gone. The teacher continued down the long and winding road.
4 CommentsPlaying tonight at the Sylvia Theatre in York, SC
10/5/07
It’s a singer/songwriters circle at the Sylvia Theatre in York SC. It should be fun. I haven’t played much live music for an audience in a long time. Well, I did play a few times a few months ago at the open mic at McHales on Main in Rock Hill, SC. That was good to give me a reason to get out my acoustic again and play some tunes… to introduce it back into my creative activities.
I’ve written, recorded, and performed live music pretty consistently since I was twelve years old. I’ve taken two large breaks from music. For two or three years, I was intensely focused on my novel (a five year project total) and I did not play any music. Also, for the months prior and the 9 or so months beyond the birth of each of my children I didn’t play any music. Aside from those times in my life, I have written songs, arranged songs, practiced songs, recorded songs, booked shows, played shows, and handled all the other elements of playing music semi-professionally…. and therein is the thorn.
I own and operate a small business (RevenFlo) - the formulation of this business is the single greatest creative project that I have ever embarked upon. I put as much time as I can spare away from being a father and husband (and sometimes more, it would seem) toward the success of my business, yet I still played in a punk band for the first two years of my business - one evening during the week for practice (frequently canceled), one show per month (usually in Charlotte), two recording sessions in Columbia over two years, and one CD released (with little creative or promotional involvement from me). When I taught full time and was enrolled in master’s courses in pedagogy, I still made time to play music, to write songs, record them, play live etc. - recording 4 albums in as many years.
It’s a hobbie, I guess, and a passion, I guess, and kind of a business, I guess (albeit a non-profit). Resources, research, time management, coordination, etc. all go into gigging and recording and releasing records. I had a wonderful experience in Cannons (the punk band referenced before) because I was removed from most of this. I just put in money when they asked. I mostly just wrote songs, wrote my parts for Greg’s songs, and showed up on time (mostly).
I got my acoustic out during the summer and began playing a little, then I ran into Browne who asked me if I wanted to play this thing in October, so I said yes, so then I played more and felt compelled to play a couple of open mics, then I found myself on the phone about other gigs, and then I found myself approaching this October gig and feeling compelled to market it, then I found myself running a google adwords ad on Myspace.com, then I found myself paying google hard-earned cash and spending time monitoring the displaying and click throughs of the ad, then I said, DAMN, here I am again in a semi-professional business….
Not really though…
I just did these activities in “spare time” if there is such a thing. But I’m still fascinated that an action as simple as taking a guitar from a case and putting it on a stand can lead to running an online marketing campaign. I think it’s just my nature at play.
I’m glad I am not a professional musician. A good friend of mine is, and I am often envious of him, living vicariously through his touring and such. But if I was that, then I couldn’t be what I am now. I’m very happy. I struggle, and I worry, and I get tired. But I am crazy fortunate and thankful, and I see opportunity around every corner.
thinking,
Jason
CommentLive Acoustic Music, Jason Broadwater, Friday October 5th!
Event: Jason plays the Sylvia
Event Date: Friday, October 5th, 9:30PM
Description: Song Writers Circle / at Sylvia Theatre, York SC / Jason Broadwater, Alan Barrington, and Paul Finnican / Free Admission / Learn more at Sylvia Online.
Broadwater Graham at Sylvia Theatre in York in 2002 (far shot).
Broadwater Graham at Sylvia Theatre in York in 2002 (close shot).