An Approach to Teaching

If I had to summarise the goal of my teaching in one word, I would probably choose ‘transcendence’. To explain it using an image, I would use a flame, a flame that I possess to a certain degree and that, after the teaching period, is now – as well – in the student (I prefer the singular because each one of them is different, and each one has a different learning experience).
Rather than measuring the success of my teaching in terms of contents (in which case images like a container filled throughout the semester would be appropriate), I see it in terms of a deeper change in the student. The flame enkindled in the student means not so much that she has received some content, but rather acquired an attitude towards the subject. The flame could be at least partially described as genuine intellectual curiosity, as a desire to learn more about the subject.

I see education as a process that a person carries out within himself. ‘Education’ comes (in a very rough etymological approximation) from 'e' and 'ducere', or ‘to guide well’, or ‘good leadership’. Just like that ‘education’ might mean a guidance that the teacher provides to the student, as a guide that shows you how to get to the Snowy Mountains. But I don’t think that image fully describes education, unless the guide, rather than showing you (the student) the way - or all of it – was someone who told you what he knows about them in such a way that you want to go to the Snowy Mountains, either if the guide goes with you or not. You would become personally interested in the project, you would go in this semester or in three years. Education is eminently personal, and persons are free, intelligent and creative beings. Education is not what the teacher knows or transmits, but what happens inside the student, the way she appropriates the new learning and the experience of becoming better, knowing more, after that. The subject and main character of education is not the teacher, it is the student. The challenge for the teacher is to motivate the student to educate herself.

I know that such an idea of teaching (and education), might be presented with some objections. One of them would be that it is too idealistic, unattainable. Another one, that it doesn't correspond with the time and conditions in which a course is developed. A third one, that it's naïve. In practice, most students just want the requirement met. Most of them don’t care about the subject in the way in which the teacher does (if she does). And a few hours in the semester make the whole education ideal a bit impossible.

To the first objection I would respond that the ideal of education is as incommensurable as every person’s mind, but not unattainable: rather, proportionate to what a human being is capable of. There is no limit to what a person can learn (until he dies). To the second objection I would say that it is not unrealistic, we are not speaking about amounts of contents or information, but about an attitude. How many times people’s whole lives have changed just after a meeting or an experience with a special person? Well, here we are not speaking of a whole life, just of a certain field of knowledge about which, presumably, we are very enthusiastic. To the third objection I would say that it misunderstands and undervalues people, especially young people. In very few cases they will be irremediably cynic and impermeably closed to knowledge. Most of them will rise to the challenge with their great potential, if only someone touches that special string in their minds.

If there were a fourth objection, pointing out that the project may not be impossible but leaves the teacher in a very uncomfortable position, with a constant challenge to improve all the time, with task of continual self-critique and renewed effort in researching her discipline, I wouldn’t but endorse the objection. Teaching in that way is not easy. It is demanding. It calls for the best in us. And it's not paid the effort (only partially), it goes beyond the professional minimum. Worst of all, it leaves the teacher in a vulnerable position, with the possibilities in front of him, of either succeeding or failing, failing sometimes even if he puts his best effort. Because, as already said above, education depends on the teacher only to a certain extent. The other, the main part, depends on the student.

But that might be a consolation as well, and an invitation for the teacher to be humble. He should maintain the flame burning, in the best possible way, in his intellect. With his skill, effort and enthusiasm, he should be able to pass it on to the students. The rest and most important part depends on them. And if he accepts students as they really are - intelligent but also free -, then he will be open to the possibility of some of them taking the flame and the challenge, and some others just leaving it aside. There are many practical, methodological aspects of teaching. But I guess this little composition is about the purpose, the essence of teaching. This core idea can be very easily developed in different aspects of teaching. There are things that ‘go well’ and things that do not match that goal. But when you are about to start a journey, the first requirement is to know where you are going.