Teaching is like stand-up, except the audience can’t leave.
A good teacher listens to what is not being said.
A good teacher is a tour guide to the world, with niche interests.
A good teacher knows their subject so well, they can admit to their own ignorance.
A good teacher remembers their students are young humans growing, learning, developing.
A good teacher understands that being liked and being respected are two different things. And that liked and respected often overlap in the best of them.
We had fantastic history teachers who taught pattern recognition and insisted on historical context.
They were big on Nothing is inevitable and Look at who’s telling the story.
One history teacher especially was all about Double-check your sources because liars be lying.
They took their time to show us how oftentimes the biggest lies are the ones that make people feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Basically, if something felt like the perfect explanation with zero nuance, then someone was selling a story for some kind of profit. They set up exercises so we could find the story, identify the profit, and figure out the nuance.
Rather than tell, they showed us the complexity of human experience. And, they made us think, even when we didn’t want to. They made us sit in our discomfort. And gave us room to argue our points, especially if we argued well. That didn’t mean they agreed. They expected us to take the heat if we were already trying to prove them wrong.
Were they perfect? No. They had their foibles. But they were genuine educators who were passionate about their subject and were given the space to actually teach it. Which is how we got a capital E Education, and yes, I am grateful.
three good words 