Concerning Teachers Part 1
On Teachers as Pilgrims and Wonder-Wakers
As I’ve mentioned once or twice, I am a teacher at a Catholic, classical high school. One of the things I think about about there, is the nature of being a teacher. What, after all, is a teacher? What is a teacher there, in the class room, to do? I’ve been teaching in one form or another for almost twenty years. I started as a TA in my university’s Biblical Greek classes, giving occasional lectures, then in Grad school got more opportunities to lead discussions and grade essays and tests, until I got my first college class, an online course on the Trinity, to the last 7 years where I’ve served as a Catholic, classical high school teacher. In that time I have begun to form my thoughts on four key characteristics that make up a good teacher, especially, a good classical teacher. A good teacher is a fellow pilgrim, a wonder-waker, a philosopher, and a midwife. In truth, most of these categories overlap, but I think they can be seen distinctly as well. This week, I want to focus on just two of these characterstics, that of pilgrim and wonder-waker.
Pilgrim
First, the teacher must be a fellow pilgrim. Just as on a real pilgrimage there will be people setting out for the first time and others who have been that way before, this is also the case in the classroom. In this way, the teacher and students are on the same level. Yes, it is usually the case that the teacher has trod these paths before and can help the others look out for pitfalls as well as beautiful vistas. Yet it is also the case that the neophyte may find a hidden path, or come with a new experience that sheds further light not just on the journey, but on the destination, that no “leader” could have expected. Education is itself a pilgrimage because it emphasizes both journey and destination. A hike in the woods is primarily about the journey. There may be a summit or peak or vista you are hoping to see, but ultimately it is about the act of doing the hike that is central. An airplane ride, on the other hand, is primarily about the destination. Yes, the ride could be beautiful, but you most likely chose this method of travel because it will get you to your destination quickly and, you hope, with little incident. But a pilgrimage is about both. The destination may be thought of in two senses. First, there is the goal or, as St. John Cassian might call it, the skopos of a class. This may be understanding Milton or Dante or the movements of the heavens, or the quadratic equation. In each case, the goal is to understand or know something definitive. But then there is also the end. The end, or telos, to borrow again from St. Cassian, is ultimately, the Beatific Vision. Take Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as our guide here. The journey is important for on it the pilgrims tell stories. Some of these stories work to grow the other pilgrims, others show the seedier side of life. Yet, the end is to get to Canterbury, and the end is to be spiritually benefited by arriving at the destination in some way. So too a class reading The Canterbury Tales will have as its goal finishing the book, having excellent discussions along the way, but its end is in forming the students and teacher for the Beatific Vision.
Wonder-Waker
Second, the teacher must be a wonder-waker. I use this term, thinking of a figure like Gregory Thaumaturgos whose title means the Wonderworker. The teacher’s job is not to work wonders, but to awaken wonder in their students. This is done in a variety of often very subtle methods. But the chief means of being a wonder-waker is to show that one is filled with wonder. Teachers must exude joy and wonder in light of the subjects they teach. If the teacher appears bored by a geometrical proof, the students will be bored as well. But if the teacher shows joy, well, the students may still be bored, but they will be left to wonder why their teacher is so joyful over a subject the students deem dull.
Conclusion
Teachers who do not see themselves as on the journey with their students and do not see their calling to be awakeners of wonder will quickly fall into what we call the “sage on the stage.” The teacher is the archmagician, holder of secret knowledge which they will impart to the student, who sits there like an empty vessel waiting to be filled. This is often effective at transferring information, but it does not make the student possessor of that information. In fact, if possessing information is all that is necessary, then teachers, properly speaking, are not needed at all, just the information is. The teacher could easily be replaced by wikipedia and stacks of notecards for memorization. But if we want to see a more human education, and one that helps students become more human, then I think we need teachers who see themselves as pilgrims and wonder-wakers.
Next week, I’ll give my brief descriptions of teachers as philosophers and midwives. Until then, God bless.