Why Teach

My background is in literature & film criticism and film & theatre production. I also enjoy grammar and semiotics, so I like to play with the meaning of words and the meaning of meaning. As I’m considering this reflection, I think it might be fun and illuminating to play with the different arrangements of these words, to see the different meanings we can construct from them. I don’t suggest this as any sort of cultural criticism. What follows are what these arrangements signify to me. This is a continual process, so some may be less elaborated on than others. What follows is something like controlled chaos. If you really just want to know the answer without taking the journey (boring!), then skip to the last section, WHY TEACH?

TEACH? WHY?

Not to be confused with WHY TEACH? I’ve never asked myself this question. The double-eroteme* signifies complete unfamiliarity with the concept of “teach” and with “why” anyone would engage in the activity. Personally, I hope every teacher has asked the latter and considered the reasons thoroughly. Asking the former, TEACH?, particularly in bewilderment, is unacceptable. It indicates a complete lack of either interest in or knowledge of the profession. I will never be taken aback by TEACH.

*eroteme=? I just learned that.

TEACH! WHY?

I’m getting there.

TEACH! WHY!

Reads like a scripted scream from a horror movie, doesn’t it?

WHY? TEACH.

Engage in the latter if you enjoy asking yourself the former. I love asking WHY? I ask WHY? of anything and everyone. I ask WHY? if I agree. WHY? Because it’s interesting to consider how others have come to similar conclusions. I ask WHY? most often of myself and my own actions or decisions. To know why I do things is to be fully conscious of the impact of my actions on myself and on others. I want to continue asking WHY? and I enjoy being around others who ask WHY? Thus I enjoy academia: who asks WHY? more often than professors, researchers, and students?

TEACH WHY?

YES! I hope to encourage others to ask WHY? and teach them how to seek an answer.

WHY TEACH?

Note that the question is not: WHY ACADEMIA? It’s within the scope of that question that I would cover things such as why I think the lifestyle fits with my ideals or why I enjoy doing research and what I hope to contribute to my field and to students’ lives. This question is WHY TEACH? so I must necessarily limit myself when considering it. You can ask WHY TEACH? to a hundred professors. I doubt you’ll get a hundred different answers, but you’ll get quite a few different ones, all of them based in one or five other interpretations of the question.

To really answer this question, I have to understand what it means. I must thus parse the connotation of the word TEACH. What does TEACH mean? It is the transference of knowledge. Is it more? Is it the transference of values? ethics? morals? Whose? For that matter, whose knowledge is being transferred? Naturally, knowledge is filtered through my own conscious cognition but for whose knowledge am I the medium? These are troublesome and difficult questions to ask. Each approaches them differently. Don’t think I’m being coy, political, or politically correct if my answer seems like an avoidance of the questions.

I think it’s most important to teach students critical thinking. That is, the ability to carefully analyze the data presented or the pros and cons; to logically consider the alternatives; to ask questions and request verification; in sum, to think for oneself. These are lifelong skills that are fruitful in any type of classroom, with any subject. But what about vocational skills? Problem-solving is the best vocational skill you can have. It is useful in any position, and I can guarantee you (from personal experience) that employers do consider and ask about problem-solving abilities in interviews. “Tell me about a problem you had in your last job and how you dealt with it...”

For me, teaching students is intellectually stimulating. I enjoyed teaching stagecraft as an undergraduate and I loved the challenge of working with a student’s abilities and talents and applying those to the material or problems at hand. In a teaching situation, you can show students how they use their own talents, knowledge, and experience, to work with the material and, reflexively, how that material can be integrated with their knowledge thus far.

I’m also passionate about my intellectual pursuits, and I’ll be honest when I write that I’m thrilled by research I’ve seen that shows a professor’s passion for the material is crucial to a successful learning experience for the student. This all dovetails nicely with my final point. I’m not just passionate about my intellectual pursuits. Rather, I’m also passionate about teaching and learning how to be a better teacher, which is why I think the conclusion to the questions I’ve asked myself about my vocation is obvious and obviously cheesy to me:

WHY…TEACH!

contact: dan {underscore} my last name {at} n c s u {dot} e d u