Teaching with Quixote

I am a recovering educator, having taught college writing for some 25 years, and I have a few thoughts about recent disturbing educational trends, like putting curriculum and pedagogy decisions in the hands of non-professionals with obsessively frightening agendas, hiding material from students, and condemning efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion on school campuses. Is this a culture war? Probably, with an army of pervasive ignorance at the ready.

Teaching is, without question, the most alternately beloved and maligned profession I can think of; take your pick from this popular spectrum: teachers are selfless devoted guardians of their precious charges, or incompetents who “can’t do” in the “real world,” or evil indoctrinators bent on creating armies of Marxists (the current Floridian view, perhaps attributable to too much sun exposure). Rarely are educators viewed as precisely what most are: professionals who have achieved expertise in not only their subject, but also how to successfully teach that subject to others. What’s more, I’m pretty confident there are simpler and faster methods for furthering a radical agenda than teaching 7th grade social studies. Shockingly, teachers ordinarily have only one agenda — success for their students, and that simple sounding goal is in fact a Quixotic endeavor worthy of the Lord of La Mancha himself, intimidating and, yes, frightening.

I can state with authority that subject mastery is not akin to teaching competence (although those trying to sell you a pricey Master Class would prefer you not to know). Teaching is a learned skill that requires expertise not only in the subject, but in the art and science of educating individuals — the complex process of how the teaching skill affects and enhances learning. Good teachers ask themselves, on an ongoing basis, what is the relationship between teaching and learning? They also search for real data-driven in-classroom answers to that question. Learning is a cognitive process, a hidden system within the brain unique to individuals. Sound complex? Now multiply by 35 students, nearly all possessing still developing brains, changing hormones, and varying levels of (mostly) disinterest. Now go buy your kid’s teacher a gift card. Or a car.

Our cognitive system has dozens (if not hundreds) of variables, including, yes, who we are and whether we feel included, respected, and treated fairly in the environment where we are placed to learn. Pretending that vital issues of individuality and culture, like gender and color, have no place in an educational environment is exactly that, a ridiculous illogical pretense. Of course our individuality affects our learning — how could it not? To those expert talking heads who claim that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are the marauding lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!) through education, I respond that such heads either know nothing about the relationship between teaching and learning or have never asked the vital question regarding the relationship between the two. Either way, they’re walking around with their ignorance stuck to the bottom of one shoe for all to see. Good teachers acknowledge who their students are, examine and challenge bias, and incorporate that knowledge into their curriculum and learning environment, increasing students’ ability to succeed. How successful are any of us at any task when we feel consistently disrespected, unsafe, and excluded?

If these current awful trends continue, teaching in the U.S. may soon become as futile as Cervantes' protagonist tilting at windmills, but there is no worthier goal than helping another human being learn. Education is at the heart of all valuable and lasting human activity, a noble profession in the truest sense when approached with humility and wisdom. Sure there are some rotten teachers out there, but there are far more rotten experts and ignorant parents and politicians delivering moronic manifestos on subjects better left to the professionals, the ones with the students’ best interests — learning!! — uppermost in mind.