It’s a myth that teachers teach

I’ve been a teacher, on and off, most of my adult life. I have taught high school students, college undergraduates, and professionals in corporations. I have concluded from all of this experience that teachers don’t teach – students learn.

Teachers (including myself) like to think that they are teaching, that they are a necessary catalyst to the students’ learning process, and that their carefully constructed curriculum are what makes learning possible. I’m now convinced these are myths.

In fact we all learn things all the time without the help of teachers. If we get interested in something, and motivated, we teach ourselves. We find the necessary information ourselves, and even if it comes in a disorganized fashion, we manage to master it all the same. In fact, we may master it better for having to impose an order on it ourselves.

That’s not to say that teachers don’t have a vital function, just that teaching content isn’t that vital function. Think of the two or three outstanding teachers you have had. I’ll bet what you recall isn’t the content they taught. What you probably recall is that they made the subject interesting and exciting, and made you feel good about learning.

I now think the primary and single most important function of a teacher is to impart to students a passion for their field. And their second most important function is to provide steady encouragement to the students as they master the subject.

Way down the list in terms of importance is the organization of the curriculum. It certainly is true that a bad organization can make learning much more difficult – the terrible way the calculus was taught in college for years proves this. And a good curriculum organization can make learning easier. But none of this matters nearly as much as exciting and maintaining the interest and passion of the student for the subject.

Unfortunately, public education, and the massive bureaucracy that surrounds it is still guided by the myth that curriculum matters and teachers teach. And because of this our public schools are so ineffectual that many of our young people are turned off to learning.