You make me want to teach in a homeschool situation. I taught in a vocational setting as a guest speaker on a regular basis, and absolutely adored doing it. The students were hungry to learn, which made the whole situation a beautifully symbiotic relationship.
Public schools are horrible; my brother took a middle school job and quit halfway through the year, as his students were more interested in watching their crotches (looking at their phones) and wiping boogers on their desks (yes, literally!) for him to clean up in between school periods.
I’ve already told my daughter-in-law if they want to homeschool my grandsons, I will absolutely be a willing, energetic, and grateful participant!
This is all true and the role of grandparents as homeschoolers is extremely overlooked and underrated. Blogs and online spaces are full of “how to be a homeschool mom” type stuff, but rarely does one see “how do I incorporate other relatives, especially my own parents?”
I live in Texas, and this state has this stupid State wide STAR test that doesn't mean anything. The teachers hate it, the students hate it, the school districts hate it, but the people who sell standardized tests love it.
I graduated in 1987, and to graduate, I had to prove mastery of content over Mathematics, Science, History, Government, History, Music, Art, and Drama. That meant that we read a chapter every two days, for nine months, and we even had to read extra to make sure we finished the books. We had two types of tests, a fill in the blank/multiple choice test, and a practicle exam of content mastery. That meant that we had to know how to find the answer and show the teacher how we found the answer. if we used a book, we had to show chapter and paragraph.
Cut to 2018. I asked my niece and nephew if they knew what happened in 1776, 1941, 1986, and 1989, and they couldn't tell me. (for those curious, 1776 Declaration of Independence, 1941 WWII, 1986 Challenger explosion, 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall.) When I asked them what they were studying in school, I got, "I Dunno, we were studying for the stupid STAR Test."
Without content mastery, you get stupid people who will vote for idiots.
Cut 10 2023, My niece is a senior in high school who will graduate with an Associates in Science degree before she graduates with a high school diploma, because she finally found something that kept her interested.
Dual enrollment is a big thing and becoming a bigger thing. I’ll be writing about that as well. If we get ahead of it it represents an enormous chance for disruption of the current system.
Great essay. I was just transported back to 1970’s high school here in Oz.
The government later sold the whole school to the Islamic community which was later demolished on the back of a huge funding scandal perpetrated by said community
That’s one way to eradicate your history; a vacant lot is all that’s left
I have a special love for old school buildings. My own high school, the one I attended senior year that I actually liked, was demolished to build apartments.
Aug 8, 2023·edited Aug 8, 2023Liked by Librarian of Celaeno
For those curious 😊 1776 was an out-n-out exquisite year: it also marks the first James Watt's steam engines installed, as well as the first edition of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. In its own right, 1986 saw yet another spectacular explosion, that of Chernobyl.
I've been saying for years that unless we get back to truly educating, we are lost. Great teachers inspire their students, so they want to read the next page, find out what happened or why. I was lucky to be blessed with a few incredible teachers who turned me around from the 'dark side.'
Teaching has occurred to me now and then. I know quite well that I'm good at it - I've taught in other contexts in the past, although never high school students. I suppose the main factors that make me hesitant are the political mess that the public schools have become, and frankly a residual sense of teaching as low status ("those who can't" etc.) which is very difficult to shake. The two are of course related: one of the big reasons that teaching is seen as low status is precisely that it has become the domain of highly politicized females.
Meanwhile, a close friend of mine has been strongly encouraging me to look into teaching at an international school, and he makes a good case I must say.
Teaching will be high status when high status people embrace it. That will come when those people make the choice to create a space where they have the freedom and resources to teach as their judgement demands. Something new is possible, which I will be discussing in part 2.
Yes, that's the flip side, isn't it. The low quality of people brought into the profession, and the proponderance of women, is why it is low status.
I've often thought that being headmaster at one of the old British style public schools would not be so bad. Teaching was a high status vocation in those times.
Freedom of action is indeed another very important aspect. This affects essentially every profession at this point. The cancer of managerialism has spread everywhere, and to whatever degree it reduces a profession to procedure-following checklist monkeys, social status is stripped out. That's happening to medicine as we speak. Ditto academia. And at least in the public school system, where quite apart from the politics, teachers are required to follow strict curricular guidelines established by education ministries that know nothing of education, this process has been at work for quite some time.
Imagine a school formed as an association of scholars, small enough to escape any quota laws or related state mandates, that is able to offer instruction in a range of areas at both the high school and junior college levels. You start with a small classical college or just one amenable to the project, you get your prospective teachers on board as adjuncts there, and then, in association with that college, you open a microschool that is able to offer those classes to students as part of dual enrollment instruction. In the US, many states pay for homeschoolers to take DE classes if the state similarly pays for them for students in public high schools. The attraction of such a school to parents would be college classes offered for free (o them) to high school students with instruction at very low student/teacher ratio. The attraction for teachers would be the academic and career freedom such a setup would allow. I plan to go into more detail in my next essay, but that is the rough idea.
Possibly related, I've been wondering for years now why scholars must affiliate themselves with large, bureaucratic institutions. Why can't they form their own associations, as lawyers do? Why can't the law firm, general practioner's office, or even the fitness club not provide a viable model?
The main roadblocks I see to this are accreditation and credentialization. It's a sad truth that universities aren't in the business of selling educations, but credentials, and to hand out the credentials, they must be accredited.
The bigness of modern education is a result of the huge economies of scale that came into being after WWII and the baby boom. Neighborhood schools became comprehensive high schools that served entire cities on the justification that a concentration of money and labor meant efficiency, Among other people, James Conant of Harvard was one of the leading theorists of this change; look him up some time to understand a lot of what happened. On the college side, the demand coming from increasing populations and more state money led to normal schools becoming junior colleges, junior colleges becoming liberal arts schools or tech schools, and the latter two being combined into behemoth state R1 universities. All of this was bound of with the prestige of postwar American liberalism, which promised that more education would lead to increased material progress and social harmony.
That didn't happen and we're running out of kids. If what I've outlined is correct, something like a reverse scenario will happen, with many schools devolving into smaller entities, some of those smaller entities closing or looking for new purpose, and parents increasingly looking for options other than the arms of the state for their children. That is where the associations of scholars come in. The accreditation will come from some part of the rump system as it comes to a close in its current form. The school I envision uses that as a mere starting point. Building a reputation for producing graduates with ability and character will create a feedback loop where bright kids seek you out this will lead to the establishment of networks than can funnel graduates into jobs, which will be more important than paper credentials, and further build the social value of the school.
🗨 Tao = a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart.
🗨 [Teachers] handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which overarched him and them alike.[...T]he old was a kind of propagation—men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.
🗨 For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity.
Great thought. I was lucky to have studied for a bit under Russell Kirkland, one of the foremost American scholars on Taoism. If I had been a younger, smarter man, I would have pursued Chinese.
"....rightists being hesitant to enter the field of education....." is the BIGGEST REASON by far for the 'culture war' zone we now inhabit. For five decades conservatives never saw that while they obsessed about winning electoral power at the ballot box, the Left's long march through the institutions - via the agency of (taxpayer-funded) tertiary education - was proceeding relentlessly. And all under cover of a virtual lefty MSM silence. They never saw this coming which is why we are where we are now. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
Normiecons go into think tanks and produce papers. Rightists go online and produce arguments. Leftists go into schools and produce disciples. That’s what needs to be disrupted.
I wouldn’t presume to give advice to an elder, but even within your own sphere I’m sure there’s scope for action. Even volunteering at a library is a blow against entropy. I’m sure there’s a lot of good you could do.
Fair point. We who like to enlarge upon the big picture can tend to forget about the little-by-little doing what you can. (But I do sometimes think about some kind of volunteering.) "An elder"....Wow, I've been called some names but that's a first!
Authenticity is certainly valued by kids. As far as influence goes, once they hit their teen years teachers are far down the road from media, peer groups, friends and family.
I taught abroad for 15 years, but changed career rather than teach when I moved back to Britain. Why? Too much politicised lying the children, and the pandemic lockdowns made it really obvious that the whole education system is little more than a babysitting or warehousing service to the vast majority of families.
Britain achieved its greatest with an education system that was selective, under barely any government control, based on developing character and not co-educational.
Apparently, the one thing kids don't want is another kid teaching them (Speaking from utterly dreadful experiences, only adults find kids adorable. Kids are willing to punt each other out of windows!)
Looking forward to "where". While I am waiting, I have been thinking of "how". How to get kids (or adults, for that matter) off the cellphone and into reading something that may cost them ten minutes out of a day but might be worth knowing for the rest of a life.
This is where discernment comes in. Not that I am the most discerning person in the world, but I try a combination of reasoned persuasion, emotional resonance, and habit formation in my own practice. Some kids are bright and mature enough that they will read on their own; I have only to explain to them that Percy Jackson is ok but Edith Hamilton is better and Aeschylus is the best. For others, I use praise and (good-natured) ridicule. When kids tell me “I hate reading,” I always respond with “one day you won’t have to tell people that; they’ll just know it from talking to you, much as a 400lb man on a couch does not need to tell you he hates exercise.” I read every day in front of my own children and with my students, and I give them mature materials (stuff I read, not things generally intended for high schoolers).
Aug 8, 2023·edited Aug 8, 2023Liked by Librarian of Celaeno
Based on the audience demographics you cited, I would fall into the "child" category. I must admit that the culture wars were a major component of my journey to my current political views, especially the prospect of entering college without any substantive exposure to the classics of Western civilisation. It is a serious problem; and one conservative ideologues saw coming years ago, with the erosion of the "Classical liberal arts" and the substitution of the moral backbone supplied by school curricula.
Your choice of the word "paideia" is also very appropriate, considering the Paideia Proposal by Professor Mortimer J. Adler, involving the restoration of classical liberal ideas to education (as well as the Great Books canon of Western works).
I was in my 20s before I knew there was something called “Classics” one could study as a formal subject. My own public high school was terrible and, like you, it drove me to search out my own heritage and study as a means of escape. Adler also has a great introduction to Aristotle. I have that and the entire Great Books of the Western World collection in my classroom. It’s not without its faults conceptually, but it’s a great place to start and light years ahead of what a public school would offer.
Mr. Librarian: I was directed to your site yesterday by Jerome V. I am so glad he did. I am very happy to be here.
My passion has always been clean energy. My parents thought that I would be a good teacher. I got burned out in my field around age 30, and so I went and got my masters in secondary education (science).
You wrote, "They want you to be real. They want you to know and care about what you are teaching, they want you to be honest, and they want you to be kind. If you know your stuff, don’t lie, and care, you will be doing more than most of the adults they know. If that sounds like you, you know who you are, and what you could do. If it’s more than you are currently doing, do yourself and the world a favor and consider education. Be a teacher."
I was all of that. And I lasted one year in each of two different public schools (well-regarded schools on the North Shores of Chicago and Milwaukee).
My kids loved me, though. It was worth it, and I will use it again some day.
Success as a teacher is derived from an interplay of teacher, students, and institution. If any one of the three is off or does not fit with the other two, it simply won't happen. They can support each other; a good institution will build good teachers, and a good teacher can improve outcomes for students, etc. but when one is simply entirely lacking nothing can be helped. If you are committed and your students benefitted from your instruction, then it seems the problem is that you lacked the proper school. I would suggest looking around for something non-traditional, or rather, more traditional.
The denouement played out as follows. As a seven year old, I loved volcanoes. The power, the beauty, the grandeur; it all captivated me. Even the geysers of Iceland as an energy source.
And then a few weeks later, the first oil crisis hit. "Oh my," I could see that energy would be THE issue of my adulthood; and sustainable things like those geysers would play a key role.
Off to college to learn about Alternative Energy (which would be rebranded as Clean Energy down the road). I ended up with a degree in Physics, which I saw as a liberal arts engineering degree. But I was in a community of science. These scientists were motivated again by awe, beauty, and power.
Well, the day of the big classroom visit from the principal came on the day that we were kicking off the study of volcanoes in geology. I had a choice:
* would I be honest with the kids and react to the video like a scientist: tell the kids, we're watching a movie. Don't take notes, just enjoy it" and then sit in the back and ooh and aah about it?
* or would I behave like a factory overseer and talk about the different types of lava and volcanoes?
It really wasn't much of a choice. I had to teach, even if the principal was there to witness it.
Maybe in a different institution, they would have seen a courageous and loving science teacher. But not that one.
Sort of like your Ben from Milwaukee story: I know that I was made for something. That wasn't the right time and place.
I'm late to the party here, but I don't think I've found an article anywhere that expresses my thoughts on the topic this clearly and succinctly. I would only add that for those who have taught professionally in some form and didn't find it fulfilling, I suggest unlearning what you've learned, Yoda style. Teaching a kid who loves you and sees you as a role model vs. a bunch of strangers (or strangers' kids) who don't truly care is a totally different scenario. It's not just apples and oranges, but apples and passion fruit.
While I have my aspirations like anybody - publish books, write full-time, etc. - I now count homeschooling my kids as one of them. Glad to subscribe to your newsletter, I really appreciate what you're talking about here.
Thank you for the kind response. As I note in my work, it will be networks of people like you and many of my other readers who will build what comes next.
Great article as usual and almost all true; I disagree with the bit about authenticity though, at least in the modern, let-it-all-hang-out sense of the word.
I think teaching, like any job, is an act--or, maybe better expressed, the deliberate accentuation of some facets of personality and the withholding of others. So, while you *are* being authentic in the sense that you show your best side, you should never let em see the worst.
As you say, the relationship is personal: an effective teacher is a model adult and--crucially I think--an encourager of *informed speculation*, not merely an imparter of sterile facts. By all means let em in on mistakes you've made (this is of course one of the best ways to instruct the young), but at all costs avoid showing your insecurities, inadequacies & c.
Modern authenticity is about the broadcasting of vices, problems, and superficialities- I’m a whore, I’m bipolar, look at my tattoos. What I’m talking about is the revelation of humanity in the context of an ongoing and sustaining hierarchical relationship. First one establishes one’s competence, then authority, then love, then and only then one’s vulnerability. The students have to know you know what you are talking about and that you are firmly in charge. Having impressed that upon them, you must then convey to them that you care about them as individuals and as the future of your society. Then you can reveal something about yourself that reveals a flaw or weakness; done sparingly, this binds them to you, as it would to a parent.
Two resources you would enjoy for the future, which your essay reminded me of are Intellectual Schizophrenia by R.J. Rushdooney and The American Heritage Series by David Barton. The former speaks of the insanity of formation of the modern educational system and the latter on the Christian foundation of American country.
Rushdoony I have not read; Barton I think means well, but I have my doubts on some of his conclusions. I will check out the former and re-read the latter for clarity.
Rush soonest is a compelling figure, he pretty much started what is called Christian Reconstructionism. He had great insights on the contemporary problems but also offered tangible solutions .
You make me want to teach in a homeschool situation. I taught in a vocational setting as a guest speaker on a regular basis, and absolutely adored doing it. The students were hungry to learn, which made the whole situation a beautifully symbiotic relationship.
Public schools are horrible; my brother took a middle school job and quit halfway through the year, as his students were more interested in watching their crotches (looking at their phones) and wiping boogers on their desks (yes, literally!) for him to clean up in between school periods.
I’ve already told my daughter-in-law if they want to homeschool my grandsons, I will absolutely be a willing, energetic, and grateful participant!
This is all true and the role of grandparents as homeschoolers is extremely overlooked and underrated. Blogs and online spaces are full of “how to be a homeschool mom” type stuff, but rarely does one see “how do I incorporate other relatives, especially my own parents?”
I live in Texas, and this state has this stupid State wide STAR test that doesn't mean anything. The teachers hate it, the students hate it, the school districts hate it, but the people who sell standardized tests love it.
I graduated in 1987, and to graduate, I had to prove mastery of content over Mathematics, Science, History, Government, History, Music, Art, and Drama. That meant that we read a chapter every two days, for nine months, and we even had to read extra to make sure we finished the books. We had two types of tests, a fill in the blank/multiple choice test, and a practicle exam of content mastery. That meant that we had to know how to find the answer and show the teacher how we found the answer. if we used a book, we had to show chapter and paragraph.
Cut to 2018. I asked my niece and nephew if they knew what happened in 1776, 1941, 1986, and 1989, and they couldn't tell me. (for those curious, 1776 Declaration of Independence, 1941 WWII, 1986 Challenger explosion, 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall.) When I asked them what they were studying in school, I got, "I Dunno, we were studying for the stupid STAR Test."
Without content mastery, you get stupid people who will vote for idiots.
Cut 10 2023, My niece is a senior in high school who will graduate with an Associates in Science degree before she graduates with a high school diploma, because she finally found something that kept her interested.
Dual enrollment is a big thing and becoming a bigger thing. I’ll be writing about that as well. If we get ahead of it it represents an enormous chance for disruption of the current system.
Great essay. I was just transported back to 1970’s high school here in Oz.
The government later sold the whole school to the Islamic community which was later demolished on the back of a huge funding scandal perpetrated by said community
That’s one way to eradicate your history; a vacant lot is all that’s left
I have a special love for old school buildings. My own high school, the one I attended senior year that I actually liked, was demolished to build apartments.
No doubt the apartments they built are in the LEGO School of architecture
Soulless and devoid of character
Here every new development looks like an arrangement of shoe boxes
For those curious 😊 1776 was an out-n-out exquisite year: it also marks the first James Watt's steam engines installed, as well as the first edition of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. In its own right, 1986 saw yet another spectacular explosion, that of Chernobyl.
WW2 started in 1939
The original was—understandably!—US-centric view; the smashed wall just got lucky to make the list 😏
True, but the US didn't fully commit in Europe until 1944, 1941 was pearl harbor. December 6, 1941 to be exact.
I've been saying for years that unless we get back to truly educating, we are lost. Great teachers inspire their students, so they want to read the next page, find out what happened or why. I was lucky to be blessed with a few incredible teachers who turned me around from the 'dark side.'
🗨 Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.
Who're we to argue with Aristotle? 😉
Or with the Jesuits.
Or with Lenin for that matter 😁
(Tbf, the latter adjusted the age downwards, and then twisted the objective both Aristotle and St Ignatius Loyola phrased alike.)
A general principle can be applied for good or ill. A child's mind can be either broken or formed, depending on the intent.
Broken and then formed anew -–vs–- formed w/o breaking 😇
I’m glad you were able to sit under those teachers. I hope some of the people reading this are inspired to become them.
I know you wrote this for everyone, but I feel like it was written *at me.*
I had the same feeling lol
Thanks for writing this. I felt rather seen tbh.
Teaching has occurred to me now and then. I know quite well that I'm good at it - I've taught in other contexts in the past, although never high school students. I suppose the main factors that make me hesitant are the political mess that the public schools have become, and frankly a residual sense of teaching as low status ("those who can't" etc.) which is very difficult to shake. The two are of course related: one of the big reasons that teaching is seen as low status is precisely that it has become the domain of highly politicized females.
Meanwhile, a close friend of mine has been strongly encouraging me to look into teaching at an international school, and he makes a good case I must say.
Teaching will be high status when high status people embrace it. That will come when those people make the choice to create a space where they have the freedom and resources to teach as their judgement demands. Something new is possible, which I will be discussing in part 2.
Yes, that's the flip side, isn't it. The low quality of people brought into the profession, and the proponderance of women, is why it is low status.
I've often thought that being headmaster at one of the old British style public schools would not be so bad. Teaching was a high status vocation in those times.
Freedom of action is indeed another very important aspect. This affects essentially every profession at this point. The cancer of managerialism has spread everywhere, and to whatever degree it reduces a profession to procedure-following checklist monkeys, social status is stripped out. That's happening to medicine as we speak. Ditto academia. And at least in the public school system, where quite apart from the politics, teachers are required to follow strict curricular guidelines established by education ministries that know nothing of education, this process has been at work for quite some time.
Imagine a school formed as an association of scholars, small enough to escape any quota laws or related state mandates, that is able to offer instruction in a range of areas at both the high school and junior college levels. You start with a small classical college or just one amenable to the project, you get your prospective teachers on board as adjuncts there, and then, in association with that college, you open a microschool that is able to offer those classes to students as part of dual enrollment instruction. In the US, many states pay for homeschoolers to take DE classes if the state similarly pays for them for students in public high schools. The attraction of such a school to parents would be college classes offered for free (o them) to high school students with instruction at very low student/teacher ratio. The attraction for teachers would be the academic and career freedom such a setup would allow. I plan to go into more detail in my next essay, but that is the rough idea.
This is good.
Possibly related, I've been wondering for years now why scholars must affiliate themselves with large, bureaucratic institutions. Why can't they form their own associations, as lawyers do? Why can't the law firm, general practioner's office, or even the fitness club not provide a viable model?
The main roadblocks I see to this are accreditation and credentialization. It's a sad truth that universities aren't in the business of selling educations, but credentials, and to hand out the credentials, they must be accredited.
The bigness of modern education is a result of the huge economies of scale that came into being after WWII and the baby boom. Neighborhood schools became comprehensive high schools that served entire cities on the justification that a concentration of money and labor meant efficiency, Among other people, James Conant of Harvard was one of the leading theorists of this change; look him up some time to understand a lot of what happened. On the college side, the demand coming from increasing populations and more state money led to normal schools becoming junior colleges, junior colleges becoming liberal arts schools or tech schools, and the latter two being combined into behemoth state R1 universities. All of this was bound of with the prestige of postwar American liberalism, which promised that more education would lead to increased material progress and social harmony.
That didn't happen and we're running out of kids. If what I've outlined is correct, something like a reverse scenario will happen, with many schools devolving into smaller entities, some of those smaller entities closing or looking for new purpose, and parents increasingly looking for options other than the arms of the state for their children. That is where the associations of scholars come in. The accreditation will come from some part of the rump system as it comes to a close in its current form. The school I envision uses that as a mere starting point. Building a reputation for producing graduates with ability and character will create a feedback loop where bright kids seek you out this will lead to the establishment of networks than can funnel graduates into jobs, which will be more important than paper credentials, and further build the social value of the school.
This is good stuff. I'm looking forward to a fuller development of this; you've obviously put a lot of thought into it.
🗨 Tao = a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart.
🗨 [Teachers] handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which overarched him and them alike.[...T]he old was a kind of propagation—men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.
🗨 For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity.
Pale male CS Lewis never gets stale 😊
Great thought. I was lucky to have studied for a bit under Russell Kirkland, one of the foremost American scholars on Taoism. If I had been a younger, smarter man, I would have pursued Chinese.
"....rightists being hesitant to enter the field of education....." is the BIGGEST REASON by far for the 'culture war' zone we now inhabit. For five decades conservatives never saw that while they obsessed about winning electoral power at the ballot box, the Left's long march through the institutions - via the agency of (taxpayer-funded) tertiary education - was proceeding relentlessly. And all under cover of a virtual lefty MSM silence. They never saw this coming which is why we are where we are now. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
Normiecons go into think tanks and produce papers. Rightists go online and produce arguments. Leftists go into schools and produce disciples. That’s what needs to be disrupted.
You're absolutely right.... but I wish I knew how. (I'm 72 though...an age perhaps for pessimism.)
I wouldn’t presume to give advice to an elder, but even within your own sphere I’m sure there’s scope for action. Even volunteering at a library is a blow against entropy. I’m sure there’s a lot of good you could do.
Fair point. We who like to enlarge upon the big picture can tend to forget about the little-by-little doing what you can. (But I do sometimes think about some kind of volunteering.) "An elder"....Wow, I've been called some names but that's a first!
Authenticity is certainly valued by kids. As far as influence goes, once they hit their teen years teachers are far down the road from media, peer groups, friends and family.
I taught abroad for 15 years, but changed career rather than teach when I moved back to Britain. Why? Too much politicised lying the children, and the pandemic lockdowns made it really obvious that the whole education system is little more than a babysitting or warehousing service to the vast majority of families.
Britain achieved its greatest with an education system that was selective, under barely any government control, based on developing character and not co-educational.
That’s the sort of system I’ll be advocating in this series.
Apparently, the one thing kids don't want is another kid teaching them (Speaking from utterly dreadful experiences, only adults find kids adorable. Kids are willing to punt each other out of windows!)
Looking forward to "where". While I am waiting, I have been thinking of "how". How to get kids (or adults, for that matter) off the cellphone and into reading something that may cost them ten minutes out of a day but might be worth knowing for the rest of a life.
This is where discernment comes in. Not that I am the most discerning person in the world, but I try a combination of reasoned persuasion, emotional resonance, and habit formation in my own practice. Some kids are bright and mature enough that they will read on their own; I have only to explain to them that Percy Jackson is ok but Edith Hamilton is better and Aeschylus is the best. For others, I use praise and (good-natured) ridicule. When kids tell me “I hate reading,” I always respond with “one day you won’t have to tell people that; they’ll just know it from talking to you, much as a 400lb man on a couch does not need to tell you he hates exercise.” I read every day in front of my own children and with my students, and I give them mature materials (stuff I read, not things generally intended for high schoolers).
Based on the audience demographics you cited, I would fall into the "child" category. I must admit that the culture wars were a major component of my journey to my current political views, especially the prospect of entering college without any substantive exposure to the classics of Western civilisation. It is a serious problem; and one conservative ideologues saw coming years ago, with the erosion of the "Classical liberal arts" and the substitution of the moral backbone supplied by school curricula.
Your choice of the word "paideia" is also very appropriate, considering the Paideia Proposal by Professor Mortimer J. Adler, involving the restoration of classical liberal ideas to education (as well as the Great Books canon of Western works).
I was in my 20s before I knew there was something called “Classics” one could study as a formal subject. My own public high school was terrible and, like you, it drove me to search out my own heritage and study as a means of escape. Adler also has a great introduction to Aristotle. I have that and the entire Great Books of the Western World collection in my classroom. It’s not without its faults conceptually, but it’s a great place to start and light years ahead of what a public school would offer.
*furious applause*
Furious gratitude.
Mr. Librarian: I was directed to your site yesterday by Jerome V. I am so glad he did. I am very happy to be here.
My passion has always been clean energy. My parents thought that I would be a good teacher. I got burned out in my field around age 30, and so I went and got my masters in secondary education (science).
You wrote, "They want you to be real. They want you to know and care about what you are teaching, they want you to be honest, and they want you to be kind. If you know your stuff, don’t lie, and care, you will be doing more than most of the adults they know. If that sounds like you, you know who you are, and what you could do. If it’s more than you are currently doing, do yourself and the world a favor and consider education. Be a teacher."
I was all of that. And I lasted one year in each of two different public schools (well-regarded schools on the North Shores of Chicago and Milwaukee).
My kids loved me, though. It was worth it, and I will use it again some day.
Thank you for the kind words.
Success as a teacher is derived from an interplay of teacher, students, and institution. If any one of the three is off or does not fit with the other two, it simply won't happen. They can support each other; a good institution will build good teachers, and a good teacher can improve outcomes for students, etc. but when one is simply entirely lacking nothing can be helped. If you are committed and your students benefitted from your instruction, then it seems the problem is that you lacked the proper school. I would suggest looking around for something non-traditional, or rather, more traditional.
The denouement played out as follows. As a seven year old, I loved volcanoes. The power, the beauty, the grandeur; it all captivated me. Even the geysers of Iceland as an energy source.
And then a few weeks later, the first oil crisis hit. "Oh my," I could see that energy would be THE issue of my adulthood; and sustainable things like those geysers would play a key role.
Off to college to learn about Alternative Energy (which would be rebranded as Clean Energy down the road). I ended up with a degree in Physics, which I saw as a liberal arts engineering degree. But I was in a community of science. These scientists were motivated again by awe, beauty, and power.
Well, the day of the big classroom visit from the principal came on the day that we were kicking off the study of volcanoes in geology. I had a choice:
* would I be honest with the kids and react to the video like a scientist: tell the kids, we're watching a movie. Don't take notes, just enjoy it" and then sit in the back and ooh and aah about it?
* or would I behave like a factory overseer and talk about the different types of lava and volcanoes?
It really wasn't much of a choice. I had to teach, even if the principal was there to witness it.
Maybe in a different institution, they would have seen a courageous and loving science teacher. But not that one.
Sort of like your Ben from Milwaukee story: I know that I was made for something. That wasn't the right time and place.
I'm late to the party here, but I don't think I've found an article anywhere that expresses my thoughts on the topic this clearly and succinctly. I would only add that for those who have taught professionally in some form and didn't find it fulfilling, I suggest unlearning what you've learned, Yoda style. Teaching a kid who loves you and sees you as a role model vs. a bunch of strangers (or strangers' kids) who don't truly care is a totally different scenario. It's not just apples and oranges, but apples and passion fruit.
While I have my aspirations like anybody - publish books, write full-time, etc. - I now count homeschooling my kids as one of them. Glad to subscribe to your newsletter, I really appreciate what you're talking about here.
Thank you for the kind response. As I note in my work, it will be networks of people like you and many of my other readers who will build what comes next.
Great article as usual and almost all true; I disagree with the bit about authenticity though, at least in the modern, let-it-all-hang-out sense of the word.
I think teaching, like any job, is an act--or, maybe better expressed, the deliberate accentuation of some facets of personality and the withholding of others. So, while you *are* being authentic in the sense that you show your best side, you should never let em see the worst.
As you say, the relationship is personal: an effective teacher is a model adult and--crucially I think--an encourager of *informed speculation*, not merely an imparter of sterile facts. By all means let em in on mistakes you've made (this is of course one of the best ways to instruct the young), but at all costs avoid showing your insecurities, inadequacies & c.
Modern authenticity is about the broadcasting of vices, problems, and superficialities- I’m a whore, I’m bipolar, look at my tattoos. What I’m talking about is the revelation of humanity in the context of an ongoing and sustaining hierarchical relationship. First one establishes one’s competence, then authority, then love, then and only then one’s vulnerability. The students have to know you know what you are talking about and that you are firmly in charge. Having impressed that upon them, you must then convey to them that you care about them as individuals and as the future of your society. Then you can reveal something about yourself that reveals a flaw or weakness; done sparingly, this binds them to you, as it would to a parent.
That paragraph should be in every teaching curriculum everywhere. That is the crux of teaching, right there.
Yes
Two resources you would enjoy for the future, which your essay reminded me of are Intellectual Schizophrenia by R.J. Rushdooney and The American Heritage Series by David Barton. The former speaks of the insanity of formation of the modern educational system and the latter on the Christian foundation of American country.
Rushdoony I have not read; Barton I think means well, but I have my doubts on some of his conclusions. I will check out the former and re-read the latter for clarity.
Rush soonest is a compelling figure, he pretty much started what is called Christian Reconstructionism. He had great insights on the contemporary problems but also offered tangible solutions .