Philosophical essay on teaching and learning with no actionable leads

Preface Xhit There are two important answers to this question and those an- swers are what this book is really about. My father offered these same answers to me, not explicitly by any means, when I thought about the good and bad of having him as my teacher. When he tried to teach me facts, [learned nothing much. When he engaged my mind, I learned a lot. As a professor I never forgot this lesson. I rarely tried to teach facts, upsetting many a student along the way. I just argued with them, or encouraged them. I never told them much, except maybe some good stories. So here are the answers: The first is: Teaching isn’t what outsiders to the profession think it is. The profession I am referring to here is, of course, the teaching profession. The second is: Learning isn’t what outsiders to the profession think it is. In this case, the profession I am referring to is not teaching at all. Let’s start with teaching. A professor friend of mine once asked her class what they thought a professor’s biggest fear was while teaching a class. They all agreed it was not knowing the answer to a question a student might ask. When she told this story to a group of professors, they all laughed out loud. Why am I telling this story? Because a student’s view of teach- ing varies greatly from a teacher’s view. No teacher worries about not knowing the right answer to something a student will ask. You can always fake it (say—What do you think? or, Class, can you help here?) if you think it is important, but answers don’t matter very much. Teach- ers are not supposed to be encyclopedias. They are supposed to be something else. The question is: What? My students’ responses above give a hint. Teachers are supposed to be people who help students find their interests in life, think about HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023743