Thoughts on teaching, technology, learning and life in an era of change.
 
Why do you teach? Is it the subject or the students?
September 11th, 2008

Today I was speaking with an old friend. We were conversing about why people teach.

He mentioned that there must be teachers out there who joined the profession because they have a love or admiration of the subject matter and that the students are secondary to that motivating force. That statement intrigued me. Would there be teachers who enjoy the subject, say Science or Mathematics, and have become teachers simply to impart their knowledge and love of the subject? Where does that leave the students?

They added that people who join the profession specifically because they like to work with children are more likely to become primary school teachers as they are teaching a broad range of subjects. I wonder.

6 Responses to “Why do you teach? Is it the subject or the students?”

  1. Michael Doyle Says:

    O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
    Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
    O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
    How can we know the dancer from the dance?

    (Thank you, W.B. Yeats.)

  2. What, who ar why? | Your digital consultant Says:

    [...] Why do you teach? Is it the subject or the students? He mentioned that there must be teachers out there who joined the profession because they have a love or admiration of the subject matter and that the students are secondary to that motivating force. That statement intrigued me. Would there be teachers who enjoy the subject, say Science or Mathematics, and have become teachers simply to impart their knowledge and love of the subject? Where does that leave the students? [...]

  3. John Larkin Says:

    Yes, Michael, that is why I wondered. Could there be two distinct types of teachers? Those that teach the subject and those that teach the students. Surely it is a mesh.

    Simon Robinson elaborates further on these ideas. Worth a read. Click on the pingback above.

    An article by Alfie Kohn in Education Week, published a few days back, also raises some related ideas regarding teachers that “took their content so very seriously that they forgot their students,” [Linda McNeil].

    http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/09/10/03kohn_ep.h28.html?tmp=1919359012

    Cheers, John.

  4. Simon Robinson Says:

    That is a hot link John. Thank you very much indeed. I feel a follow up post coming on…
    RE: “the mesh” (your comment) I agree there’s a continuum. Nothing with human beings is ever binary.

  5. Ken Allan Says:

    Kia ora John!

    You have posed a fundamental question for any teacher. It is a testing one too.

    In 1974, when I first started teaching in New Zealand, I was sitting drinking tea in the school’s staff room when the games master, Jack McManus, walked in. He had two rugby balls under each arm and one in each hand, and he sported a smile from ear to lug.

    He walked up to me and said, “I’ll put you down for the 4Bs.” I smiled and nodded and thanked him. Little did I know that he intended me to coach the 4B rugby team. I’d never played rugby and I knew nothing about the game.

    The next day, Jack fronted up to me with a fistful of books on schoolboy rugby. I took them home and studied them up, for I knew that on Thursday of that week I’d have to be out on the rugby field coaching 30 little rascals how to enjoy the game.

    I coached rugby in that school for four years before I became the cross-country coach and had to relinquish my position of rugby coach. They were four interesting and exciting years. I attended the major rugby matches in Wellington. I watched the rugby matches on TV. I attended all my team’s matches both home and away.

    When I took up a position of head of department in a nearby girl’s high school, I missed the coaching. But my interest in going to rugby matches simply wasn’t there, and I stopped watching rugby on TV. I’ve never taken an interest in rugby since then.

    That experience taught me where my interests really lay – not with rugby – not with sport – not with fitness. It lay with kids and what it was to engender enthusiasm in young minds for an exciting contact sport that I had no interest in what so ever.

    Ka kite
    from Middle-earth

  6. John Larkin Says:

    Hi Simon and Ken,
    Thanks for the comments. Finally catching up on my jolly replies. You are welcome Simon. Now Ken, your story rings true. I taught French a few times during my early years as a teacher. I had studied French till Year 10 and the Principal at my first school asked would I teach it to Years 7 and 8 as part of a language rollover. The students were exposed to eight languages over 8 terms. It was fun but when it was over, it was over. Cheers, John.