After reading the first chapters of Boice, my understanding of the everyday rigors of teaching has begun to change. As a lifelong student, I’ve always conceived of a teacher as the person sitting in class in front of me, imparting knowledge, interacting with me, and, as an afterthought, giving me a grade. I always envisioned this second part as taking place during the witching hour, perhaps with my instructor swirling brandy or smoking a cigarette with Bill Cosby in the background.
But now, a revelation: teaching comprises, at a minimum, three distinct parts. There’s the part where we grade, which we’ve talked about in the abstract in class. Then there’s the part where we’ve actually got warm bodies in front of us—the embodiment of our fears of teaching. But Boice is concerned chiefly with the most forgotten—but likely most important part—the preparation.
At first glance, Boice’s philosophy and advice is frustrating. Don’t instruct me to hurry up and wait, especially not when your second piece of advice makes me feel like I’m already behind. But the more I thought about it, the more it began to make sense.
Teaching is such a comprehensive activity, it’s not the sort of thing where you can block out an hour of time in which you will definitely choose your class materials and definitely writer your syllabus and lesson plans. It’s not like making a cheeseburger. It requires more.
In other words, I believe that becoming a teacher requires a change in identity. A teacher is always thinking about teaching in some way—actively waiting, if you buy into Boice’s vocabulary—and the best teachers are eager to think about what comes next, because humans think about what comes next. One of the biggest obstacles for me might be really starting to think of myself as a teacher.
"One of the biggest obstacles for me might be really starting to think of myself as a teacher."
ReplyDeleteMe too, especially when you need to be both a teacher and a graduate student, and many other things.