- I had a few minutes to talk with someone who took a graduate writing class of mine maybe 15 years ago. I noticed something that should have been obvious to me as a teacher, but which I suspect I didn't often think about previously, and which may be a serious shortcoming in my own approach to teaching and to that of others, I don't know.#
- I asked about the person's new job: "I know it's early, but what are one or two of the most intriguing parts of the job at this point?"#
- And the answer was quite interesting, grounded in values and in expertise and seeming like it would open up things for the employer and the people of the region. All good. But the thing I noticed was how much the expertise was her expertise, not school-inflected, not shaped any longer by teaching or a teacher's take on the world.#
- In other words, it was the goal of education all along. You will use this knowledge, we hope. You will bend it toward new purposes. You will adapt it. The tools of your field will be reshaped in your hands, too.#
- School, I suspect, often overlooks that 1) this full transformative ownership of the tools of a field has got to be the goal. It's about ownership and use by people, not 2) perfection of a student-clone by the educator.#
- Upon reflection, I'd say that educators tend to focus on #2 when we should focus on #1. We delay the valuable process of making knowledge your own in the world. We sap the strength of some students to the point of dropping out, and we use up some of the finite supply of years of even the most successful. Waste in a needy world, waste, waste, waste.#
- I had a few minutes to talk with someone who took a graduate writing class of mine maybe 15 years ago. I noticed something that should have been obvious to me as a teacher, but which I suspect I didn't often think about previously, and which may be a serious shortcoming in my own approach to teaching and to that of others, I don't know.#
- I asked about the person's new job: "I know it's early, but what are one or two of the most intriguing parts of the job at this point?"#
- And the answer was quite interesting, grounded in values and in expertise and seeming like it would open up things for the employer and the people of the region. All good. But the thing I noticed was how much the expertise was her expertise, not school-inflected, not shaped any longer by teaching or a teacher's take on the world.#
- In other words, it was the goal of education all along. You will use this knowledge, we hope. You will bend it toward new purposes. You will adapt it. The tools of your field will be reshaped in your hands, too.#
- School, I suspect, often overlooks that 1) this full transformative ownership of the tools of a field has got to be the goal. It's about ownership and use by people, not 2) perfection of a student-clone by the educator.#
- Upon reflection, I'd say that educators tend to focus on #2 when we should focus on #1. We delay the valuable process of making knowledge your own in the world. We sap the strength of some students to the point of dropping out, and we use up some of the finite supply of years of even the most successful. Waste in a needy world, waste, waste, waste.#