You cannot teach well if you cannot learn well

As the end of the school year comes, we sometimes look back on our teaching. Or forward: This year, there is renewed debate in Maine on the role of teachers in policy and curriculum design. Some of us may see you cannot teach well if you cannot learn well.

This does not mean the ability to pass required continuing education courses, “professional development” courses. That may mean they took our money, to sharpen your skills as a technician; you could still be a lousy teacher. Nor does it mean you’ve subscribed to the Learning Results and school policies and all the other paraphernalia of keeping your job. And it certainly does not mean having learned your “collective bargaining rights” from people who see their right as collecting membership dues from you.

If learning well is not found in professional development courses, the paraphernalia of keeping your job, being a union member, where is it found? Just what does learning well mean?

It means watching and listening and learning from your students. If you go in thinking you’re the teacher, they’re the students, and they need to know something you’ve got to tell them, you block yourself. Watch. Listen. Learn from your students. Don’t be a know-it-all. This is one thing learning well means.

Then, learn from your own life. When you were the age of your students, was schoolwork at the top of our list? Or was it really that? Work? Dreary, what-does-it-have-to-do-with-me labor. What did you feel, when your teachers told you to be quiet? When they extended your school day by homework and detention, and you knew they were only trying to show you who was boss? We know that when we become what we call “adults” our memories of our young years may be selective, distorted by the life lenses through which we are looking. Un-distort your looking. Learn from your own life. This is another thing learning well means.

Finally, find your heart, for this is essential to all of what learning well means. Recall, for example, how you raised your kids and your grandkids. The way in which you raised them – with love in the raising – could tell you a lot. Did you let them discover for themselves? Did they want to know something, and so, ready to come to you and ask? True, your students may not be your own kids, and there may be 60 or more a day, but isn’t there something to be learned in seeing how you raised your own? Finding your heart is a main thing leaning well means.

This year, as they reflect on their teaching and advocate an increased role, teachers might ask some questions.

When I go to school in the morning, is my interest in learning stronger than my interest in telling? For as long as I’m learning, I’m alive, and what can dead textbooks, frigid assignments and the rigor mortis of cookie-cut students lined up have to do with it?

When I go to school in the morning, am I filled with love and affection for my students? Or am I resentful they have been “parked” with me, and everybody wants me to “civilize” them?

When my students are excited about having learned something, am I excited that they are excited? Or am I mainly pleased because they have learned what I wanted them to learn? If I have missed their excitement, what is it I have missed?

You cannot teach well if you cannot learn well.

Ron Cuddy is a substitute teacher and tutor who lives in Calais.