Rotten teachers

I have fond memories of my undergraduate and graduate education. As I was driving home this afternoon, I realized that those memories had edited out the rotten teaching I was exposed to:

The general education curriculum, which surely had terrific instructors among its staff, but by misfortune I was exposed to poor teachers, inexperienced teachers, teachers who were well past their prime, and teachers who could not teach much. I was fortunate to have two terrific teachers for social and political theory. In my major, and in graduate school, many of the teachers were teaching by rote from their old notes, they had not thought much about the subject matter in years, and in fact their approach was outdated. Again, there were some terrific teachers, but the droopy ones dominated. And my major department was as strong as any in the world in its fields of specialization. [What happens is that there are some mistaken tenurings, and those people end up teaching crucial courses. And the most distinguished people do not see their teaching as something that is alive and real.] On the other hand, the mathematics teachers I had were uniformly inventive and interesting.

What was conveyed by the departments was a sense of the seriousness of the endeavors, the life of the mind and the laboratory. In that sense, it was a fine education. And I did learn to think professionally. Also, there were enough fine models among my teachers that they have inspired me even now, almost 60 years later.

But, as I think about it now, no one should have had those droopy or inexperienced or old-notes teachers. No one.

Sometimes we tell ourselves: If it was good enough for me, it is good enough for our students and children. This is called "internalization of the aggressor." It was not good enough for me, and in any case it surely is not good enough for my students and the next generation.

Make sure you are the teachers you wish you had.