One of the most important skills I have learned as a
university professor is how to not teach. In fact, I gave up
trying to teach long ago. Fortunately, I haven't given up trying
to learn.
This article, then, is about teaching and learning. It
consists of a series of personal statements, questions, hypotheses,
conclusions, descriptions, and observations about learning,
teaching and learning to not teach. As best I can tell, the series
doesn't follow any logical sequence. Learning seldom follows any
logical sequence. Teaching does. I hope you find the material to
be of interest.
1. The longer I am employed as a professor, the less sure I
become as to what a teacher is supposed to do. When I stand
up in front of a class and someone says explicitly or
implicitly, "teach me," I become confused because I seldom
feel as if I have anything to teach.
2. Whenever I do feel I have something to teach, I generally am
disappointed. Most of the time, others already know it or
don't find it particularly useful, interesting, relevant or
profound; and neither do I.
3. I tend to agree with Carl Rogers' (1961) "Personal Thoughts on
Teaching and Learning." In essence, he contends that anything
of value can't be taught, but that much of value can be
learned. I suppose that's one reason I find teaching so
unsatisfying and learning so much fun.
4. I find it ironical that the various constituencies of higher
learning (students, professors, and administrators) worry so
much about teaching. I suspect their concern with teaching
has its purpose - to divert energy from the difficult job of
learning - which involves essence - and to focus on teaching - which deals with the illusion that the power to grew lies
with someone else.
5. "Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach." A hostile
comment to be sure, but one which for some reason is very
popular among do's. Try substituting the word "learn" for the
word "teach." The comment now reads, "Those who can, do.
Those who cannot, learn." The comment no longer makes sense.
I wonder why? Maybe the answer to that question says
something about the relative importance of teaching and
learning.
6. It also occurs to me that teachers require learners in order
to survive but that learners don't require teachers. Maybe
that's why teachers emphasize the importance of teaching so
much. They have to create a market for nonessential services.
7. In my discipline, there is a journal called Exchange: The
Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal. What if it were
called Exchange: The Organizational Behavior of Learning
Journal? I'll bet the content of the articles would be very
different and a lot more interesting.
8. As a professor, I don't take responsibility for what others
learn. I do take responsibility for what I learn. though.
If fact, my basic goal in class is for me to learn something
new. What others learn, if anything, is up to them. I'm
always pleased to help them learn something if they want to,
but I won't be responsible for what they learn or whether they
learn it.
9. In fact, I am struck with the bizarre willingness on the part
of colleagues to take responsibility for students' learning.
I know they take responsibility because they ask colleagues
and students to evaluate their teaching ability for purposes
of promotion and tenure. They get depressed if students don't
perform well in their classes. They read journals on how to
improve their teaching effectiveness. Each of those act
indicates they in some way feel they are responsible for what
their students learn - or fail to learn.
10. Many of them have the maxim on their desks (or in their
minds), "If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't
taught." That maxim is quite peculiar, because it clearly
implies that the basic responsibility for learning belongs to
the professor. Consequently, if the student does badly, the
professor is at fault. But, following the same logic
rigorously, if the student performs competently the professor
must get the credit. For all intents and purposes, then, the
student doesn't exist, except as a sort of inanimate, passive
receptacle for the professor's competence or incompetence.
11. In my opinion, anytime a professor accepts responsibility for
his students' learning, he denies their existence. He doesn't
respect them very much, if at all. If students permit the
professor to accept responsibility for their learning, they
don't respect themselves (or the professor) very much either.
12. When I take seriously the proposition that I am not
responsible for students' learning, I become very anxious
because it forces me to ask once again, "What is my job?" I
wish I could say I've developed a satisfactory answer.
13. I never find grading a satisfactory experience. It deals with
teaching, evaluation, accreditation, indoctrination, control,
and unthought. It's demeaning to all parties. I get ulcers
on the inside of my bottom lip every time I do it.
14. I very much enjoy responding to students' work. I write
letters, correct grammar and punctuation, critique, curse,
applaud, cheer, and frown. I learn a lot from responding.
It's just grading that doesn't make sense.
15. In my classes, students are free to express themselves (use
the material) in any way they wish. For their exams, students
have written poetry, done scientific research, produced
essays, sung theories, made movies, danced analyses of
variance, presented plays, juggled (literally) constructs,
cooked concepts (which the class ate), composed music, created
works of art, and welded nails.
16. Given such freedom, most people have produced extraordinarily
competent work. Some have produced work which is very
incompetent. Very few have produced anything mediocre.
17. In a learning environment, students either "make it big" or
"fail miserably." In a teaching environment, most people fall
into the middle (Some say that their performances form a bell-shaped curve. I have concluded that well-shaped distributions
of performance in academia are artifacts of an environment in
which teaching is stressed. In a learning environment,
performance is generally bimodally skewed, with most persons
performing very well, a few performing very badly, and almost
none falling in the middle.) Maybe that's the purpose of
teaching - to insure mediocrity. Bureaucracies have to be
staffed from somewhere, and no one is more mediocre than a
well-taught student.
18. I require participants in my classes to work on their
examinations with at least one other person. They can work
with as many others as they like. They don't have to
collaborate on a single project. (X may write an essay, Y may
sing), but they may work on the same project if they wish.
(For example, they may work together on a piece of research.)
However they choose to work, they have to share their grades.
19. The reason for eighteen may be found in the literature of
behavioral science. Bion (1961), Lynch (1977), Spitz (1946),
and Harvey (1977) have pointed out that connection with other
persons is a requirement for psychological and physical
survival. Alternatively any act (requiring that people work
alone) leads to breakdown both mental and physical.
20. The more I have learned to not teach, the more I realize that
connection is a requirement for survival, and the more I
become interested in learning, then the more disturbed I
become when people cheat. I define cheating as the failure to
help someone (at his/her request) on the various exams.
21. When I was a youngster, my grandfather used to say, "I'm going
to learn you something." Until recently, I thought he wasn't
very bright. Now I realize he was probably the smartest of us
all.
22. As a learner, I never read the results of student evaluation
forms. The forms are evidently useful to others (Bullphrogs,
I suspect. They provide them with flies to flick and divert
them from the task of draining the swamp (Harvey, 1977)).
They are not useful to me, so I never look at them. If I did,
I would be inviting students to learn the skills of passivity,
non-risk taking, interpersonal incompetence, and
irresponsibility. I am always willing to talk with students
face-to-face in class about their compliments or their
criticisms, but once the class is over, it's too late to make
use of either.
23. The more I learn, the more I enjoy competence. The less I
teach, the more I experience competence in myself and others.
I love to be around competent people because I learn a lot
from them and I'm more competent in their presence.
24. The more I learn to not teach, the more anxiety I experience
in the classroom. I think the anxiety stems from the fact
that I don't really know what will happen from class to class
and frequently can't do anything about it when it does.
25. Although I am more anxious in a learning environment, I also
have a lot more fun. More events in the classroom are
genuinely funny.
26. That reminds me. Have you every wondered why textbooks aren't
funny? Have you ever wondered why the Bible isn't funny?
Probably for the same reason. They were written to teach you
something.
27. Likewise, have you ever known a competent professor, preacher,
politician, manager, or student who wasn't funny, who didn't
have a sense of humor or an appreciation of the absurd? I
haven't. For example, did Jesus ever tell jokes or pass gas
in church? (He must have! He ran the money changers out of
the Temple, didn't He?) When He did, I'll bet the disciples
roared and God laughed. I just wonder why His biographers
(textbook writers) forgot to tell us about it. Probably
because they were trying to teach us something; and in doing
so, they destroyed part of His essence.
28. One last idea. If I've learned anything from being a
university professor, it's that I only try to teach those I
don't respect.
Do let me know if you feel I've tried to teach you something.
If so, I'll be glad to apologize.
Bion, W., Experiences in Groups, Basic Books, New York, 1961.
Harvey, J., "Organizations as Phrog Farms," Organizational
Dynamics, Spring, 1977, pp. 15-23.
Lynch, J., The Broken Heart: The Medical Consequences of
Loneliness, Basic Books, New York, 1977.
Rogers, C., "Personal Thoughts on Teaching and Learning"
(Chapter 13), On Becoming a Person, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1952,
pp. 272-278.
Spitz, R., "Hospitalism: An Inquiry into the Genesis of
Psychiatric Conditions in Early Infancy; A Follow-Up," in The
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. II, International
University Press, New York, 1946.