Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 5, 1994 TAG: 9409070013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A teacher is someone capable of conveying information to individuals, even when said individuals don't want that information. I merely meet with folks who want to know what I know, and we call ourselves a class.
That's a big difference.
Ten years ago, however, I had the audacity to believe that if I would but "gladly teche," all those scholars sitting before me gladly "wolde lerne." Even at 8 o'clock in the morning. Even in freshman comp.
It would be sad enough if I had merely wasted their tuition dollars (which I did), but in at least one instance that I remember, I also did harm.
The lesson was supposed to be on inductive and deductive reasoning, and the common mistakes made therein: one of those painfully useless, but required lessons that seldom make any sense, even in the hands of a good and experienced teacher, even to students who give a fig.
I can tell you, those students I had 10 years ago didn't give a fig.
So, thinking to engage my yawning class by providing contemporary examples of logical fallacies, I proposed a syllogism the first premise of which was "Joe is lazy." I then tacked on an inadequately supported second premise, proceeding thereby to a scurrilous false conclusion, famous among racial epithets.
I pronounced it all quite loudly. And then I wrote it on the board.
Well, at least my class stopped yawning....
... as my "instructional explanation" that "This is, of course, not true and now you know why" wafted inadequately through the classroom's overheated air.
Fortunately for me, a kind and diplomatic man in the class later took me aside, explained my foolishness to me, and smoothed the way for me with other students less forgiving (and rightly so).
But the lesson on logic was painfully skewed. The damage was done.
Since that time, "do no harm" has been my primary instructional goal. Forget "gladly teche, gladly lerne." Do no harm.
I still slip up, though. I slipped up just the other night. When, in the first meeting of an introductory class, I pinned down a woman with insistent "Why's?" and "How's?" regarding the very techniques she'd come to me to learn. If she knew "why" and "how" already, why, for pity's sake, would she have enrolled in the class? What in the world was I thinking?
Here's what I was thinking: I was thinking, "Boy, I'd better be clever and smart and dazzle these folks, or they'll think I'm too stupid to teach this class!"
I pretty much proved that I am.
Too stupid to teach, that is.
One of the best teachers I've ever known argues that good students seldom make good teachers: "If it came easy to you, how can you ever expect to understand why it comes hard to someone you're trying to help?"
She makes a strong argument. Good premise. A conclusion that follows logically.
I wish she'd been the one teaching those freshmen that day, 10 years ago.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB