A Philosophized Articulation of Teaching

Also Sprach der Lernenlehrer: a Philosophized Articulation of Teaching

[This is something I've been working on for a while. I'm not fully happy with it; it's frankly boring. But since I was working on it during a lazy moment on Christmas, I'll post it as representative of non-school stuff I'm doing now.]

Teaching is an act of atonement. Teachers, quite seriously, atone for the ignorance of their students. Teaching also requires the humility of a weed-pulling gardener. The distribution of knowledge mutually reflects the distribution of wealth. When both are done correctly, recipients are made high in that the givers are made low. Teachers equalize as they elevate, empower as they endow, and distinguish as they dispense. “One repays a teacher badly who remains nothing more than a pupil,” speaks Nietzsche. I add: one treats a student badly who remains forever the teacher. Popeye professors know this. All they can teach is all they can teach. When they reach this point, they must learn more. Teaching consummates when the teacher can teach no longer and becomes a fellow-student – again, an act of atonement.

Teaching morally validates every other attribute of supremacy. A parent who does not teach lacks true parenthood. A god who does not teach must be Greek, for Prometheus had to steal his knowledge. Rulers who do not teach their subjects how to self-govern are not worthy of their posts. Leaders’ attributes of temper such as fairness, kindness, and loyalty to those who follow mean nothing if these attributes are not taught to followers. Attributes of mind such as knowledge, intelligence, or cleverness require dissemination to achieve value. Even Kant’s good will must follow the duty it has to teach its attributes to others, else it would not be good.

Teaching responds to the human drive to question. Subjectively new questions comprise the sum total of any and all truly individual thought. Any other thought is either a response or reformulation. Teaching succeeds when student-teacher orthodoxy and orthopraxy balance and provide the basis for individual thought. The achievement of this unity of thought and practice fosters the environment in which both teacher and student may ask new questions. Asking and answering old questions anticipates this moment and fills most teaching efforts. Once achieved though, individual thought (or the asking of new questions) upsets the balance and pedals the cycle of more teaching and learning. Heidegger was right in this, that questioning is not only the activity but also the proof of authentic existence.

Teaching and learning mediate knowledge and life. Without a mediator, Adam and Eve could only partake of one at the expense of the other. With a mediator, they eventually partook of both knowledge and life. Teaching makes possible the activity of embracing life while pursuing knowledge and of embracing knowledge while pursuing life. Questions of pedagogical purpose arise because institutions forget these principles. The study of pedagogy thus mushrooms from the compost between the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.