Round up all the teachers and put them in a zoo

I have added this discussion to the "Place for disagreements" so I suppose I'm allowed to be more forthright than usual. Despite this I feel I should state that the comments here are made about teachers in general not members of the de Bono Society who are teachers - so please don't anyone take it personally.

Of course if you want to take it personally you're more than welcome to ...

Was it a mistake to invent teachers? Is the whole concept fundamentally flawed?

Imagine if all the teachers and lecturers were rounded up at gunpoint and made to live in a zoo. What would happen?

Seriously, things could only get better. For the rest of us, at least.

People would start taking responsibility for their own learning. If required, they would hire coaches. Coaches are good, coaches help tennis players and singers be great. But a coach helps and directs he does not preach.

With no teachers about parents would have to face up to the responsibility of working out what skills their children actually need for the future - not just "leave it to the experts".

And what about the effects of teaching on teachers? What does years and years of listening to the sound of your own voice have on your brain? The whole premise of a teacher's job is that what you've got to say: young people need to hear. This is quite different from most other jobs where you have to earn the right to other people's attention.

Parents routinely get told to shut up by young children. Not so teachers.

And what would it be like in the teacher zoo, do you think? Will, the teachers learn to grow their own food or will society need to keep on feeding them?

You'd think that they could learn to grow their own food, but of course they're not "learners", they're "teachers".

Tags: teachers

4 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by tzujan on June 3, 2011 at 4:29

.p- hew! i really had to remember Po to get into this conversation. maybe a pmi will loosen up my thinking. positivesmaybe we could all become auto didacts. we would determine what we learn by asking whoever teahes what we want to learn that is relevant to ours needs for a pleasureable existence. minus what resources would be available, if we couldn"t afford computers or people who could teach us? interesting set up a pilot project or do research on home schooling. how could we guarantee some measure of openmindedness as compared to being programmed.

Permalink Reply by Asa Jomard on June 3, 2011 at 6:59

I disagree.
In most jobs, you never ever get the right to anyone's attention. And there is no way you can earn it unless you are the boss and then you act like a teacher, i.e. all the workers have to listen to what you say. The same thing could probably be said of most husbands or partners. The only group it does not apply to are children. They have to earn the right to parents, teachers, and politician’s attention. But they again children are learners! At least, they were before parents and teachers and politicians started to interfere in their life;-) So now everyone except children are in the zoo, and children could not care less if they never learnt anything at all, they are quite happy watching the world and licking their ice cream.

Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on June 3, 2011 at 10:22

Asa you are hard to disagree with.

Permalink Reply by Kim Jones on June 3, 2011 at 9:20

We recall that teaching began as preaching - in the bosom of the Church. Clerics were the first teachers of schools and conservatoria, coming out of the Christian Dark Ages. All of education was interspersed with Bible readings and prayers were mandatory at the start and conclusion of lessons in all subjects in the Medieval and Renaissance.

Teachers stood - and often still do stand - at the front of the class and may not be interrupted except by special invitation or at the discretion of the teacher/preacher. This reminds strongly of the priest delivering his sermon; nobody dares (even today) to put up their hand and "discuss" aspects of the sermon with the preacher. This would be an affront to God and Holy writ which is a subject no one may question. In Chapel periods at modern private schools and colleges where I have worked this is still the case and interruptions at any level invite sanctions - particularly in Catholic schools.

Teachers derive their air of authority from their academic status, dignified by letters of decoration that they can wear after their name just as on occasion they wear gowns and hoods that set them apart as a social class and are designed to look imposing and - above all - authoritative and unquestionable.

Teachers also derive their authority from (supposedly) being more knowledgeable than their charges - although there is nothing a priori that suggests that this must be so. On the rare occasions where a teacher is embarrassed by a student's clearly superior knowledge of a subject or topic, the teacher is then protected by the academy which asserts that the student is "an accelerant" and was streamed into the wrong class or course and should be made to go to a higher class. Anything but admit that the teacher was less than prepared for the lesson.

Schools hire increasingly only young teachers because:

1. They can pay a lower wage to a younger teacher

2. Younger teachers are out to impress, so are likely to "toe the line" more readily

3. Younger teachers are a whole lot more naive in general than elder teachers and will conform or comply more with the academy's wishes.

etc.

As we can see, from these observations, a lot of what is wrapped up in teaching is:

status

image

conservative thinking

religious morality (faith schools outnumber secular schools by orders of magnitude)

tradition

power hierarchies

Not a lot of it has to do with the actual needs of students at a particular moment in time. For example, a lot of what neuroscience is telling us about brain-based learning is resisted by schools and only some of it is noticed, let alone incorporated into the programming. Graeme Allan is working hard in his field at ameliorating this in the difficult terrain of the ex-Soviet bloc.

Although the scenario Phil portrays is highly provocative, I think he makes several excellent points. There is much to look at and discuss here.

Take it from there. No need for agreement or disagreement everyone - just lay out your thinking, as I have just done.

Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on June 3, 2011 at 10:31

Thanks Kim,

I'd not thought of that - the early schools were church schools. Explains a lot.

Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on June 3, 2011 at 10:42

I hope I can meet more pro-teachers.

Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on June 3, 2011 at 10:35

Shamir,

I have given some thought as to what the teachers would do in their enclosures at the zoo but I'll not repeat them here - there is only so much fun you can have in one day.

Yes, very hard for them to live on their own - I think that says it perfectly.

Permalink Reply by Franis on June 7, 2011 at 11:48

I really, really like the "fad" of "flipping" classes. That's where the homework becomes what gets done in school, and the lecturing gets put on a Video podcast and the kids watch it at home on a DVD or before they come to class.

When I was a victim of school, I used to really, really hate the idea of teachers. Everyone looked at me because I happened to be tall as if I was a teacher, because somehow height bestows authority. It was awful.

Then I realized:

You don't have to be an authority to communicate. You can merely have something to say.

Ooooops. Now you can't shut me up.

Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on July 17, 2011 at 19:56

Hi Edguardo,

I like a lot of the comments you made like teachers should facilitate learning rather than teach.

On the other hand, I'm not sure you've appreciated the value in my idea to round up teachers and put them in a zoo.

If you talk and don't listen, you miss out on half the fun!

Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on July 17, 2011 at 22:47

I note that you are from America.

Oscar Wilde once said that he'd prefer to think that America was never discovered. It was merely detected.

Permalink Reply by Franis on July 18, 2011 at 13:26

So Luis is your nickname - and Edgardo is your Nicholas name...

Permalink Reply by Kim Jones on July 24, 2011 at 8:04

What if you have to do business with someone? I doubt my mother would approve of this. The need for a name has more to do with everything beyond the self, not the self itself. It doesn't matter whether you feel like Edgardo, Legion, Nick, Franky Nero's Left Leg, Liberace, Hypatia or Zorba the Greek, you'd better be identifiable to the police when they arrive, OK?