Teach: to impart knowledge
Impart: to communicate
Communicate: to give
Love
When I was a high school student I hated English literature. I mean hated.
I hated math too, but I found the teachers more animated and this animation somehow dripped into the equations.
Three days ago I received an email from a terrific journalist. She has a BA in journalism and has been writing polished profiles and interviews for magazines and newspapers throughout Pennsylvania. She decided to go back to college and get a BA in English as well – she figured it’d tighten her writing even more. She thought it would be interesting, fun even. The email she sent me was dire. In her desperation she asked relevant questions:
“Why are PhD professors allowed to teach without first taking any teaching classes?”
“How and why do English professors teach the greatest creative minds of humankind in the most boring way possible?”
“Why am I receiving C’s and D’s on all my writing assignments simply because I’m not using MLA exactly? Shouldn’t clear, creative prose be more important than a missing space in the works cited page?”
In the hours I’ve spent mulling over her email, my emotions moved from angry and upset to bothered and annoyed.
I reflected on myself. My college English professors are the ones who made me fall in love with reading and writing. They had a strong “hard” knowledge base, but their soft knowledge (aka emotional intelligence) was even stronger. They could tell when students were frustrated and hurting. They could tell when students might be getting bored or antsy. More importantly, they could adapt their lessons when they noticed these things. They cared. They were aware.
The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world.
Allen Ginsberg
Premise One: English professors should be forced to take several classes on how to teach. Why should a PhD and the accrual of more hard knowledge be the path to get the highest, most respected teaching positions in the country? It shouldn’t.
Change one: All current PhD students should be mandated to take one 3-credit course on the art of teaching. Our smartest minds should be shown how best to communicate their knowledge.
Premise Two: Dear English Professors,
Do not assume all of your students find your field of study as fascinating as you do. You must strive not only to show them the beauty of your field, but also do so in imaginative, creative and engaging ways. Lecturing is outdated and not nearly as effective as we once thought. Read John Dewey. Read Louise Rosenblatt. Spend some time studying the art of teaching rather than devoting 100% of your time to studying field knowledge.
Premise Three: Clear and creative written communication in the English language is slipping. Text messages teach us to lowercase the letter i –like this. Twitter forces us to abbreviate and fit feelings into 160 characters. Fast-flickering television shows and billboards create an environment (even chemically in our brains) that makes it hard to settle down to the slow static of a book’s pages. Aside from passion for your field, shouldn’t passion for literacy matter too? From ProLiteracy:
18 million adults in the U.S. don’t read well enough to earn a living wage
and
Low health literacy costs the U.S. 238 billion per year
PhD professors usually love their field. It’s the reason they’ve spent years and years of their life studying it. But the thing about love is that it should never be assumed and it should never be taken for granted. Love should be shared and to share love often takes work. The best way to share is to communicate. Teaching requires effective communication. Am I approaching an equation here?
Cameron Conaway, NSCA-CPT, was the 2007-2009 Poet-in-Residence at the University of Arizona’s MFA Creative Writing Program. He is the author of “Until You Make the Shore,” (forthcoming January 2012 from Salmon Poetry) and “Caged: Memoir of a Cage-Fighting Poet,” (forthcoming Fall 2011 from Tuttle Publishing) which has received endorsements from UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock and renowned writer Dinty W. Moore. Visit www.CameronConaway.com for more information.
