There is a lateral thinking activity, that is an interesting way of generating new ideas. You take a subject, for example teaching, then you generate a series of random things and you try to think what your subject has in common with those things. For example what does teaching have in common with a dog, or ice-skating, or the sky, or nuclear physics? What this achieves on a good day is it opens your mind to aspects of the subject that you would not normally think about. That in turn may suggest new ways of thinking about the subject and looking for solutions to problems connected with it.
This article uses the form of the activity to let me to talk about some aspects of teaching that I am familiar with from my work, but which practicing teachers may not usually think about. I will also use it to just play the game and help us to brainstorm on teaching together. The article is in six sections.
- How is teaching like conducting an orchestra?
- How is teaching like being a clown?
- How is teaching like riding a horse?
- How is teaching like being a parent?
- How is teaching like a mouse, a brick, a town?
- Final thoughts.
How is teaching like conducting an orchestra?
I am fascinated when I watch conductors work with an orchestra. I do not have a musical background myself and have no idea what they are actually doing when they wave their baton. A good conductor and a bad conductor can work with the same orchestra on the same piece of music and get good and bad results. How exactly is the good one better? I don’t know, but it is an interesting thought experiment to compare that to a good teacher and a bad teacher working with the same class. What are they actually doing differently? How would you describe it?
Like conducting an orchestra, teaching well and helping others to learn effectively seems to involve a kind of osmosis. It is a process that is mysterious even when it is working well. This comparison underlines the way that teaching is instinctive. To feel what a class needs and to be able to deliver that is beyond the realm of conscious thought, good teachers can do it, but as with conductors, can we really say how they do it?
How is teaching like being a clown?
People sometimes tell me that a teacher needs to be a bit of a clown. I don’t think this is true, there are many different ways for different kinds of people to teach well and a teacher does not need to be a clown. However, what I will say is that a clown has a lot of skills that are very useful for a teacher to have too, so if a particular teacher is like a clown, it is certainly not a bad thing.
Generally, the world of teaching is very close to the world of entertainment and I can say from my own experience that the moment when I first walk on a stage to start a show and the moment when I go in front of a class at the start of a lesson both feel very similar. You are in a room with other people, they are looking at you, you are looking at them, you are the one who has to speak and direct the program. You are also the one who is responsible for the atmosphere in that room. If something is not quite right then you are the only one in that moment that has the power to do something about it. Teachers and entertainers have a lot in common.
How is teaching like riding a horse?
This is another easy one to answer as there are, once again, some plain parallels. I am not an experienced horse-rider, but I have done it a few times and it is a special feeling to be on top of a large powerful animal. The animal has its own mind and is ultimately in control of what happens, but it looks to the rider for guidance and the rider has to learn the skill of persuading the horse to do what she or he wants. Isn’t that quite like a teacher trying to manage a class? A class will be generally on board with their role and will accept the situation of being under the control of the teacher, but they are still a group of people with their own will and it takes a certain skill to be able to guide them well.
This comparison highlights the relationship between teacher and class and the empathy that a teacher needs to be able to work well with a particular class. Just as with horses, each class is different and the teacher has to have a feeling for the nature of the class in front of them in order to work well with them. It also highlights the extent that teaching involves being alert to the moment and ready to respond in case of an unexpected change. Things may usually run smoothly, but, like a rider, a teacher can never fully relax and is always alert and ready to make adjustments.
How is teaching like being a parent?
This is an interesting question for a teacher to ask themselves, especially a teacher who is also a parent.
The mechanics of each situation are different, dealing with a child or children at home compared to dealing with a class, but again the parallels are clear. Both parents and teachers are responsible for young people over a longer period of time. In order to work well they need a certain amount of empathy and understanding of them. In both cases the way that they choose to interact with those young people is largely instinctive and they can never be sure if they did the right thing. As a parent and a teacher I am constantly asking myself things like – am I being to liberal letting them do that? or am I right to not let them do this? When should I follow what they want to do and when should I confront them and insist that they have to listen to me?
A teacher should have empathy with their class, but this obviously can not come anywhere near the level of care and empathy that a parent has for their child. nor should it. The goal of the teacher is to enable learning to take place and the human relationship between them and their class is a part of this process. But how much should a teacher care for their class in order to optimize learning? What should the human relationship between them and their class be like? These are interesting questions to think about, and way too big to be answered here.
How is teaching like a mouse, a brick, a town?
Now we can play the game together as I randomly generated these words and am going to brainstorm my answers in real time. If you want to take a moment before reading on to come up with your own version of what they have in common you will see how the game works and also if our minds are working in a similar way.
Teaching is like a mouse because … mice are prey, they are constantly under attack. Teachers can feel like this when they face criticism from parents, students, even from others in the school. There is also a sense in which teaching can be dangerous in terms of mental health and so teachers, like mice, need to be aware of what is going on and keep themselves safe.
Teaching is like a brick because … education is part of what our lives are built on and to stretch that metaphor further, lessons are the bricks that that part of our lives are made of. Comparing teaching to a brick makes me think of the institution, the solidity provided by the school building and the rules of the school.
Teaching is like a town because – the class and the school is made up of different individuals who come together to form a whole. Comparing teaching to a town encourages us to remember that our class is made up of very different people with different personalities and strengths.
Final thought
This exercise points out what an extremely varied and multi-faceted profession teaching is. For someone to become a good teacher, they have to master a number of skills and keep a number of different balls in the air. They need to be a conductor, a horse-rider, a kind of a parent and a mouse. It helps if they can be a clown too. Good luck to us all!
