Two Pathways to False Teaching (And Captain Ahab)

It is awfully tempting to put on a false show of some sort in the classroom. There’s a lot at stake that can hinder my ability to “act naturally.” For one thing, the room is full of teenagers, and I’m expected to engage them in meaningful ways for an hour every day. Then another group of teenagers comes in, and it all starts again. It’s kind of stressful. In reaction to this stress, it’s instinctual for me to go in one of a couple unhealthy ways.
I can go the Stern Teacher route. The guy who takes-care-of-business. The guy who is Serious and Boring. (School is a Serious and Boring business, right?) Things get stilted. Content is covered, and no one cares about what’s taught except the nerds. (I love the nerds.) And, to be fair, this mode of teaching sometimes is the only path to take, I’m sorry to say. There are days when you must plow ahead. But it’s a dangerous habit to form, and if too many of these days string together, the life in your classroom will wither away quicker than you’d expect.
Another poor choice is to downshift into Slacker Teacher mode. I’ll only be as present as necessary to keep things going. We “get by” without much risk or work. Important conversations are cut short or aren’t initiated altogether. Expectations are fuzzier. Classroom chatter seems of equal status to on-task talk. Everyone is only engaged just enough to not cause problems, and indifference rules the day. The temptation to take this route is something I have to consciously fight, especially during certain stressful seasons of the year. A slack day or two here are there are no cause for concern — in fact they’re most likely necessary. But some of my most serious regrets about the missed opportunities of a school year are caused by this insipid instinct that is so easy for me to indulge.
There is a better way to teach. When I have the clarity and energy to summon up my full self, the teaching is so much richer. What seems to be required is for me to tune into what I’m hearing, observing, and thinking in the moment. To perform, certainly, but to perform like no one other than myself. That means things will certainly get weird, as weird as I am. The teaching persona is one’s true self in a concentrated form. It’s you on steroids. It’s not unlike a stage persona, but in this case it’s your job to get the audience to join you in the performance. It doesn’t really matter if you’re not the best singer in the room as long as you’re good at getting everybody else to join along. It’s an act of love. So you’re not a rock star. You’re more like a ship captain. It’s leadership with less monologues and more sail trimming (or whatever you do on a boat). This takes passion and a decided lack of fear.
It also takes skill as well as personal presence. Persona alone is certainly not enough. Like somebody says to Ishmael in an early scene of Moby Dick,“…let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one.” Now, of course, that advice gets a little more complex when you consider Captain Ahab, the man in question. We’d probably all do well if we considered Ahab more often than we do.