Being the Teacher
How might we be?
I’m 17 years old, fresh out of high school and in my freshman year of college, when I receive my first formal teaching gig. The offer is to teach the most advanced tap dancers of a local private dance school in New Jersey. These dancers are teenagers who are used to competing and presenting their dances at an annual recital. In addition to teaching technique, I am required to create two pieces – one for competition and one for the recital. I freak out. Who was I to be teaching? My teachers had always been years older than I was in age, and had magnitudes more experience than me. They all taught from a position of authority. It wasn’t just theory, or experimentation. They really knew what they were talking about and sharing with me. Here I was, 17, and would be teaching 13-16 year-olds. How was this even right?
My mind was filled with all the reasons I shouldn’t take the gig. My students will have questions I can’t answer. I don’t know everything there is to know about tap dancing yet. There is a high probability that I will teach something wrong. There is a likelihood that the piece I create for them won’t win at competition. There is a likelihood that the studio owner, parents, and others won’t like the recital piece I create. So many reasons.
I reached out for counsel, and had the following conversation:
I was asked, “Do you know more about tap dancing than the students you will be teaching?”
I replied, “Yes.”
“Are you confident about that?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have a responsibility to teach what you know. Not what you don’t know.”
My mind short circuited. I remember pausing, and letting this thought settle in. I sat with the idea of my responsibility. I took account of what I already knew at the time – which was a lot. I looked at the opportunity to share what I knew. I took the gig.
In Tap Dance Land, teaching is done through an exposition of knowledge. We demonstrate the thing we are teaching. By demonstrating, the teacher proves that they really know what they are talking about. Through observation of this demonstration, further questioning, and practice our students take in the necessary information to mimic and further embody whatever tap dance step they are trying to learn. There is effort on the part of both parties, the teacher, and the students, for this transfer of knowledge to occur. This is key. While the teacher is trying to teach the student, the student must also be engaged in conforming to the requirements of the dancing they are learning. They must be willing to teach their minds how to think about tap dancing, their body how to approach tap dancing, and even their will how to want the kind of tap dancing they are attempting. Much of Tap Dance Land requires this kind of engagement to come to life. After all, tap dance steps aren’t only ideas. They are embodied sound and movement, connected to personality, expressed in the moment.
There seem to be two key areas of engagement on the part of teachers, that allow students to open up like this. These areas are what I think about when I think about what being a good teacher requires.
First, of course, a good teacher must have knowledge of the material they are teaching. Whether that is tap dance, chemistry, baking, or mechanical engineering, the concepts, technical practices, and application of those concepts and practices, come across differently when the teacher is speaking from a point of knowledge. They know how things work. They can anticipate a student’s journey and provide guidance. This knowledge is not necessarily easy to achieve, but is achievable, nonetheless. In pursuing such knowledge, one is formed by the pursuit, and ultimately teaches from that formation. There is an aspect of immersion that comes from such pursuits, and is unavoidable if we want the knowledge we gain to be embodied. The things we know become a part of our lives, not just separate things we do.
Second, and maybe more importantly, is love. This obviously is less tied to the content of what is being taught and more to the context of teaching. Many of us, I would suspect, have encountered a teacher that has mastery of the material but couldn’t care less for the act of teaching, the context itself, never mind the people involved. Love is what is missing in this example. I often site and continue to like the definition of love I first heard from Dallas Willard. “Love is to will the good of the whatever or whomever is the object of our love.” Let’s flush this out just a little bit for our example of teaching. If I love tap dancing, I want good things for the craft of tap dancing. I may want the craft and its contributors to find respect in the popular consciousness or the market. I may want fellow practitioners to find success. I may even want to do what I can to equip teachers and students to do “good” tap dancing. These kinds of things would be applicable in any form or practice. On the same side of the coin, if I love my students, I will want good things for them. I may want their experience of learning to be good. I may want to do what I can to ensure that they are learning material that has integrity. I may want to ensure that I am fully equipped to teach them well, for my students’ sake. There is obviously a way to love both the craft and the people, and that is a sweet spot to be aimed for. However, to be clear, if I were to have to pick one over the other, I have landed in a place where I would prefer my students (who are people), over the craft of tap dancing (which is not a person, although it is deeply connected to people). I submit that there is enough in that statement to write much more about, but for our purposes today, I am going to have to just leave that there.
Here's the thing. Each of us has a sphere of influence – a set of relationships in which we have the power to affect those with whom we relate. Of course, we are also affected by these relationships, but let’s keep our attention on what we might do, and not what might be done to us, for the moment. Within this sphere of influence each of us could show up as teachers, just as we can show up as the trusted friend, or the interrupter. We can show up for others with knowledge and love, willing the good of those we are affecting. We can go about equipping ourselves to have the knowledge and love for such an occasion. We can become the kind of people for whom the opportunity to teach is just another way to love our friends and neighbors. We can be the ones who support others through specific teaching, not just theory or experimentation, when called upon.
However, being the teacher comes with a few hard truths, as is normal with any specific role we might embody. While teaching comes with the joy of the spark of learning and discovery, it also comes with a higher responsibility. When someone who is willing to learn opens themselves up to someone else – a teacher – they are allowing themselves to be vulnerable, they are trusting in the knowledge of the teacher, they are putting themselves in a position to be changed and allowing the teacher to guide that process. That’s a lot of responsibility for us in the role of the teacher. If this hits you has a high burden, you’re not wrong to feel that way. However, I don’t think it’s meant to be paralyzing. One way I’ve found this high honor to not be a burden is to simply be honest about my own humanity. I’m a person who is learning just like my students are. I’m a person who makes mistakes just like my students do. While I may have more knowledge about a particular pursuit, I see my students and I as equal persons. In the context of a formal class I have a responsibility to guide towards learning, but I also have a responsibility to be honest about the situation. I am no more or less fallible than my students are.
In informal settings, showing up as a teacher is even more challenging. Simply stated, not everyone wants to learn. I don’t always want to learn. Sometimes I would just like to sit and share someone’s company without having to process all the stuff of life. However, the stuff of life often presents opportunities for thinking differently. Even during regular conversation, sometimes there is a door that opens in me towards learning. Sometimes I can see that door crack open in others. Sometimes I ask a question to see if that door is one I can or should walk through. If it is, a moment of learning has begun. If it isn’t, I allow the moment to pass by. I mourn this passing, as I wonder what might have happened had the learning been engaged. But I trust in future opportunities for me and others. This part of the journey seems to require a soft touch, a listening ear, and lots of patience.
Learning is a beautiful thing, but it can cause immense change, the likes of which may not be comfortable for all people. If we find ourselves being the teacher, it is a good thing to remember to be kind to ourselves in the responsibility we feel, and to be kind to our students in the learning they may experience. We never know how much a small moment of learning may change in someone’s life, even our own.