Not Teaching What To Think, But How

When I was a child, I thought that all I needed to change the world was to grow older.

As a young man, I thought that all I needed was to set forth, engage, and wrestle it into a new shape.

And there are those who've done it that way, conquering this or that, making a mark here and there, blazing their trails through forest, field and city.

But there is also the force of change that is a rock that stays simply in the middle of the river, bending the flow around it, shaping a rapid or swirling an eddy or causing the stillness of a reflecting pool.

That's the way teachers change the world, at least if we stay there long enough, being there to guide the course of events through the passage of children rushing by, creating shared experiences through years and generations.

Those rocks, over time, are in turn shaped by the river, made smoother, more accommodating, yet in the end it's the rocks together that make the shape of the river.

That's why there are those who fear teachers. They know the power of the rock to teach each child that passes through those simple lessons, like the patience of waiting your turn . . .

. . . or the power of working together.

And if your purposes are not served by the things we all teach, year after year, like the joy of free expression . . .

. . . or the importance of critical thinking . . .

. . . or the excitement of intermingling our imaginations . . .

. . . I can see how it might make you rail at teachers who, by being rocks, are thwarting plans that call for people who will not question too much, nor think too creatively. You might blame the teachers when the grown up people wind up not being the way you want them to be . . .

. . . and are instead who they want to be, doing what they know is right, demanding fairness, sharing, and cooperation, insisting that you are the one standing outside the flow.

Unlike parents, whose role is to be along for the ride, teachers stay where we are, deploying our dried pasta necklaces . . .

. . . our soapy water . . .

. . . our blocks . . .

. . . and our puzzles . . .

. . . year over year, again and again, making our part of the river flow into channels it might not have otherwise known to flow . . .

. . . not teaching people what to think, but how. 

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