Published: October 1, 1995

The Heart Of The Matter

When you get right down to it, every teacher faces one existential question: "What am I here for--to journey with young people into the great world of knowledge and ideas or to shepherd a bunch of mostly unwilling students through the everyday rituals of instruction and assessment?'' Who among us has not sought the former and suffered through the latter time and again in our teaching?

Just maybe it's time to face this issue head-on and resolve to no longer accept an answer that defines a teacher as a "classroom manager,'' or "deliverer of instruction,'' or "assertive disciplinarian,'' or "keeper of the grade book.''

The alternative to such roles is to assert that one is a passionate teacher: someone truly enamored of a field of knowledge, or deeply stirred by issues and ideas that challenge our world, or drawn to the crises and creativity of the young people who come into class each day--or all of these. To be a passionate teacher is to stop being isolated within a classroom, to refuse to submit to a culture of apathy or cynicism, to look beyond...