Thursday 21 January 2010

Subversive teachers speak out!

I'm still marking - my scripts are still measurable by the foot rather than countable. My academic colleagues and I are all excited by a study which says that college lecturers are predominantly lefties or liberals (hardly a surprise: conservatives tend to want more money). I think there is something inherently liberal/left about making a commitment to education. The basic reason, I suspect, is that liberals like argument, debate and the free exchange of ideas. Conservatives just don't: the old ideas (the Bible or whatever) said everything that needs to be said and teaching otherwise is just subversive.

I'm a teacher for a number of reasons - I'm otherwise unemployable, I like being paid money for talking about books and ideas, something I'd otherwise only do in the pub or on street corners, but most of all because I and most of my colleagues believe that with learning comes, power, freedom and responsibility, to oneself and to others. Without it, one is a passive consumer of other people's visions.

There's also, perhaps, something self-indulgent about being a teacher. Despite the scorn heaped upon us by students for our hair, clothes, beliefs, we enjoy the privilege of shaping students' perceptions of the world, often a traumatic process. It's not about grades, it's about sharing the excitement of discovering that everything is richer, more complex and more important than we previously thought - which is why a life teaching something 'vocational' doesn't appeal.

Being a teacher was once a religious duty. The tutor cast off thoughts of fame, temporal power and riches. There is something slightly self-denying about the job, despite the fact that we earn way more than most people in this country. We tell ourselves that we fulfil a duty rather than have a job, which is true, and that we're satisfied with a noble role - which is certainly true for me.

The duality of the Romantic/Puritan position is fascinating. Here's R S Thomas (an agnostic clergyman and poet) expressing the satisfaction of a stripped-down life better than I could ('At the End')


1 comment:

Lou said...

My son is in his last year at a great school with some really inspiring teachers and he's decided that he wants to teach - he's quite excited by the prospect. I'm pleased that he at least has some direction.