Lamplighter
Member
One of the recent threads in this forum branched off into a discussion about teachers, which I found kind of interesting, or at least more interesting than Badiou or whatever the thread had originally been about. There seemed to be two, fairly extreme and very different, opinions: either that teachers are 'structurally evil', or that they are the 'exact opposite' of evil, and give people greater autonomy. I'm not too convinced by either of these positions, really, but I think it's an interesting area for discussion.
I teach kids, mostly six year-olds, and I'm also in charge of three other teachers and their classes. I'm sort of a deputy headmaster, I suppose. I'm reasonably certain that I'm not evil, even structurally, but I'm also not entirely comfortable, even after four years, with all aspects of teaching. I think Foucault is right in seeing school as a centre of discipline, as a place where useful, social beings are formed; I think it would be very hard for it to be anything else. I spend a lot of time trying to mould the way that my students, and students in other classes, behave, partly to make them fit in with my own moral beliefs (trying to persuade them that bullying is wrong, for example), and partly to get them to behave in a way that is useful for me (listening to their teacher, not fiddling with stuff in class). In order to do this I use an array of techniques, ranging from sheer volume to what could be seen as a kind of insidious propaganda. 'Are you a baby? Come on, you're almost seven, behave like a big kid' ... when, of course, they were just talking or running or something, which is a pretty reasonable way for a six year-old to behave.
It would be very hard for me to do my job without using techniques like this, and it would be even harder to do it without controlling to some extent at least the way my students behave. Of course, I would like to think that I also manage to encourage my students to think critically, and to have a fairly irreverent attitude to authority.
I know this post is slightly rambling. It's something I've thought about a lot, but not in any really coherent way, and hopefully discussing it will help me sort my ideas out. I'd like to hear what other people think of teachers, and I'd really like to hear from any other teachers who have had the same kind of thoughts. Why do you think teaching is 'evil', if that's what you believe? I mean, everyone has had a dreadful teacher at some point, but surely almost everyone has been lucky enough to have at least one excellent, inspiring teacher, too?
I teach kids, mostly six year-olds, and I'm also in charge of three other teachers and their classes. I'm sort of a deputy headmaster, I suppose. I'm reasonably certain that I'm not evil, even structurally, but I'm also not entirely comfortable, even after four years, with all aspects of teaching. I think Foucault is right in seeing school as a centre of discipline, as a place where useful, social beings are formed; I think it would be very hard for it to be anything else. I spend a lot of time trying to mould the way that my students, and students in other classes, behave, partly to make them fit in with my own moral beliefs (trying to persuade them that bullying is wrong, for example), and partly to get them to behave in a way that is useful for me (listening to their teacher, not fiddling with stuff in class). In order to do this I use an array of techniques, ranging from sheer volume to what could be seen as a kind of insidious propaganda. 'Are you a baby? Come on, you're almost seven, behave like a big kid' ... when, of course, they were just talking or running or something, which is a pretty reasonable way for a six year-old to behave.
It would be very hard for me to do my job without using techniques like this, and it would be even harder to do it without controlling to some extent at least the way my students behave. Of course, I would like to think that I also manage to encourage my students to think critically, and to have a fairly irreverent attitude to authority.
I know this post is slightly rambling. It's something I've thought about a lot, but not in any really coherent way, and hopefully discussing it will help me sort my ideas out. I'd like to hear what other people think of teachers, and I'd really like to hear from any other teachers who have had the same kind of thoughts. Why do you think teaching is 'evil', if that's what you believe? I mean, everyone has had a dreadful teacher at some point, but surely almost everyone has been lucky enough to have at least one excellent, inspiring teacher, too?