On Teaching: A Personal Essay
by James R. Rogers
(An extension of notes for remarks delivered at the Neville High School Educators and Students Excellence Award Banquet March 13, 2003, at the Library of the
As a teacher practicing for thirty-four years, I am occasionally asked why I teach. Here’s my answer: optimism—the inclination to anticipate the best possible outcome. When I look at the American flag, I’m optimistic; when I look into my grandsons’ eyes, I’m optimistic; when I look upon a crucifix, I’m optimistic. At baptisms, at weddings, at funerals, I’m optimistic. At the beginning of each school year, at the beginning of each school day, at the beginning of each class period, I’m optimistic. On test days, I’m optimistic!
Graduation means the end of schooling, but graduation is also called “commencement,” which means beginning. In a single week not long ago, I heard unexpectedly and independently from two of my former students—one from the Class of 2002 and one from the Class of 1982. Each was eager to share with me the new epiphanies in his life. I’m optimistic knowing that a student’s learning goes on a lifetime after his time with me.
No other human endeavor depends on optimism so much as teaching; no other human endeavor exhibits optimism so well as teaching; and no other human endeavor generates optimism so much as teaching. That’s why I teach.
The next question is, “What is good teaching?” Imagine looking downward out the window of an airplane at cruising altitude on a clear day; you would be at what I call a “Transcendental Point of View.” A Transcendental Point of View (TPV) is a place—physical or abstract—from where one can discern the relationships of part-to-part and part-to-whole. If you want to “get the big picture,” it’s the place to “put the camera.” A judge sits on her bench, the highest seat in the courtroom, to appear to be at a TPV of all the court proceedings. Stereotypically, to elevate in consciousness, a guru seeks a mountaintop retreat, symbolically elevating his physical TPV, “to see more.” Thus, the cliché about raising one’s consciousness means going to higher and higher Transcendental Points of View. The scientists of today who are searching physics for a Unified Field Theory are seeking a single TPV of all physical phenomena. An all-seeing, all-knowing God is traditionally depicted as being “in heaven on high,” that is, depicted as being at the ultimate TPV. Homo sapiens is the only primate species whose natural stance is upright so as to elevate our eyes to a higher TPV of the things around us. In the near-death experience, a life is seen relived in a flash at a TPV. Because our minds are programmed to seek them, Transcendental Points of View are where all our knowledge happens.
Good teaching, therefore, is first taking students to Transcendental Points of View (for passive perception) and later sending them there on their own (for creative conception). Good teachers do these two things virtually by instinct. Furthermore, at the moment knowledge happens at a TPV, there is joyful exhilaration for both the student and the teacher in the discovery; their spirits shout, “
A final question is, “Who teaches?” Everybody teaches. Parents and grandparents teach their children and grandchildren; employers, their employees; workers, their co-workers; clergy, their parishioners; investment counselors, their clients; doctors, their patients. The list goes on and on. Everyone, then, shares with his learner in that flash of joyful exhilaration at the discovery when knowledge happens. If they are so insensitive as not to hear their spirits shouting, “
By describing how everybody teaches, I hope to create a setting in which perfectly ordinary people bond naturally with those very special perfectly ordinary people called “teachers.” What makes teachers very special, perfectly ordinary people? Foremost, I believe my early elementary teacher was right when she told us children that, after parents, teachers love students more than anyone else does. The good teachers I have encountered both as a student and as a teacher have verified that claim. The world should understand that love leads these very special people to the professional training that begins in their college years and continues all their careers long. It is that love that drives them on when their pay is pittance, when their workload is excessive, and when their students’ behavior is not lovable. By instinct and now by intent, good teachers take their students to Transcendental Points of View (for passive perception), and send them there on their own (for creative conception). Then they wait—wait, with faith, for the miracle of knowledge, much as the planter whose seed are sown waits faithfully for the miracle of growth. When it happens, there is joy.
Teaching is a noble profession. The product a teacher strives to produce is a loving, creative person acting from a Transcendental Point of View—a product thus bearing the true image of himself in which God created all mankind. God designs human potential; teachers develop and manufacture it. What's more, doesn’t the description, just given, of that most elegant human product precisely portray teachers themselves? I believe that it does. I am a passionate advocate of teaching. Teaching is “my bliss!”
James R. Rogers
Mathematics Teacher