Quote of the Day (Douglas Coupland, on College Teaching as a Nerve-Racking Form of Public Speaking)

“One form of public speaking not usually recognized as such is teaching. I’ve had a few experiences in educational situations and they’ve been worse than flies crawling over my face. I don’t know if it’s me or what, but having to speak to college students is like having to address a crowd of work-shirking entitlement robots whose only passion, aside from making excuses as to why they didn’t do their assignments, is lying in wait, ready to pounce upon the tiniest of PC infractions. You can’t pay teachers enough to do what they do. Having been in their shoes, even briefly, has converted me into an education advocate. Double all teaching salaries now.”— Canadian novelist, designer, and visual artist Douglas Coupland, “Observations: Getting Off the Stage,” originally printed in The Financial Times, Dec. 5-6, 2015, reprinted in Bit Rot: Bit Rot: Stories + Essays (2017)

The image of Douglas Coupland that accompanies this post was taken Mar. 17, 2022, in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, by the Wylie Agency of New York City.

Quote of the Day (Herbert Kohl, on 'Knowing and Caring About’ Students)

“Knowing and caring about your students is not merely an academic matter but is essential to shaping learning for them and a challenge to take them into your life and fight for survival and growth as if they were your own children...I believe that one key to making sustained changes is finding teachers who care about their students and are willing to become personally involved with their lives. The craft of teaching can develop; the love it requires cannot be legislated or trained.”— American progressive educator, author, and social activist Herbert Kohl, The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching (1988)

The image accompanying this post shows James Franciscus as the title character of the vintage series Mr. Novak—the type of passionate educator that Herbert Kohl has in mind in this quote.

This drama series began in the fall of 1963, and high school English teacher John Novak is just the kind of young idealist who would have been summoned to service by John F. Kennedy. The show’s brief run—only two seasons—hurt its chances for syndication.

Too bad. Even with network censors who scrutinized every syllable of its dialogue, the series managed to take a realistic look at topics such as cheating on exams, dropouts, substance abuse, racial and religious prejudice, and political extremism.

I suspect that more than a few viewers were inspired to enter the profession by watching Mr. Novak and principals Albert Vane and Martin Woodridge battle to bring their students through all these troubles. What incentives would those eyeing the profession possess today when it has become such a political football? 

Quote of the Day (Jonathan Zimmerman, Calling for ‘An Entirely Different System of Teacher Education’)

“What American teachers need now is not love, but a capacity for deep and disciplined thinking that will reflect—and respect—the intellectual complexities of their job. It won't do to simply strip away our insipid accountability systems and leave everything in the hands of present-day teachers, who are mostly unprepared for the tasks we have set before them. The US badly needs to design and develop an entirely different system of teacher education, stressing cognitive skills above all else. Anything less will leave our teachers languishing in ‘intellectual stagnation,’ as Elizabeth Cady Stanton told Susan B. Anthony, and our schools mired in mediocrity.”— American historian of education Jonathan Zimmerman, “Why Is American Teaching So Bad?”, The New York Review of Books, Dec. 4, 2014

Quote of the Day (Frank McCourt, With Advice for a Young Teacher)

“Find what you love and do it. That's what it boils down to. I admit I didn't always love teaching. I was out of my depth. You're on your own in the classroom, one man or woman facing five classes every day, five classes of teenagers. One unit of energy against one hundred and seventy-five units of energy, one hundred and seventy-five ticking bombs, and you have to find ways of saving your own life. They may like you, they may even love you, but they are young and it is the business of the young to push the old off the planet.”—Longtime Irish-American teacher—and Pulitzer Prize-winning memoirist—Frank McCourt (1930-2009), Teacher Man (2005)

If we are lucky, most of us have had a teacher who’s made a difference in our lives. Too bad so much abuse gets hurled unfairly at such people who give so much of themselves; they’ll never get to hear the praise from those who feel that they are more of an inspiration than they can ever know.

(The image accompanying this post, showing Frank McCourt at a reading in Cologne, Germany, was taken Sept. 12, 2006 by Elke Wetzig.)

Quote of the Day (Evelyn Waugh, on Teacher-Student Relations in an English ‘Public’ School)

“‘Prendy’s not so bad in his way,’ said [Captain] Grimes, ‘but he can’t keep order. Of course, you know he wears a wig. Very hard for a man with a wig to keep order. I’ve got a false leg, but that’s different. Boys respect that. Think I lost it in the war. Actually,’ said the Captain, ‘and strictly between ourselves, mind, I was run over by a tram.’” —English novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), Decline and Fall (1928)

(The image accompanying this post shows Douglas Hodge as Captain Grimes in the BBC’s 2017 miniseries adaptation of Waugh’s classic satire.)

Quote of the Day (Sir Herbert Butterfield, on a Blackboard Problem-Solver)

“Nothing is more effective, after people have long been debating and wrangling and churning the air, than the appearance of a person who draws a line on the blackboard, which with the help of a little geometry solves the whole problem in an instant.”—English historian and philosopher of modern history Sir Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979), The Origins of Modern Science, 1300–1800 (1957)

Professor Butterfield could not imagine at the blackboard Dr. Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory (pictured here). Like, for instance, that fictional theoretical physicist’s baffled reaction to neighbor Penny’s crying jag when she can’t understand his “basic” explanation of his field of science. (“That's no reason to cry. One cries because one is sad. For example, I cry because others are stupid, and it makes me sad.”) Like how Sheldon’s condescension makes even best friends (and fellow nerd-geniuses) Raj, Howard and Leonard sometimes want to kill him. And like how everyone else he meets can only gape at his utter lack of social skills.

All of this radically lowers the possibility that Sheldon can even get to a blackboard without being murdered, let alone that he can scrawl those equations that, in Butterfield’s optimistic vision, can simplify previously complex phenomena.

Quote of the Day (Frank McCourt, on His Students' Reaction to Required English Class Reading)

“Put everything away and open your books.

“What books?

“Whatever books you have for English.

“All we got is this Giants in the Earth and that's the most boring book in the world. And the whole class chants, Uh huh, boring, boring, boring.

“They tell me it's about some family from Europe out there on the prairie and everyone is depressed and talking about suicide and no one in the class can finish this book because it makes you want to commit suicide yourself. Why can't they read a nice romance where you don't have all these Europe people all gloomy on the prairie? Or why couldn’t they watch movies?”—Longtime Irish-born New York schoolteacher—and future Pulitzer Prize-winning memoirist—Frank McCourt (1930-2009), 'Tis: A Memoir (1999)

(The photo accompanying this post of Frank McCourt was taken by David Shankbone on March 21, 2007, at New York City's Housing Works bookstore, for a tribute to recently deceased Irish poet Benedict Keily. It comes from the photographer's blog post about the death of Frank McCourt and the memory of this photo.)

Quote of the Day (Jacques Barzun, on Teaching and the Regard for It)

“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” —French-born American historian Jacques Barzun (1907-2012), Teacher in America (1945)

This school year, let’s hope American society recovers that lost regard. After all, with COVID-19, the stresses on the profession and the instructional means for reaching students are unprecedented in number, scope and potential impact.

Quote of the Day (Mark Van Doren, on ‘The Art of Teaching’)

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery."—Pulitzer Prize-winning poet—and beloved Columbia University “teacher” — Mark Van Doren (1894-1972), Liberal Education (1943)