End Totalitarian Teaching (Part 6 of 7)

This article is the sixth in a seven-part series that implores teachers to abandon their attachment to outdated, oppressive, and arbitrary control issues, in the name of harboring a more positive, fostering learning environment.  Each part of the series focuses on a different aspect of control.  Part 6 focuses on the tendency for teachers to distance themselves from their students by feigning emotional invulnerability and flawless behavior.

Imperative #6:  Make Yourself Vulnerable

Totalitarians want to appear invulnerable.  They exaggerate their strengths; they attempt to conceal their weaknesses; they lie about their past.  When they get caught in a mistake, they do everything in their power to redirect blame and attention onto someone else, and they never, ever apologize.  This is no less true of inconspicuous totalitarian teachers than it is of notorious totalitarian politicians.  They take great measures to hide their vulnerabilities, sometimes at tremendous emotional cost, and often at the expense of others, and the worst part is: they always, always fail.  People can see right through them.  And their vulnerabilities are made all the more blaring for their efforts at concealment.

When I was a freshman in high school, we had a totalitarian social studies teacher.  It didn’t help her case that she was of German descent and insisted on our pronouncing her name with the proper German inflections.  There came one morning when the teacher asked of a student where her homework was, and the student replied that she had placed it on the teacher’s desk upon entering the classroom.  Sifting aimlessly – and rather dramatically – through the disarray of paperwork that concealed her desk, the teacher, feigning exasperation, claimed it wasn’t there.  The student, worried, insisted that it was, and a few brief rounds of this drove the teacher to the most vicious tirade one could possibly imagine.  She screamed and belittled the student in a violent physical and verbal outburst that would have rivaled der Führer himself, calling the student a liar and enlightening her to the fact that “it didn’t just get up and walk away.”  The display was public, exhibited before the entire class, and the student was brought to the verge of tears before simply resigning the argument.

Ten minutes later, after the class had fallen silent and was immersed in some grueling assignment, the teacher simply stated, “Oh.  Here it is.”

That’s it.  They never, ever apologize.

Like all totalitarians, die Lehrer did not understand that invulnerability does not equal learning.

It may come as a surprise to some, but teachers are human beings.  We are flawed, foolish, slowly evolving creatures.  We make mistakes.  We do stupid things.  We say the wrong thing.  We don’t know everything.  I am belaboring the point not to enlighten the majority of the readers, but to remind the totalitarians among us, who I pray will hear me.  And what’s most important about all these truths is this: It’s okay.

In our classrooms, teachers usually have superior knowledge, but we are not superior people.  We didn’t get to the positions we have because we’re better than our students.  We’re there because we have more practice.  We are nothing more than seasoned students with more experience.  We mustn’t let the master-pupil relationship go to our heads.  Students are not slaves, and they are not stupid.  They are novices.  They are young people who are practicing many things at which they are not very good and often do not enjoy doing.  They are nervous, ashamed, insecure, helpless, tired, and lost.  They have awesome potential, but they need a guide.  Someone in whom they can trust and confide.  Someone with whom they could possibly relate.  They need role-models, not task-masters.  The invulnerability act doesn’t work.  They can see right through it, and the longer we insist on keeping up the façade, the greater the schism between master and pupils, as they come to understand that we want to be separate from them.  This intentional separation only contributes to the development of an adversarial relationship between teachers and students, as discussed in parts 2 and 3.

This is not to say we should go out of our way to try and be “cool.”  Such attempts generally fail and can generate even more resentment on the part of the students.  This is a fact: we are not “cool.”  We never will be, and the longer we remain in this profession, the further from “cool” we will get.  The students already know this.  They don’t want us to be “cool.”  They want us to be “real.”  And real people screw things up, trip, fall, smell bad, look stupid, and generally “don’t get it.”  Students appreciate honesty.  Their lives are filled with enough hogwash already.  Students respect teachers who embrace their flaws and make fun of themselves.  They don’t respect invulnerability, because there’s no such thing.  They respect teachers who do the best they can, and who apologize when they don’t.  They can trust people like this, and isn’t trust the very first thing we require if we are to teach them anything at all?

Students are real people.  Therefore, teachers should be real people.  And if teachers have any superior knowledge whatsoever, they know that they should never cease to be students as well.  Make yourself vulnerable.  Make your students a part of your life, not apart from it.

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