Tuesday, August 28, 2007 9:02 PM
by
jtspencer
Is teaching an art or a science?
I sit in the college campus, surrounded by eager students who furiously write notes. Some search for tidbits of practical advice, morsels that will use to compose their masterpiece ideal classroom. For others, it’s simply an extension of their long-standing career as “top student.” They gobble down the notes in order to vomit it back again to the teacher on the final exam.
“Is teaching more of an art or a science?” the professor poses.
This creates an immediate chasm, splitting along a philosophical fault line we had always suspected existed. The language said it all. If a teacher used the terms “data, standardized, input, curriculum planning and efficiency” they fell into the Science camp. If they used words like “passion, inspire, motivation and engagement” they were most likely artists.
At this point, we begin our pros and cons list and our Venn diagram. The teacher provides too much time, so a group of future coaches (whose side job is to teach) gather around and expound upon their Fantasy Football theories.
The professor rounds us together for a lively debate as the chasm deepens. Then, as the ultimate peacemaker, she asks, “Could it be a craft?” It’s a wild card that instantly bridges the gap and allows us to cross the chasm. “She’s a Pedagogical Gandhi” I murmur to myself as we begin to explore the necessity of both art and science in the profession.
Initially, there is a gnawing sense that it somehow doesn’t fit. I write it off as a reflection of my distaste for using tools. I associate the term “craftsmen” with a line of Sears tools in a garage where I never felt macho enough to know how to fix anything. Yet, maybe we are all craftsmen (I can’t think of a gender friendly term for this) and I now I know my craft.
I ponder this simple metaphor and grow to love the mystery of it – the notion that I can be part scientist and part artist, that I can search for data and explore the universe but still be creative. I can use “best practices” as a social scientist and still add my own personal touch of charisma.
As I walk toward the parking lot, I am enamored by the idea of being a craftsman. There is something romantic about the term. Unlike the artist, it is more serious, more practical. It’s a sort of blue collar version of art that has less of the Emo, coffee shop, existentialist feel to it. Yet, it means I don’t have to be a scientist in that cold, stale, smells-like-formaldehyde kind of way. Somehow, the term craftsman has a more ancient, traditional feel to it. I continue to spin the idea in my head, thinking of how teaching means I work with what I have, shaping and molding rather than creating. The end product is more functional and practical than art, but I don’t fall into the trap of seeing students as mere data and test scores or Skinnerean pigeons in a box.
A year later, as I sift through student evaluations, I cringe. “Caring” and “compassionate” do not top the list; instead, it’s “creative,” “humorous” and “angry.” I realize at that moment that I have been viewing it as a craft. I have been treating students as products, as something to be shaped rather than someone to be loved. I see that I treated each class as a project where I would create a masterpiece and people would say, “That Spencer really knows his sh--.”
I begin to ponder the teachers I loved the most and I loved them because they never viewed me as a project. I was able to spot the craftsman teachers; the ones who had some sort of goal to accomplish, where I was simply a number on a spreadsheet. I no longer see teaching as an art or a science or even a craft, but as a relationship. It’s not as romantic. It doesn’t have any cool metaphor. Yet, in the end, it is meaningful.