The Joy of Teaching and the New “Ed Scare”

Fresno Bee, August 27, 2023

A new report from PEN America describes “education intimidation bills” in conservative states as part of an “ed scare.” They see this as “a nationwide effort … to foment anger and anxiety about public education; to restrict or prohibit instruction about race, sexuality, and gender; and to ban books that address these topics.” The result is a “chilling effect” that is causing some teachers to leave the profession.

Critics on the right have also claimed that speech codes, diversity training, and left-wing cancel culture have had a similar chilling effect.

These politicized discussions seem far away from what actually happens in classrooms. And they ignore the basic question of how teaching, learning and education work.

Teaching is a risky adventure. Teachers have the immense responsibility of nurturing diverse young minds. The human beings in our classrooms are real people, with problems, personalities and passions. You cannot predict how students will respond, what questions they will ask or what ideas they will discover.

Teaching can be a joy-filled activity. But it should not be taken lightly. It requires patience, spontaneity, humor and care. It is also nerve-wracking. Teachers don’t teach well when external stressors are thrown into the mix.

This is also true of learning. We learn best when the intensity of our curiosity blossoms. Fear and intimidation can be used to instruct. But mere instruction is mechanical and top-down. It is important to memorize formulas and information, and to learn to follow rules. But instruction does not develop the passions of the soul.

Authentic education is not merely instruction. It is not about memorizing a restricted set of rules. Nor does education succeed when it is based on fear and constraint. Discipline and punishment may work for circus animals. But to educate autonomous human beings, freedom must be wedded to the love of wisdom.

Genuine education is soul formation. As we develop habits of critical thought, we become autonomous rational human beings. Education ought to develop the virtues of free thought, while empowering us to create and discover new ideas. The human soul is a free and creative thing. Human beings are driven by wonder and curiosity. We are concerned with justice, goodness, beauty and truth. And no matter what teachers say and do, young people will think for themselves.

Curiosity and freedom are ultimately irrepressible. Consider the case of Socrates. He educated his students in the art of free and critical thinking. The conservative authorities of ancient Athens did not like this. They put him on trial and executed him for corrupting the youth.

But by canceling Socrates, the authorities were not able to prevent people from thinking. In fact, Socrates became famous as a martyr for free thought and critical inquiry. And the questions he asked remained on the table. His method of thinking did not belong to him, nor did his ideas. Rather, free thought is the common endowment of the human spirit.

Now consider the questions about race, gender, and sexuality that are provoking us today — and fueling the cancel culture of both left and right. By banning certain lessons, books, or topics, the underlying questions and ideas don’t magically disappear. Human beings will still have these questions and ideas. We would do better if we empowered students to explore them wisely and well.

Much of the current debate about education occurs at an abstract level, divorced from the concrete process of teaching and learning. At that level of abstraction it is easy to forget that teachers are mortal beings working without a net. Very few teachers set out to indoctrinate students into a political worldview. Mostly they love to see young people develop curious and inquisitive minds. We also forget that ideas have a power of their own. Students are going to ask tough questions and explore difficult topics, no matter what rules are imposed from on high.

Genuine education cannot avoid the hard questions. It must confront them directly. This is delicate work that requires caring and creative teachers, who need support rather than intimidation. The youth are thinking beings who need inspiration and guidance to become free and critical thinkers. Education happens best when teachers love their work, and when students are free to explore ideas.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article278587959.html#storylink=cpy

July 7, 2023July 7, 2023

The Wisdom of Secular Education

Right-wing commentator Dennis Prager said at a recent “Moms for Liberty” conference: “There is no such thing as a secular institution with wisdom… That is why the stupidest institutions are the most secular: the universities.”

He’s wrong. The wisdom of secular universities is found in their reluctance to teach wisdom. That may sound like a paradox. But it is an approach to teaching that is as old as Socrates.

I am a professor of philosophy—a “lover of wisdom.” But I don’t teach wisdom. I think that what I teach may help students develop wisdom. But I would never presume to teach wisdom. I can teach about the world’s wisdom traditions. But I do not have the right to teach wisdom in my role as a secular professor.

Prager’s critique of secular education

Prager is a frequent critic of secularism, and of public education. He is not happy with what secular schools teach about racism, gender, and religion. Prager wrote, in a column in July 2022: “When America was more religious, wisdom was taught to young people. This is another reason to fear a thoroughly secularized America—we are producing a nation of fools. The proof lies in our universities. The most secularized institution in America is the most foolish institution in America.”

Really? American universities lead the world in research and creativity. People come here to study from across the globe. American universities are not stupid or foolish.

But Prager is right that secular universities do not teach wisdom, in his sense. He thinks that wisdom implies the specific content of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

But it is not the job of a secular university to instill the values of a specific religious tradition. This does not make universities foolish or stupid. Rather, secular universities refrain from teaching wisdom because in a diverse society grounded on liberty, we leave wisdom to the private sphere. If you want wisdom, go to a church or temple. But if you want knowledge, go to a secular school.

Secular universities should be neutral, inclusive, and pluralistic. They ought to disseminate knowledge, without staking a claim about wisdom. They ought to train students in the art of sifting and winnowing. They should teach skills in scientific method, critical thinking, and hermeneutics. But knowledge and critical thinking skills do not produce wisdom.

Wisdom vs. knowledge

Wisdom is about meaning, value, and purpose. It is a matter of the soul, the conscience, and our fundamental beliefs. Universities can and should include courses that teach about the varieties of opinion about wisdom and the meaning of life. But no secular university professor should presume to grade and evaluate students based upon the condition of their soul. That would be obnoxious, and it would violate the spirit of open inquiry that is essential to the secular pursuit of knowledge.

The pursuit of wisdom is different from the pursuit of knowledge. In religious traditions, teachers of wisdom provide definitive answers about meaning, value, and purpose. The teachers of religious wisdom aim to transform the souls of their disciples. They inspire, admonish, and guide their pupils toward a vision of the good life.

This is not what university professors should be doing. University professors teach knowledge, and methods for discovering it. But they should avoid any attempt to peer into the soul of a student. They may inspire students to seek knowledge. But they should not pick sides in cultural, religious, or spiritual struggles.

The pursuit of knowledge is, of course, part of wisdom. Wisdom requires knowledge. Ignorant and stupid people are not wise. But wisdom is not simply the accumulation of knowledge. And there are knowledgeable people who lack wisdom. Wisdom is a virtue or character trait. It is more a way of being than a pile of facts.

Wisdom involves judgement, discernment, and a sense of justice. Wisdom is about what we do with our knowledge, how we apply it to solve problems, and how we construct a life of meaning and value.

The Socratic model

An important model for the contemporary secular approach is Socrates. Socrates never claimed to be wise. He was a questioner, and a gadfly. He did not pontificate about the meaning of life, apart from suggesting that to be fully human is to think. This what he meant when he said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Socratic wisdom is a lifelong commitment to the ongoing labor of thinking. But this is an open-ended kind of wisdom that avoids picking sides in cultural or religious squabbles.

And now, finally, let’s return to Prager’s contention that when America was more religious, wisdom was taught to young people. He’s probably right. In a homogeneous world young people are often trained to conform and identify with a specific answer to life’s questions. Some may call that training wisdom. But it is narrow and limiting.

Such a narrow training in wisdom is not appropriate for a world that values liberty, free inquiry, and diversity. For that world—our world—we need a secular, Socratic approach. The secular approach is oriented around the Socratic “love of wisdom,” and a process of arguing and inquiring that is open-ended. Secular universities do not teach wisdom. Rather, they teach us how to decide for ourselves what is wise.

August 21, 2022August 21, 2022

Teaching and learning require love and play

Fresno Bee, August 21, 2022

The headlines talk of failing schools, teacher shortages and lost students. There are controversies about religion, race, gender and sexuality in the schools. In the background is anxiety about violence. Education has become a battleground.

One solution is to simply ban controversy. In Texas, a school district removed controversial books from the library, including “Anne Frank” and the Bible. In Wisconsin, a school board banned flags, badges and slogans, including Pride flags, Black Lives Matters banners, and We Back the Badge signs. And here in Fresno, Bullard High School is planning to ban cell phones. An article in The Bee connected the cellphone ban to the controversy about racist photos taken on phones at Bullard High last year.

Schools have become a breeding ground for controversy. But let’s not turn schools into spiritless places where burned out teachers and disengaged kids go through the motions of education. That old Pink Floyd video comes to mind, in which students plod into a meat grinder.

We are so focused on controversy that we often miss the good news. So here’s a bit of good news. A recent study by Paul E. Peterson and M. Danish Shakeel concludes that kids are learning more now than they did 50 years ago. They analyzed data stretching back to 1971 that shows improvement since then in math and reading. This echoes the fact that IQ scores have also improved over time.

Their study notes that this improvement is true across demographic categories. The researchers admit that COVID was a recent setback. But they conclude, “Contrary to what you may have heard, average student achievement has been increasing for half a century.”

And yet the prevailing image is demoralizing. Perhaps we are too focused on nitpicking diminishing returns. As things generally improve, you start to freak out about small setbacks and minor blips. But all of this nitpicking can be disheartening.

It might help to remind ourselves that kids are innately curious and that teachers love to help them learn. The culture war approach to school misunderstands teaching and learning. War destroys things. It doesn’t build them up. Teaching and learning come from a place of love, empathy, creativity and play.

This is an ancient truth about teaching and learning. Socrates thought love was the guiding spirit of education. He challenged his students to think about difficult things. And he chastised them when they went astray. But he also loved them and believed that his students had the potential to improve.

Teaching and learning require a playful spirit. Mechanical and compulsory training may work for animals and for human beings forced to master monotonous tasks. But human beings learn the best and highest things through play and exploration. Plato thought that we are most fully human when we are free and at play.

Only humans engage in sports, games, drama, storytelling, art, and music. These are all forms of play. They require practice and discipline — but they are supposed to be fun. Scientific exploration and philosophical speculation are similar. They are ways of playing with concepts, ideas, and with the world itself.

Play involves intense concentration focused on activities we love for their own sake. Genuine play is not done in order to produce some external result or because some coach forces us to do it. Rather, authentic play is self-motivated and free. We play with ideas and explore the world because we are curious and because exploration and creativity are enjoyable. Playing and learning are ends-in-themselves. We do these things because we love them.

That’s the key to teaching and learning. Teachers love teaching because they enjoy playing with ideas and sharing their love of learning with their students. And students learn best when they fall in love with a subject that inspires their curiosity and their innate desire to explore.

The good news is that kids are learning better now than they were a half century ago. Of course, there is more work to be done. But let’s stop freaking out and turning schools into battlefields. It’s impossible to learn or teach in a war zone. Education occurs best under conditions of peace, when playful and curious spirits are given the freedom to question, create, and think.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article264669234.html#storylink=cpy

August 20, 2016October 16, 2016

For the Love of Teaching

Teachers truly love a very tough profession

Fresno Bee, August 20, 2016

Teachers love to teach. Ideas thrill us. We share the excitement of our students’ achievements. We enjoy helping people master skills and understand concepts. And we believe that our efforts give birth to a better world.

Like any worthwhile activity, teaching is stressful and difficult. It is intimidating to face a college lecture hall full of hundreds of students. It is tough to keep high school kids engaged. It isn’t easy to nurture elementary school kids every day of the week.

There is high turnover among beginning teachers. In Los Angeles, according to a recent report, 40 to 50 percent of K-12 teachers leave the classroom within five years. Teacher shortages are a problem in Fresno and across the country. The long-term solution is for society to value teachers. Teachers should also spread the good news of the joy of teaching.

Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. Teaching is a craft that is learned through sweat and tears. When I taught high school, I was overwhelmed with insecurity. My first years in the college classroom were filled with anxiety and doubt. More than 20 years later, I still fret and worry.

Teachers need compassion, organizational skills and intense focus. Teaching depends upon mastery of the subject matter, quick wit and the ability to improvise. It also requires an ethical commitment to the well-being of those we teach.

Great teachers facilitate a metamorphosis of the mind. Jeremiah Conway, a philosophy professor in Maine, describes this as a kind of magic. In a book entitled “The Alchemy of Teaching,” he explains, “Teaching is fundamentally about human transformation.” He concludes, “Participating in such transformation is one of the great delights and responsibilities of teaching.”

Parents certainly don’t want just anyone molding our children’s minds. We want ethically grounded teachers who love our children and understand their fragility. We want teachers who take their responsibilities seriously.

TEACHING IS A NOBLE AND NECESSARY PROFESSION.

Transformative teaching is not mere instruction. Its goal is not obedient compliance or mechanical repetition. Rather, transformative teaching aims to conjure something new into existence – knowledge, virtue and love of learning.

The model for transformative teaching is Socrates. Socrates described himself as a midwife who facilitated a magical birthing process. When teaching works, young people grow into full-fledged human beings.

Low wages, heavy workloads and external pressures can kill the joy of teaching. Institutional constraints can reduce teaching to mere instruction. The move to computerized instruction presumes that computer programs can do much of the work.

Some skills can be taught by mechanized instruction. But personal transformation and moral growth are properly facilitated by human interaction. We learn art from inspired artists. We learn the scientific method from devoted scientists. We learn good sportsmanship from decent coaches. We learn to love history by listening to passionate historians. And we learn how to be human from mentors who represent the best of humanity.

In order to recruit the next generation of teachers, society needs to celebrate the smart, devoted, and moral human beings who fill our classrooms. Teachers are among the most important workers in our nation. They transmit the knowledge, skills, and values of our civilization. Teaching is a noble and necessary profession.

We also need to explain the joy of teaching. Successful teachers find meaning and delight in teaching. Teachers often feel called to teach. But inspiration is momentary. Teachers are lifelong learners who work to hone their craft. That effort is sustained by a sense of responsibility toward students and the community.

Teachers are often quiet about their love of teaching. Perhaps we are reluctant to admit that we’ve found meaningful work in a world of drudgery. We are not comfortable these days talking about work as a calling or vocation. But where your talent and joy provide a service to the world, that’s where you are summoned.

Not everyone has the talent or demeanor to be a teacher. Some give up or burn out. But most teachers love to teach.

Each new school year begins as a great romance. We get butterflies. We obsess about lesson plans. We dream of books, experiments and ideas to be shared. We happily greet our students, humbled by our responsibility. And we hope that through our efforts a better future will be born.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article96554047.html#storylink=cpy

September 24, 2011September 18, 2014

A worthy goal — neutrality without censorship

Fresno Bee, September 24, 2011

A math teacher in San Diego County, Bradley Johnson, hung posters on his classroom wall that displayed religiously oriented statements from American history. The posters included phrases such as “In God We Trust” and “God shed his grace on thee.” Johnson claimed that he intended this as a patriotic celebration of America’s heritage.

The school district removed the posters, claiming that, “because they were taken out of context and very large” these phrases “became a promotion of a particular viewpoint that might make students who didn’t share that viewpoint uncomfortable.” This month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in support of the school district. It found that Johnson’s display was not “neutral”– as required under the First Amendment. The court agreed that the school district was enforcing “neutrality” by removing Johnson’s posters.

Neutrality is an important ideal. Religious dissidents came to America in order to escape the power of the state-sponsored churches of Europe. Today, there is more diversity of belief, with growing numbers of nonbelievers and non-Christians. We need state neutrality with regard to religion.

But we should be careful that as we pursue neutrality, we don’t end up stifling debate. This case can be understood as a call for improved public discussions of religion. It is obvious that genuine philosophical debate is not conducted by hanging posters on the wall. We need to find better ways to discuss our most fundamental differences.

I discussed this case with Doug Fraleigh, chairman of the communication department at Fresno State. Professor Fraleigh — an expert on freedom-ofexpression issues — agrees that Johnson’s posters violated the First Amendment. But Fraleigh is concerned with a growing trend toward government regulation of speech. He worries that the court seems to think that “teachers are paid to convey the government’s message.” Fraleigh said, “While some control of classroom speech can be warranted, excellent teaching is an art which cannot flourish when lessons are subject to inflexible government control.”

According to Fraleigh, this decision extends a precedent in which the government attempts to “broadly regulate government employee speech.”

The court reasoned that the government can limit an employee’s speech at work, so long as it does not interfere with that employee’s right as a citizen to speak freely outside of work. Fair enough: Johnson remains free to discuss his religious views after work.

But there is a silencing effect, nonetheless, when teachers fear that they will run afoul of the authorities.

More extensive academic freedom — along with more civil public discourse — could be part of the solution. A truly open and tolerant discussion of religion would be useful in our diverse society. We would have to listen to one another and learn about other points of view. And we would have to understand our own beliefs well enough to defend them.

This may be too much to ask for in an elementary school context. But if teachers felt free to discuss religion in an open and inquiring fashion, school would be a more lively place: a place in which important ideas are considered and defended, instead of simply ignored in the name of neutrality. Such lively exchanges — if they were conducted with a genuine spirit of inquiry — would open student’s minds, stimulate curiosity and create a love of learning.

The philosopher John Locke said, “Truth would do well enough, if she were once left to shift for herself.” But our tendency sometimes points in the other direction. Our justifiable fear of the establishment of religion can lead us to limit freedom of discussion. The danger of this approach is that it prevents us from engaging in those sorts of vigorous debates that help us understand what we believe and why we believe it.

Johnson’s posters may violate the spirit of the First Amendment. But they are also weak as teaching devices. We need open-minded and inclusive discussion of our diversity, not simplistic posters and competing bumper stickers. In our increasingly diverse world, we need more and better discussions of religion and our religious differences.