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.