In my last post, we talked about reason number one, that people just love teaching. Some people just love to teach and naturally are drawn to teaching. Today, I want to look at reason number two that individuals become teachers. Especially in Secondary Education (7th-12th grade) and post-high school, it can be for a love of the subject matter. Some people really love a subject and want to spend their life engaged in that subject. Elementary teachers usually don't have this strong desire, because they teach all subjects. As an English teacher, I think literature is the most important subject. You can see a previous blog post about why I think literature is important. If you find a math teacher, they are going to say things like "Math is the language of the universe". That is an actual quote from a friend of mine who of course taught math.
People teach a subject because they obviously love that subject. They are good at it, they believe in it, and they want other people to know and love it. Those who teach because they love a subject and sometimes struggle with people who don't love that subject. If a student says that literature is not important and reading is boring and stupid, I am aghast. I struggle with the belief that my students don't see the value in what I'm doing, because of course, it makes sense. Naturally, we all assume that people should have the think patterns of thought and logic that we do. When they don't, it causes us to have some discomfort and cognitive dissidence. We can see how things fit and struggle when they don't.
Teachers who love subjects are really passionate about subjects, but sometimes we don't explain them as well as we should. It makes sense to us, we understand the subject. We sometimes gloss over the subject because, for us, it clicks. If it doesn't click for a student, they can feel like we are a bad teacher. They struggle to understand and we struggle to understand why. Students need to have an understanding and basic education in all subjects, so be patient with those of us who think what we teach is the most important.
Literature is the most important.
Literature is important, but certainly not most important. Where would we be without math, or science, or music, for example? We wouldn't have gone to the moon. We wouldn't have built the pyramids. We wouldn't have art to admire. The world would be an awful place without any of those.
ReplyDeleteYes, but math and science owe their existance to stories. Early man used cave paintings as the first forms of literature. They didn't write equasions, they told stories. Stories passed down culture, they communicated societal values, and pratical skills. Stories promote curiosity and creativity, when then led to advancements in science and math. Without stories, society would have no cohesion and the ability to pass on and pass down information would be lost. Without story telling and literature, no math, no science, no music (which is a type of story). No moon trip. While math and science are important, literature is the key to all of them.
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