0029: Teaching, the Last Assembly Line in the US
Teachers are professional pedagogues, but learning is not up to the teacher. The teacher’s prescribed job is not to learn, but teach— prescriptively defined as depositing information into empty vessels. But, these vessels are not empty, thus the creation of an educational plan to de-educate, then reeducate. With this comes the birth of classroom discipline and classroom management, two very nasty words. We must “manage” our classroom because we, as educators must systematically deconstruct and piss on any learning that has been done outside a school. O, and the learning is vast. Strangely, kids are interested in things. They are naturally curious. Probably an evolutionary trait. Additionally, kids seek out information. They solve problems and think and try new things. They learn without the teacher. When a teacher tries to colonialize a learners mind, the learner, rather, the free human rebels. The education I am expected to deliver comes in a box. A series of bland textbooks, that is aligned to a state framework, that is rigorously tested with materials through a corporation that sells textbooks. Teaching is the last remaining assembly line in the United States.
