Learning to Not Teach (confessions from the front-line of academia)

[Alan Webb]

This from my roommate's professor at George Washington University... 

"It also occurs to me that teachers require learners in order to survive but that learners don't require teachers. Maybe that's why teachers emphasize the importance of teaching so much. They have to create a market for nonessential services."

(http://www.tealdragon.net/humor/articles/notteach.htm)

Learning to Not Teach

By Jerry B. Harvey, Professor Emeritus

School of Business and Public Management

The George Washington University

One of the most important skills I have learned as a university professor is how to not teach. In fact, I gave up trying

to teach long ago. Fortunately, I haven't given up trying to learn.

This article, then, is about teaching and learning.

It consists of a series of personal statements, questions, hypotheses, conclusions, descriptions, and observations about

learning, teaching and learning to not teach. As best I can tell, the series doesn't follow any logical sequence. Learning

seldom follows any logical sequence. Teaching does. I hope you find the material to be of interest.

1. The longer I am employed as a professor, the less sure I become as to what a teacher is supposed to do. When I

stand up in front of a class and someone says explicitly or implicitly, "teach me," I become confused because I seldom feel

as if I have anything to teach.

2. Whenever I do feel I have something to teach, I generally am disappointed. Most of the time, others already know it

or don't find it particularly useful, interesting, relevant or profound; and neither do I.

3. I tend to agree with Carl Rogers' (1961) "Personal Thoughts on Teaching and Learning." In essence, he contends that

anything of value can't be taught, but that much of value can be learned. I suppose that's one reason I find teaching so

unsatisfying and learning so much fun.

4. I find it ironical that the various constituencies of higher learning (students, professors, and administrators) worry so

much about teaching. I suspect their concern with teaching has its purpose - to divert energy from the difficult job of

learning - which involves essence - and to focus on teaching - which deals with the illusion that the power to grew lies with

someone else.

5. "Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach." A hostile comment to be sure, but one which for some reason is very

popular among do's. Try substituting the word "learn" for the word "teach." The comment now reads, "Those who can, do.

Those who cannot, learn." The comment no longer makes sense. I wonder why? Maybe the answer to that question says

something about the relative importance of teaching and learning.

6. It also occurs to me that teachers require learners in order to survive but that learners don't require teachers. Maybe

that's why teachers emphasize the importance of teaching so much. They have to create a market for nonessential

services.

7. In my discipline, there is a journal called Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal. What if it were

called Exchange: The Organizational Behavior of Learning Journal? I'll bet the content of the articles would be very

different and a lot more interesting.

8. As a professor, I don't take responsibility for what others learn. I do take responsibility for what I learn. though. If in

fact, my basic goal in class is for me to learn something new. What others learn, if anything, is up to them. I'm always

pleased to help them learn something if they want to, but I won't be responsible for what they learn or whether they learn

it.

9. In fact, I am struck with the bizarre willingness on the part of colleagues to take responsibility for students' learning. I

know they take responsibility because they ask colleagues and students to evaluate their teaching ability for purposes of

promotion and tenure. They get depressed if students don't perform well in their classes. They read journals on how to

improve their teaching effectiveness. Each of those act indicates they in some way feel they are responsible for what their

students learn - or fail to learn.

10. Many of them have the maxim on their desks (or in their minds), "If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't

taught." That maxim is quite peculiar, because it clearly implies that the basic responsibility for learning belongs to the

professor. Consequently, if the student does badly, the professor is at fault. But, following the same logic rigorously, if the

student performs competently the professor must get the credit. For all intents and purposes, then, the student doesn't

exist, except as a sort of inanimate, passive receptacle for the professor's competence or incompetence.

11. In my opinion, anytime a professor accepts responsibility for his students' learning, he denies their existence. He

doesn't respect them very much, if at all. If students permit the professor to accept responsibility for their learning, they

don't respect themselves (or the professor) very much either.

12. When I take seriously the proposition that I am not responsible for students' learning, I become very anxious

because it forces me to ask once again, "What is my job?" I wish I could say I've developed a satisfactory answer.

13. I never find grading a satisfactory experience. It deals with teaching, evaluation, accreditation, indoctrination,

control, and unthought. It's demeaning to all parties. I get ulcers on the inside of my bottom lip every time I do it.

14. I very much enjoy responding to students' work. I write letters, correct grammar and punctuation, critique, curse,

applaud, cheer, and frown. I learn a lot from responding. It's just grading that doesn't make sense.

15. In my classes, students are free to express themselves (use the material) in any way they wish. For their exams,

students have written poetry, done scientific research, produced essays, sung theories, made movies, danced analyses of

variance, presented plays, juggled (literally) constructs, cooked concepts (which the class ate), composed music, created

works of art, and welded nails.

16. Given such freedom, most people have produced extraordinarily competent work. Some have produced work which

is very incompetent. Very few have produced anything mediocre.

17. In a learning environment, students either "make it big" or "fail miserably." In a teaching environment, most people

fall into the middle (Some say that their performances form a bell-shaped curve. I have concluded that well-shaped

distributions of performance in academia are artifacts of an environment in which teaching is stressed. In a learning

environment, performance is generally bimodally skewed, with most persons performing very well, a few performing very

badly, and almost none falling in the middle.) Maybe that's the purpose of teaching - to insure mediocrity. Bureaucracies

have to be staffed from somewhere, and no one is more mediocre than a well-taught student.

18. I require participants in my classes to work on their examinations with at least one other person. They can work with

as many others as they like. They don't have to collaborate on a single project. (X may write an essay, Y may sing), but

they may work on the same project if they wish. (For example, they may work together on a piece of research.) However

they choose to work, they have to share their grades.

19. The reason for eighteen may be found in the literature of behavioral science. Bion (1961), Lynch (1977), Spitz

(1946), and Harvey (1977) have pointed out that connection with other persons is a requirement for psychological and

physical survival. Alternatively any act (requiring that people work alone) leads to breakdown both mental and physical.

20. The more I have learned to not teach, the more I realize that connection is a requirement for survival, and the more

I become interested in learning, then the more disturbed I become when people cheat. I define cheating as the failure to

help someone (at his/her request) on the various exams.

21. When I was a youngster, my grandfather used to say, "I'm going to learn you something." Until recently, I thought

he wasn't very bright. Now I realize he was probably the smartest of us all.

22. As a learner, I never read the results of student evaluation forms. The forms are evidently useful to others

(Bullphrogs, I suspect. They provide them with flies to flick and divert them from the task of draining the swamp (Harvey,

1977)). They are not useful to me, so I never look at them. If I did, I would be inviting students to learn the skills of

passivity, non-risk taking, interpersonal incompetence, and irresponsibility. I am always willing to talk with students face-to-

face in class about their compliments or their criticisms, but once the class is over, it's too late to make use of either.

23. The more I learn, the more I enjoy competence. The less I teach, the more I experience competence in myself and

others. I love to be around competent people because I learn a lot from them and I'm more competent in their presence.

24. The more I learn to not teach, the more anxiety I experience in the classroom. I think the anxiety stems from the

fact that I don't really know what will happen from class to class and frequently can't do anything about it when it does.

25. Although I am more anxious in a learning environment, I also have a lot more fun. More events in the classroom are

genuinely funny.

26. That reminds me. Have you every wondered why textbooks aren't funny? Have you ever wondered why the Bible

isn't funny? Probably for the same reason. They were written to teach you something.

27. Likewise, have you ever known a competent professor, preacher, politician, manager, or student who wasn't funny,

who didn't have a sense of humor or an appreciation of the absurd? I haven't. For example, did Jesus ever tell jokes or

pass gas in church? (He must have! He ran the money changers out of the Temple, didn't He?) When He did, I'll bet the

disciples roared and God laughed. I just wonder why His biographers (textbook writers) forgot to tell us about it. Probably

because they were trying to teach us something; and in doing so, they destroyed part of His essence.

28. One last idea. If I've learned anything from being a university professor, it's that I only try to teach those I don't

respect.

Do let me know if you feel I've tried to teach you something. If so, I'll be glad to apologize.

References

Bion, W., Experiences in Groups, Basic Books, New York, 1961.

Harvey, J., "Organizations as Phrog Farms," Organizational Dynamics, Spring, 1977, pp. 15-23.

Lynch, J., The Broken Heart: The Medical Consequences of Loneliness, Basic Books, New York, 1977.

Rogers, C., "Personal Thoughts on Teaching and Learning" (Chapter 13), On Becoming a Person, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1952, pp.

272-278.

Spitz, R., "Hospitalism: An Inquiry into the Genesis of Psychiatric Conditions in Early Infancy; A Follow-Up," in The Psychoanalytic Study

of the Child, Vol. II, International University Press, New York, 1946.