Anyone Can...

I'll sell my inventions so that *everyone* can have powers. *Everyone* can be super! And when everyone's super...no one will be. (The Incredibles, 2004)

Anyone can cook! (Ratatouille, 2007)

I find it consistently fascinating that any moral quandary I am considering, any paradox can inevitably be traced back to the movie company, Pixar, and one or more of their works.  Several weeks ago I posted an article that caught the eye of a few of my friends and students concerning some of the new teaching "fads" that I was being exposed to.  (I was going to say "indoctrinated with" except I have to admit that I get no sense that these techniques, these scientific principles of teaching will ever be assessed in any Orwellian way.)  I was flattered as I worried that particular entry smacked more of ranting (which I admonish my students NEVER to do in a formal way) than considered reflection.  The conversations that resulted from that post which amounted to a considered support for teaching as an art form over a scientific method spurred me to think further on the issue.

Leading me to Pixar.

The tag line of Ratatouille resonates with me both as a teacher and as an individual. It says, in no uncertain terms, that no matter the perception that others might have of me, no matter what they consider to be my ability and potential, that I can through the sheer force of my will coupled with the time I am willing to devote master any skill I choose. I can devote my intellectual power, coupled with my physical exertion, and overcome obstacles and achieve new things. Even as I type that I would argue that while my physical form limits certain things I can do (I cannot for example lift a 400 lb weight currently), my mental faculties allow me to find other ways to go about solving those problems. (I.e. why am I trying to lift that much weight? And is there another way of going about the lifting that does not require my muscles?). In this sense, I see the equivalency to teaching.

I did not begin a good teacher. I started, decades ago, thinking I knew what most students would appreciate in a classroom setting (which is defined as what I would appreciate in a classroom setting) and what was basically a waste of their time. It did not take me long to realize that many of my dictates were far removed from reality. Waxing nostalgic about my school days (which I often enjoyed listening to from my teachers) held no interest whatsoever. Get to the point, get there fast, make it relevant: that was the lesson of my first few years teaching. It was only after I mastered discipline in the classroom that I found I had time for more: stories that didn't veer from the topic but enhanced it. More importantly, I found that giving my students time to relate stories that were relevant was a much greater sense of trust than my forcing archaic tales on them. Through experience and finding the right mentors (read: seasoned and slightly irritable), I found my style. In this way, I believe anyone "can" teach. And I don't define that verb in the confining, denotative way it suggests. I don't mean just standing before a room full of students and possessing a college degree makes one a teacher. Handing out a test and then collecting and grading it doesn't mean you have taught or instructed.

But with time and, most importantly, a willingness to adapt I think there is no human being who cannot come to instruct, impart, whatever to others.

Yet what I mean by "anyone" I think has been taken over by organizations and (more scary to me) companies looking to make money and package the "skill" of teaching. Here is the leap from a single rat who, against all the preconceived notions of society and humanity, acquires the repertoire of cooking to the antithesis of the second Pixar movie, The Incredibles. What is genius and ability and wonder and laudable in the one, the individual becomes communicable (without human voice, without contact even) to the many.

The villain of The Incredibles operates out of resentment that he is not a hero. He can't fly or turn invisible or stretch like elastic. So he uses his mind (which I would define as a superhero organ to begin with) and builds gadgets to allow him to defeat what he considers "super". These gadgets can be massed produced (I wonder if Pixar had it out for Henry Ford some days) and sold to everyone everywhere. And when everyone is "super"...

This seems to be the concept bombarding modern education. When everyone has the ability to teach equally well, when everyone can share everything they have with each other regardless of humanity or contact or intent, then the entire system is composed of superheroes! We all win! Except the teachers who demonstrate success in other ways. Except for teachers who reach their students and push them to perform on more than just multiple choice tests.

I suppose even this comes back to the art form. I can't always explain why something worked so well in my classroom or even where I got the idea from. I can usually figure out why something didn't work and I don't necessarily need another set of eyes or ears to tell me that. What I do need is time: my own time to consider, think, evaluate, and redesign. I have a student who is having a hard time making rational arguments? There is no E2020 program that will help them with that. But talking to me about what they believe is right and wrong on this planet and why will get them into a better mental framework faster than anything. Heck, even a back-and-forth on Facebook is more helpful than a program of algorithms that supposedly helps them argue clearer.

I bow to Pixar for putting not just words but images and characters in places that stand for what I consider to be some of the mot dangerous and foreshadowing issues to come in this profession.