By T. J. Ray, Oxford, Mississippi

Note from THE WORDWRIGHT - This is a heavy subject and more than cursory thoughts are necessary. Public School Boards of Education nationwide would do well to make this essay a "must read" for every teacher in training. The application of principles and precepts needed, as suggested by T. J. Ray, might well require a new qualification for teachers (and School Board members): "Not for the timid." I consider it a privilege to publish T. J. Ray's essay on this website and am grateful to him for granting us permission to use it. Professor Ray even sent along the photo below of the teacher and her students at the Wilson Elementary School in Clay County, Mississippi, which is near Columbus in the eastern edge of the state (year unknown).

"Teaching, what about it? Students, do you like the teachers?" Old and worn questions maybe, but I was asked them recently and was bothered by my answers. Almost any teacher will tell you instantly that he likes students. That's what I did. Later, when the moment was past, I began to consider what I might have or should have said.

Why does a person seek to become a teacher? There are many with the title who are counterfeits. Immediately, George Bernard Shaw's quote springs to mind: "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." Perhaps there is more than a germ of truth. Are there accounting profs who teeter on the edge of financial insolvency? Drama coaches who never act? Literature teachers who are content with verbal debris for their leisure reading?

Students may have a piece of the truth when they accuse teachers of hiding from the "real" world. It's true that the world of the campus is artificial. Any system that gives teachers practical autonomy in the midst of a democratic society is artificial. Here, though, I level no charge. If the classroom is to orient the student so that he succeeds in the "real" world, then good for it. And, too, there are teachers whose world ends with the class period. They take no stands, front no issues, and applaud when they believe their students have mastered the course. These people are human zombies. They are conveyor belts of data, details, facts, trivia. A teachers must do more than a good computer or audiovisual device can do. He must help students relate his course content to the real world.

Relevance is a charged word today. For teachers it is generally negatively charged, nd they are repelled by it. Do they resent being shown that their professional function has been neutralized, that they are ineffective? Why didn't my fellow students and I not bomb buildings and have eyeball confrontations with our teachers in the 1950's? Were they and their programs more relevant, more pragmatic? Or were we naive and timid?

May it be that we were raised in an era when longevity seemed the rule, when systems went on and on, some changing and surviving while others declined and vanished? Today's students don't have any sense of permanence or longevity. The Anglo-Saxon motif "Life is laene" sums up their world: Life is brief. Though they may be wrong, thought the world may go on for centuries, thought God may be in his heaven and all's well with the world, our students think it is falling apart. And even if they are dead wrong, as long as they believe this terror, it is one function of teachers to respond, to make knowledge relevant.

Indeed, why not? What is so evil about making human behavior in all its forms meaningful? Is it better to subject the young to Shakespeare than to an Indian guru or a hypo? Is it worthy subjecting him to the discipline of physics lab when he may never experiment again? Is there any point in teaching the writings of the Vikings in a world of CBW, CIA, and DDT? Emphatically, yes! But sensibly, purposefully, and oh so patiently.

We must let our students know there is a reason for our professional existence. First, we must know ourselves that such a reason exists. If we cannot find one and verbalize our motive for teaching what we teach, then we must nod silently when the young shout "Irrelevant" because then we are.

There is no more significant profession in the world than teaching. It is perhaps the oldest in that people have probably always transmitted knowledge one to another, usually from adults to younger people. Gradually it developed that a few would have primary responsibility in this area. And slowly teachers became respected and finally trusted with the minds of the young. Plato conceived of men studying most of their lives to become teachers, and to become philosophers in the bargain.

Now the greenest, most immature individual is turned loose with a few years of college. And there is no valid probationary period as exists in medicine and other arts. Are there people who come privately to the conclusion that teaching is not their proper calling? Do they ever quit, walk away, and leave the students to more capable hands? I suspect that voluntary withdrawal is the exception rather than the rule. Hence, one of the burdens the profession ought to assume is that of improving and weeding its own ranks.

We are probably guilty of harboring incompetents, mantling them with tenure and select committee appointments that assure them of unchecked license in the execution of their nefarious art. For that's just what bad teaching is, a misguiding, a corrupting of the innocence of young minds and characters. To the degree that poor teachers stifle the urge to learn and frustrate students in pursuing knowledge, to that degree they are of the same cloth as the witch doctor who holds his people back from modern medicine or the chanting monk who frightens his flock away from a more enlightened view of their creator and world.

No other professional group has the opportunity teachers have. Physicians may be able to men bodies. Ministers may well prepare souls for the next life. And engineers and scientists may shelter, clothe and feed us better than we have been pampered in the past. But only teachers are in a position that allows them to shape the intellects and personalities of the young. They have the chance of molding human beings, creating humane beings.

Teachers have the highest calling because they deal with the world's most precious commodity: the human mind. If they were handling delicate china or expensive electronic materials, we would expect great care. How much more valuable and delicate is the mind?

If students are the teacher's reason for being, then there is an obligation to examine the relationships with them and improve matters that need improving. And God knows something has broken down in the teacher-student relationship in recent years. No longer can a professor expect respect as a right for his position.

No longer is his authority sacrosanct. No longer are his activities immune to public scrutiny and review. If he wants respect, he must earn it--by his fairness, genuine competency, and relevance. He must admit, however quietly and privately, that many of his shibboleths and prescriptions are only gossamer laws. And he must recognize that he is answerable to three courts.

First, he must satisfy his peers. The other side of that coin is that his peers must demand satisfaction. They must collectively seek to improve the profession. They must set standards by which acceptable performance may be distinguished from the ephemeral. And they must weed their own ranks. As teachers move more and more toward professional organization for mutual job protection, they must also assume a self regulating duty. Secure teachers are not per se effective teachers.

Second, the professional must submit to examination by the public. The AAUP notwithstanding, a form of employer-employee relationship does exist between the teacher and the institution that employs him. School patrons have a right to get a desirable return on their investment. In the case of the fireman, truck drivers, or even military personnel, teachers would probably approve public review of their performance and agree to dismissal or censure for incompetency. But does the school not have a right to expect that teachers, involved in commonly taught courses, accomplish something in common?

Finally, teachers must answer to their students. Here, a kind of merchant-customer relationship exists. The student, or someone on his behalf, pays a price for his education. The very least return for that investment is the right to anticipate a valuable experience, and perhaps the right to criticize what is received. Not that I want student reviews of syllabi. Not that I want students on curriculum committees. Not that there is any exclusive virtue in using student course evaluations as prima facie evidence of a teacher's competence. But -- who knows a teacher so well as his students do? Is there anyone more intimately concerned with their getting high quality training than students themselves? Who suffers more when we send them out of courses with passing marks but without the intellectual talent to function successfully in their next course or their first job?

If there is no learning by conscientious, well motivated students, there probably has been no teaching. When students of average mentality are not conscientious or display no enthusiasm, it is the responsibility of the system--not the individual teacher-- to structure its program to stimulate the student to learn as much as he can. Lest this be misunderstood so that no teacher will argue that his job is not to be guidance counselor or cheerleader, let me say: Schools and the general public must get over the notion that everyone is college material. We must direct our best efforts at those applicants with the highest potential of contributing significantly to the human race. Do what you will with the rest. Send them to trade schools, as is done in many Europeans countries. Or send them to the military or the Peace Corps. But admit that they shouldn't be in higher education and get rid of them. If one can argue for weeding the teacher population, can one not also advocate weeding the student body?

Teachers are very important people. Not because they have degrees, appointments and publications lists. Not even because they know more about their subjects than their students do. Their lives are significant because they are trusted with the sacred duty of helping others, usually younger and less experienced, to prepare for a complex adult world.

Teachers are variously cantankerous, snobbish, erudite, obtuse, cynical, Socratic, or superfluous. Students are often rebellious, dense, naive, eager, and innocent. And jointly and separately they fail each other. But the primary hope for mankind rests with teachers--not with family, church, or government--with the teacher and his students. There can be no more precious moment in human existence than when a teacher leads a student to know a truth.

The following note was written by Professor T. J. Ray, September, 2006

The words above were written in 1975 and first printed in a publication of the Mississippi Department of Education, The Mississippi Educational Advance. That was after my first 15 years in teaching and before my last 25. Knowing what has occurred in education since 1975 and reflecting on the essay, I feel strongly that it is still by and large a proper comment on the subject.

Yes, we have a problem that might be posed thusly: As education standards diminish, the quality of life in our world diminishes.

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"THANK YOU TJ, for some challenging concepts!" THE WORDWRIGHT