Sometimes the subject of teaching is really boring to me. There is a jargon that comes with education, but that comes with any field. Certainly psychology has plenty of it. Words and phrases like "scaffolding" or "ready to learn" seem like they mean something, and they kind of do mean something. It just isn't the sort of something that I am interested in. It is the technocratic language that creates distance between the supposed professional and the client or student or patient. 

  In contrast, any person who has had a good teacher will use words like "warm", "enthusiastic",  

"knowledgeable", and so on. It seems that a good teacher knows the subject well and has it close to the heart. The good teacher is also good at relationships.

   Most students, however, rarely experience the one on one intensity that comes with Zen teaching. That intimacy- and it is a form of intimacy- is still alive in the arts. Music teachers, dance teachers, painting teachers all routinely cultivate this. But why have we lost this in the liberal arts? There are some elite-ish private schools that have this quality, and of course in any school there are gifted students who are cared for like hothouse flowers. But what a shame, what a loss for so many. 

   The technocratic language obscures an awareness of the relationship, and instead focuses on methods of knowledge delivery, rather like a better hypodermic or trans-dermal patch. It also prevents an acknowledgement of how much the student brings to the relationship: her experiences, her perspectives, her abilities. What I find so compelling about Zen practice is its absolute insistence that everything important and essential is already known by the student. Obviously, my students may not know a given martial arts move or be able to follow a snaking and omnivorous Miltonic Simile. 

   I believe, however, that a dynamic teacher creates an experience in the classroom- a performance, an experiment, a conversation- that the student than makes his own. There is no reason to separate the subject being considered from the "techniques" being deployed in the classroom. These are unitary from a student's perspective, and the student's perspective must always be foremost in a teacher's mind. Much like the performer must at once be the character and intuit the viewer's sensibility. In a poor teacher, these things are considered serially, if at all.

   We do teach, and do impart important knowledge. But none of it matters unless the student is fully present.

Posting Schedule

I will be posting at least twice a week for much of the summer.  It seems to make sense that I do so on Mondays and Thursdays, and if more material begs for your attention, I will slap it up here.

  I wonder: do teachers in high school ever talk about life and death? Today, my students were an abstracted bunch during the final meditation. Most of them tried to maintain their posture and keep focused, but I could feel their struggle.
  They sit on cushions pushed a bit from the walls, facing inward. We end, they stand, hands in gassho. I make a parting statement. "You may not realize this, but right now you are practicing life and death. Don't take this practice for granted."

School begins at 9, still early for teenagers, but at least they are getting two extra hours of sleep. Early arrivals make bagels or eat fried eggs one of the teachers cooks up each morning. The building is small, and it takes perhaps a minute to go from the kitchen to the rectangular dojang where they sit meditation.
  Two tall, deep windows illuminate the altar along the wall opposite. Meditation cushions line the other walls. I sit just to the left of the altar and instruct the students to write their intentions on the slip of paper provided. It is meant to awaken a connection to the previous week and to underline the practical nature of their efforts in school.  It should create a little tension and hover a little while they sit. Over the course of the semester, most students have begun to use the exercise and write down intentions that are modest and concrete. One student still refuses to do it at all, but he refuses to meditate as well.
   But then, this is something the student and I occasionally talk about, and when we do, I try to make sure that the conversation is one where his experience and reasoning is paramount. This may be a very small step towards mindfulness, but a consequential one. Some students need to assert themselves, and this is where they are at. I think, at bottom, the quiet start to the day still makes a difference.