This is going to sound SO hippie-dippy, but I'm trying to stop calling myself a teacher. I prefer the term "lead learner", because when I'm at my best that's what I'm doing. A teacher is someone who knows something you don't and teaches it to you. A lead learner is someone who is keeping things on track as you learn together. For most of the topics my classes cover, anyway, I'm learning right alongside my students - about using English and French and Esperanto, about the languages of the world, and about world issues. What a great job I have, that I'm getting paid to learn about things that are important to me and I get to help other people learn to love them too. Yes, lead learner is a lot better job than teacher.
I slip up a lot on remembering what to call my job, of course. Teacher is a much more common term, and conjures up more concrete images of what my role looks like. A teacher has a classroom at a school. A teacher tries to get kids to pay attention. A teacher evaluates and ranks students. A teacher is the one who talks the most during class. I don't want to be a teacher!
And how about the word "student"? What do you picture? A book, an anguished look, someone wishing they were somewhere (anywhere) other than school? How about the word "learner"?
Interestingly, the roots of teacher and student come from processes related to, but not equated with, learning. I can teach for hours straight, and the students can study all year long, and at the end of it all there might be very little learning. In fact, that's usually the case in our schools.
Of course, all this verbal gymnastics means nothing if it doesn't change our behavior. Calling a garbageman a sanitation engineer doesn't, by itself, make the garbageman think about new ways to make his community cleaner. But if the garbageman takes the title seriously and begins to think about what he's ultimately trying to accomplish beyond picking up rows of trashcans every week, his vocation is a different thing from that of his co-workers. "Vocation", of course, comes from the Latin vocare (voice). I'm not so much called to teach as I am to help people learn.
P.S. Is it too confusing to called a student teacher a learning lead learner?
P.P.S. This entry is for the upcoming Ed Tech Blog Carnival (due out Monday) on "definitions". Submit your own blog entry this weekend!
Funny. But an admirable effort. I so do agree that the terms "teacher" and "student" are so laden with preconceptions that they may be getting in the way of learning. I LIKE it. I'm a "technology coordinator" who would like to get the "technology" out of the title, prefering something more like "LTF" (Learning Tools Facilitator). In the end, though, a rose is a you-know-what. Until the care factor gains ground over the accountability excuse, we're in trouble. I'm always hopin' for the best, like you are, but I have to admit occasional despair...
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