Faculty Reflections
As educators, we recognize that young people inhabit a wonderful world that teems with knowledge they do not yet possess and concepts they are not yet acquainted with. Therefore, we adults have an immediate opportunity. We can draw students’ attention to these mysteries, with conviction and enthusiasm, and leverage our experience to enlighten them. Such a role as this is surely a privilege. However, we must accept that our time with them is limited. Our tenure over them will expire, and then what? We should not opt to leave children full-minded, yet empty-handed, when they graduate.
Therefore, while we equip them with instruction, we should also apprentice them in the craft of scholarship. Each child is endowed with their own toolkit for understanding - their mind and its faculties. If we train them to comprehend, to analyze and probe, and then to reflect and ponder, we are acquainting them with how versatile these mental resources are. A child who has been equipped to grasp truth has the means to venture into what remains to be known. Laying this groundwork and honing these skills are instrumental stages in breeding liberal minds. But could a mind at this juncture yet be considered “liberated”? No, not yet.
The final elements in this development are the most humane ones. A student who has learned facts and ideas, and who knows how to find out more, but who does not wish to know more, is not yet a student “proper”. Thus, we cannot consider our work well-done unless we envision our students to be inquirers, and embolden them for such a calling. If the world really is wonderful, then we must teach kids to wonder. By cultivating their curiosity, we fuel their young minds for the independent study they must be prepared to do once they exit our doors for the last time. The envisioned pupil is one who possesses an appetite for insight, and who perceives the nourishment available to them in the unknown.
What of the emboldened pupil? This is the one who perceives these same unknowns with diligence rather than indifference, and with intrigue rather than shame. Students are intrinsic works-in-progress; they should embrace room for growth in their very identity. For the learner, the conscious moment of, “I don’t know” can be viewed primarily as a cue to receive new insight. “I’m not sure” means mental sharpening is afoot, and “I already know this” then leads to the next frontier. Now since we do find joy in apprehension, we should recognize that this mental posture does require patience and humility. Our neighbor may arrive before we do, and our own ideas cannot be refined without at least some time in the forge’s flame. I think that in order to temper a student in this way, we teachers should embody the rigor of the Western mind with the cheery meekness of the East - celebrating our attainments, and rejoicing when we find our current limits as they present us with our next potential discovery.
Sam Scholl - Middle School Humanities Teacher