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1、TEACHING AS MOUNTAINEERINGTEACHING AS MOUNTAINEERING 1Just recently a committee meeting at the University of Colorado was 1interrupted by the spectacle of a young man scaling the wall of the library just outside the window. Discussion of new interdisciplinary courses halted as we silently hoped he h
2、ad discipline enough to return safely to the earth. Hope was all we could offer 2from our vantage point in Ketchum Hall, the impulse to rush out and catch him being 3checked by the realization of futility. 2The incident reinforced my sense that mountaineering serves as an 4apt analogy for the art of
3、 teaching. The excitement, the risk, the need for 5rigorous discipline all correspond, though the image I have in mind is not that of the solitary adventurer rappelling off a wall, but that of a Swiss guide leading an expedition. 3I remember a mountaineer named Fritz who once led a group up the Jung
4、frau at the same time a party was climbing the north face of the Eiger. My own mountaineering skill was 6slender, and my enthusiasm would have 7faltered had I not felt Fritz was capable of hauling not only me but all the rest of us off that mountain. Strong, self-assured, calm, he radiated that soli
5、d authority that encouraged me to tie on to his rope. But I soon realized that my presence on his line constituted a risk for Fritz. Had I been so 8foolhardy as to try to retrieve my glove which went tumbling off a precipice, or had I slipped into one of those 9inexplicably opening crevasses, I migh
6、t well have pulled the noble Fritz down with me. It was a sobering realization. I, the novice, and he, the expert, were connected by the same lifeline in an experience of mutual interdependence. To give me that top of the world 10exaltation he, too, was taking a risk. 4The analogy to teaching seems
7、to me apt, and not just for professors who happen to live in Colorado, for the analogy implies an active acceptance of responsibility for ones own fate, whereas most other analogies to teaching suggest 11passivity. What is needed to restore teachers confidence that the profession is significant is a
8、 new analogy, a new metaphor (I shy away from the PR word, “image”) that conveys more of the essence of teaching than the worn-out analogies we have known. Most previous analogies are seriously inadequate, for while they may describe a part of the teaching activity, they also suggest patterns that a
9、re not fully applicable to teaching. It is not a simple matter, for those faulty analogies create misunderstandings about the professors role, not only 12in the lay public, but in the professoriate itself. These wrong analogies have contributed to growing 13demoralization within the profession, and
10、have confused the difficult issue of proper evaluation. 5The most common analogies to the teacher are the preacher, the shepherd, the curator, the actor, the researcher, and, 14most insidiously, the salesman. None captures the special relationship between teacher and students, a relationship better
11、described by Socrates as a coming together of friends. Rather than emphasizing the mutuality of the endeavor, each of these common analogies 15turns on a separation between the professional and his clients. Each leads to a certain kind of evaluation. 6The preacher exhorts, cajoles, pleads with a con
12、gregation often so 16benighted as to exist in a state of 17somnolence. He measures his success by the number of souls so stirred as either to commit themselves to his cause, or 18vehemently to reject it. Somewhat like the preacher is the shepherd who gathers and watches over a flock clearly inferior
13、 to himself. The analogy may be apt for the Lord and his 19sub-angelic followers, but it will not do for teacher and students, or, especially, for Socrates and his friends. The Shepherd is likely to be evaluated by the gulf separating his wisdom from that of his flock. 7If the poor country curate ha
14、s often 20furnished an analogy to the bleating professor, so has the curator of a museum. 21Lips pursed so as to distill a pure essence of hauteur, the curator as connoisseur points out the rarities of classical cultures to the uninitiated who can scarcely be expected to appreciate these finer thing
15、s. Since him anyway, the curator has no 22compunctionpresentation with Latin and Greek and with English so sound foreign. Chances are high that the professor as connoisseur will succeed in convincing most of the class that the subject is really the province of a secret society with its own 24arcane
16、best left behind its own inaccessible walls. Indeed, colleagues of the connoisseur measure his success by the 25paucityto the society through this 26winnowing process8The teacher as actor also 27plays to a passive success by larger numbers. A certain 28aura of the magician as he lures spectators int
17、o witnessing his academic sleight-of-hand without their ever really 29getting in on the trick. A certain the stand-up comedian colors the performance as the actor plays to the audience 31to register laughs big enough to drown on next door. 9A 33bastardized version of the actor is that figure now tho
18、ught so an analogy in our consumer-conscious society: the salesman. His predecessors include the snake-oil man and the door-to-door purveyor of anything from brushes to Britannicas. He or she people, wherever they are, and 34tailors the pitch all of these analogies create a certain level of despair
19、in the they cannot understand 23esoteric as to: practices and language, of devotees allowed in . but he measures clings to him 30tinge of the lecturer 32droning apt takes the product to the to their pockets. While about sprinkling his audience, out professoriate either struggling to pattern themselv
20、es in a particular mode or hopelessly realizing they can never achieve it, the salesman analogy has the most 35deleterious effects. No longer adhering even to a prepared script, the salesman shamelessly alters his or her presentation so it will draw the largest number of contented consumers. 10The r
21、esearcher as teacher differs from the previous analogies, and that very distinction is often thought to make him or her a good teacher. 36Taciturn, solitary, he disdains the performing arts and is content merely to 37mutter out an assortment of scatted facts to the young 38only dimly perceived beyon
22、d his clouded trifocals. His measure of success is his students capacity to 39regurgitate factual data. 11None of these analogies comes close enough to the essential magic and majesty of a real learning experience. None even dimly anticipates that 40self-eradicating feature that is built into the te
23、aching process, for those who have truly mastered what their teacher has presented no longer need him or her. None accepts as a necessary ingredient in the learning process, activity, the sense of an intellectual excitement so compelling that ones whole being is caught up in it. None acknowledges th
24、e peril, and the joy, of encountering those mental deeps Hopkins described. the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who neer hung there. 12Mountaineering furnishes the needed analogy. The Swiss mountain guide, like the true teacher, has a q
25、uiet authority about his very person. He or she 41engenders trust and confidence so that one is willing to join the endeavor. The mountaineer accepts his leadership role, yet recognizes that the success of the journey (measured by the scaling of the heights) depends upon close cooperation and active
26、 participation by each number of the group. He has crossed the terrain before and is familiar with the landmarks, but each trip is new, and generates its own anxiety and excitement. Essential skills must be mastered if the trip is to be successful; lacking them, disaster 42looms as an ominous possib
27、ility. The very 43precariousness of the situation necessitates keen focus and rapt attention; slackness, misjudgment, or laziness I can bring doom. 13The teacher as mountaineer learns, as E. M. Forster urged, to connect. The guide rope links mountaineers together so that they may assist each other i
28、n the ascent. The effective teacher does something similar by using the oral and written contributions of the students as instructional materials. The teacher also makes other connections, locating the text in its historical setting, forging inter-and intra-disciplinary links where 44plausible, join
29、ing the material of the course with the lives of the students, where possible, and with the wider national life beyond the classroom where 45pertinent. 14Teaching as mountaineering does not encourage the 46yellowed lecture note syndrome. Indeed, the analogy does not really encourage lecturing at all
30、. If the student as mountaineer is to be challenged, the student must come to each class session ready and prepared to assist in scaling the next peak, ready to test his or her own abilities 47against those of the master teacher. Only by arduous and sustained effort does the student approach the mas
31、tery of the teacher, and only then is the student ready to assume the role of guide-well-trained in the art of mountaineering, able to take controlled risks, ready to lead others to a mountain-top experience. Not a huckster, not a pleader, but a confident, exuberant guide on expeditions of shared re
32、sponsibility. 15To encourage and further such mountain-top experiences the society must recognize teaching for the sublime art it is-not merely an offshoot of research, not merely a performance before a passive audience, but a guided expedition into the most exciting and least understood terrain on earth-the mind itself.
