why i am not a teacher

8/3/2019 Why I Am Not a Teacher

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Why I Am Not A Teacher

By Noelle Leslie dela Cruz

Good evening, colleagues, friends, and students. Its my pleasure to share with you tonight my

so-called philosophy of teaching philosophy. Bear with me because I felt it necessary to prepare

something to read, not only because it has become a quaint and lost art, but also because I do my

thinking best when I am writing. At the outset, I would like to thank my friend and feminist

mentor (as I like to call her), Natty Manauat, who made this gathering of philosophy teachers

possible. I would also like to thank my good friends whose enthusiasm and generosity with their

time are evident from their presence tonight. Finally, I would like to thank the philosophy majors

especially those Ive had the pleasure to teachbecause I am not exaggerating when I say that they

are the best batch Ive ever handled.

What do we mean by the word teaching? In its strict, technical sense, it means being

employed by an educational institution primarily to give instruction, i.e. to convey knowledge or

ideas. I dont suppose this is the definition we have in mind, because if it were so, we dont really

have much to talk about tonight. I am sure that the sense of teaching we are interested in is

somehow related to a calling, a famous model for which is Platos view of it as being a midwife of

truth. (The soul, according to Plato, already has prior knowledge of the Forms, something it has

forgotten when it was born into the World of the Senses. The teacher does not really say anything

new, so much as he or she helps the student remember the souls original knowledge.) Theassociation between femininity and being a midwife is striking. The educator, I believe, fulfils a

feminine role as well: that of the mother. Between mother and father, it is usually the mother who

is the first teacher. The teachers role is not only intellectual, but more importantly, manual. It

involves intensive guiding and mentoring, which are not merely cognitive processes but arduous

emotional and spiritual work. So much is taught that is beyond the facts and issues transmitted

inside a classroom: In fact, the most important things are conveyed and learned outside its walls. It

is for this reason that the effective teacher prioritizes not her own research interests or writing, but

the education of others. The mere fact that her work is other-oriented means that it is already one

of the highest forms of service, perhaps second only to parenthood.

Now if we are to define teaching in this way, many professors employed by educationalinstitutions would not really be teachers. Nor would some of the most well-known philosophers

necessarily be the best teachers. In fact, they were some of the worst. (I have in mind, for

example, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein). One of my former colleagues had once insisted on the

distinction between philosopherand philosophy teacher: He said that one was not necessarily the same

as the other, implying that the first was somehow more elevated or important than the latter. To

this I would disagree. I believe that teaching is an art and skill which itself cannot be taught, which


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nonetheless can be cultivated, proficiency in which is often a matter of temperament, and which is

certainly no less important than the work of the philosopher. However, it is clear that being an

excellent teacher and an excellent philosopher constitutes something of a dilemma. It seems to me

that given the materials of the mind and the varied demands on ones time, one ends up

prioritizingin fact, even choosingone over the other.

At this point, I hope my audience is starting to see why I have entitled this short piece Why I

Am Not a Teacher, at least in the sense that I just outlined. This does not necessarily mean that I

am a philosopher. Literally, I am an associate professor of philosophy at De La Salle University.

But am I a teacher? I think of myself primarily as a writer and a researcher. As a matter of fact, I

hadnt planned to be a teacher. Ten years ago when I was looking for a job in the mass media,

sending my rsum to newspapers and magazines, I got a call from Ms. Manauat, my former thesis

adviser. As someone who had written her undergraduate thesis on feminism, I was one of the

handful of people she could think of who could handle a then-new course called gender studies.

When I joined the Philosophy Department, I was advised to go to graduate school, as the job

required a graduate degree. Ten years later, here I am.

Perhaps teaching is something I do that is incidental to my true calling. For any artist, writer,

or even philosopher, surely the experience of creating the master workwhile it may be an end in

itselfmay be enhanced or completed by sharing oneself. So even though I cant say that teaching

is what I do best, some of my most fulfilling experiences occurred in the context of my profession.

It gives me so much joy to share with others the books that I love, the thinkers I admire, the issues

Im pondering. It is no secret that I can get quite emotional in defense of the existentialists. When

I first read Walden by Henry David Thoreau, I knew I just had to form a Great Works triad and

design a course around it. Since high school, Ive been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock

Holmes, and it delights me to be able to introduce my students to these stories in the course of our

discussion on logic and critical thinking. As a matter of fact, in my Introduction to Philosophyclasses, we just finished watching the first episode ofSherlock, the BBC series which is a

modernized version of the 19th-century classic texts. Some of my students have become fans of the

bromance between Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch (an effect I did not intend). And

dont get me started on the occasions when I got to discuss poetry in class.

I guess my philosophy of teaching can be summed up by Joseph Campbells famous statement,

Follow your bliss. I think that if you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, in accordance

with the natural energies of your so-called daemon, and somehow your work or profession is based

on that, then everything else follows: Satisfaction, success, and who knows, maybe even fame. I

didnt set out to be a teacher. I just decided to give of myself in the name of what I love. In our

discipline, one need not be particularly extraverted, good-looking, or even bookish. All you need isto love philosophy.

Now that I have explained why I am not a teacher, I would like to take this rare opportunity to

expound on a couple of perhaps unpopular sentiments which I strongly believe in.


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One is, Its okay to playfavorites. In fact, I do it all the time. I pick which students are worth

my time, and frankly cant care less about those who similarly cant care less about the subject. My

energy is limited, and I hope I sound less arrogant than matter-of-fact when I say that being in my

classroom is a privilege, not a right. I am paid to instruct, but not to teach in the special sense I

have outlined here. I can do the minimum that is required of me, and sadly, that is what people

who are satisfied with mediocrity are content to be doing, which is all very well for them. I believethe teacher-student relationship is a soul mate relationship; in fact, it is one of the five primary

relationships identified by Confucius. Just as one cannot love everybody, so cant one be loved by

everybody. I believe in concentrating my energies on the worthy. Teaching, after all, is not

proselytizing. I dont think you could or should convert a resistant or indifferent person into a

lover of wisdom. My theory is that if you can get them interested, theyre already interested in the

first place. In this sense, and it is a point on which a colleague of mine and I constantly disagree,

one cant really teach anything. Teaching is not a mission. You dont set out there to convince

anybody of a cause. Like-minded souls naturally find each other. In short, I teach some people.

The rest, I instruct.

The other somewhat unpopular sentiment Id like to mention is the rather traditionalist view

that the subject-matter-centered approach is superior to the so-called student-oriented, sometimescalled constructivist, paradigm, at least given the context of Lasallian culture. Emerson said it best:

First we read, then we write. It would not be a facile generalization to say that so much of what

passes for education nowadays assumes that ones audience has a limited attention span. So

teaching becomes a kind of performance, drawing on appearance more than substance. Given our

trimestral culture and the new media that are available, the traditional classroom discussion is

supplanted by a sound bite or a video clip. Lectures have become unpopular. Hardly anybody reads

anymore, much less writes. The extemporaneous spiel takes the place of the well-thought-out

argument. Unless we take our time with the subject matter, taking advantage of the infrastructures

of expertise that are in place for a reason, we are on our way to encouraging a generation of

illiterates. Or at very least, the 21

st

-century version of the Sophists.

With this, I end my speech. Thank you for listening!

/Essay read for Prof. Natividad Manauats practicum class, 2 Feb. 2012, Yuchengco 508, De La Salle University

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