grosenbaughb@stregis.k12.mt.us (406) 649-2311 ext. 307

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English 12 English 11 English 10 English 9 English 8

Teaching is more than simply transferring an established body of information from teacher to student. The ubiquity of the internet and our ability to immediately access data have obviated such traditional notions of education. A twelve year old with a cell phone can now answer questions that were once the sole purview of university professors. This newfound power leads some to claim that teachers will soon be replaced by technology, that software alone will impart the lessons of tomorrow. I disagree with this notion. To me, teaching is about nurturing a spirit of inquiry. It’s about helping students hone the tools necessary to become critical thinkers and independent, lifelong learners. In my experience, Socratic dialogue offers the most effective way to inculcate these traits.

I believe in the power of argument. I use pointed questions to encourage students to explore a given text and develop their own arguments about a text’s meaning and significance. I expect students to articulate these views in class discussion and stand ready to defend their positions by using evidence from the text. I also expect students to understand that there is rarely a definitively correct answer; literature tends to evade being pinned down by absolutes, and the meaning of a given text or symbol evolves over time. Even a static symbol such as a lighthouse is contingent on the person viewing that lighthouse. Or, as with James in Virginia’s Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, the meaning of a static symbol changes based on a character’s own evolution, so that a symbol of childhood yearning at the outset becomes a symbol of paternal tyranny at the end. No one vision can account for everything. As Lily Briscoe says, you need fifty pairs of eyes to get something that begins to approximate truth.

Yet in this post-truth era, argument has become somewhat tainted. In his famous takedown of CNN’s Crossfire, Jon Stewart cogently points out that having two people with opposing viewpoints yell at each other does nothing to further or elevate the conversation. Instead of Hegelian teleology, in which thesis and antithesis work to further our understanding of Truth, we get entrenched camps slinging arrows and hiding behind their fortifications. What’s missing in this formulation is concession, which is more valuable than the ability to argue. The whole goal of argument is not to win or to prove others wrong; it’s to increase understanding, to add complexity and nuance. Good arguing requires good listening, and good listening allows you to understand another person’s point of view. In this sense, argument leads to empathy, and empathy is crucial to the long term success of our increasingly global and interconnected world.

Empathy also helps teachers connect with their students and become more effective communicators. Understanding individual students has helped me couch arguments and ideas in terms they can grasp. One of my greatest moments as a teacher involved an argument that I had with a student over Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. He was trying to argue that Ellison was verbose, that he was a hack; as evidence he took a passage that was filled with elegant prose and read it with such a dull, insipid monotone that the words lost all beauty. He closed the book. Blah blah blah, he said. I could have responded that Ellison is a titan of English literature, that it was only my student’s ignorance that prevented him from appreciating the scintillating syntactic beauty of that passage. But you cannot bully someone into appreciation. I knew, however, that this student was a guitar player. My response was to pull out my computer and put on Van Halen’s Eruption. He immediately identified the song, which I thought was impressive for a teenager, and he even started playing a little air guitar. My response: I don’t get it. All these notes are just blah, blah, blah. Instead of us having a contentious showdown over the merits of Ellison’s prose, I was able to twist things so that he understood how much more there was for him to understand. The exchange was marked by understanding and respect. That moment made me a better teacher and I think it made him a more willing student.

As an English teacher, my goals are manifold: to instill in my students an appreciation for literature; to spur my students to become active readers; to equip students with the vocabulary to identify and analyze literary techniques; to become educated consumers of media; to craft both oral and written arguments that open new windows into texts; and to analyze evidence with limpid prose that logically advances a clear argument. Laudable goals to be sure. But I also believe that literature helps us better understand the human condition, and with this awareness we become more responsible global citizens.