TEACHING AS MOUNTAINEERING
[1]Just recently a committee meeting at the University of Colorado was interrupted by the spectacle of a young man 1scaling the wall of the library just outside the window. Discussion of new interdisciplinary cours halted as we silently hoped he had discipline enough to return safely to the earth. Hope was all we could offer 2from our vantage point in Ketchum Hall, the impul to rush out and catch him being 3checked by the realization of futility.
[2]The incident reinforced my n that mountaineering rves as an 4apt analogy for the art of 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.
[3]I remember a mountaineer named Fritz who once led a group up the Jungfrau at the same time a party was climbing the north face of the Eiger. My own mountaineering skill wa
s 6slender, and my enthusiasm would have 什么花代表思念7faltered had I not felt Fritz was capable of hauling not only me but all the rest of us off that mountain. Strong, lf-assured, calm, he radiated that solid authority that encouraged me to tie on to his rope. But I soon realized that my prence 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 tho 9inexplicably opening crevass, I might 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.
[4]The analogy to teaching ems to me apt, and not just for professors who happen to live in Colorado, for the analogy implies an active acceptance of responsibility for one’s own fate, whereas most other analogies to teaching suggest 11passivity. What is needed to restore teachers’ confidence that the profession is significant is a new analogy, a new metaphor (I shy away from the PR word, “image”) that conveys more of the esnc
e of teaching than the worn-out analogies we have known. Most previous analogies are riously inadequate, for while they may describe a part of the teaching activity, they also suggest patterns that are not fully applicable to teaching. It is not a simple matter, for tho faulty analogies create misunderstandings about the professor’s role, not only in the 12如何学好数学初中lay public, but in the professoriate itlf. The wrong analogies have contributed to growing 13demoralization within the profession, and have confud the difficult issue of proper evaluation.
冰冻三尺非一日之寒的意思[5]The most common analogies to the teacher are the preacher, the shepherd, the curator, the actor, the rearcher, and, 14most insidiously, the salesman. None captures the special relationship between teacher and students, a relationship better described by Socrates as a coming together of friends. Rather than emphasizing the mutuality of the endeavor, each of the common analogies 15turns on a paration between the professional and his clients. Each leads to a certain kind of evaluation.
[6]The preacher exhorts, cajoles, pleads with a congregation 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 themlves to his cau, or 18vehemently大英博物馆藏品蝙蝠的种类 to reject it. Somewhat like the preacher is the shepherd多怎么组词 who gathers and watches over a flock clearly inferior to himlf. 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 parating his wisdom from that of his flock.
[7]If the poor country curate has often 20furnished an analogy to the bleating professor, so has the curator of a muum. 21Lips purd so as to distill a pure esnce of hauteur, the curator as connoisur points out the rarities of classical cultures to the uninitiated who can scarcely be expected to appreciate the finer things. Since they cannot understand him anyway, the curator has no 22中国集邮总公司compunction about sprinkling his prentation with Latin and Greek and with English so 23esoteric as to: sound foreign. Chances are high that the professor as connoisur will succeed in convincing most of th
e class that the subject is really the province of a cret society with its own 24arcane practices and language, best left behind its own inaccessible walls. Indeed, colleagues of the connoisur measure his success by the 25paucity of devotees allowed in to the society through this 26winnowing process机械姬.
