Random Thoughts IV: The Passion of Teaching

Let’s Do the Hokey Pokey!

A few years back, George Will wrote that what we choose to believe, how we dream to live, how we strive to make those ideals become reality, we make self-validating. In that spirit, I’m going to talk about one of my self-evident truths, which I choose to believe, how I dream to live, how I strive to make it and other allied self-evident truths my reality.

In academia, there is something that is often so deadening that it sucks the life out of teaching and learning, something so often depressing that it reduces focus to information gathering and transmission and exiles people to unnoticed corners, something so bland that it is devoid of emotional intensity, something so stagnating that it doesn’t stir the imaginative and creative juices. That something is passion. Now, I am not talking about being passionate about or dedicated to one’s discipline or to the practice of research and publication. I am talking about being passionate about teaching and being dedicated to each student’s learning. So, here is my take on the importance of passion in education, on what I call “hokey pokey teaching.” And, it starts like this:
 
You put your whole self in;
you put your whole self out;
you put your whole self in;
and you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey-Pokey,
And you turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about!
 
Now that is passion! If you have ever danced the Hokey Pokey you know what I mean. It’s really an exciting experience. And, Hokey Pokey teaching! That’s what it’s all about! (From the Publisher)