Teaching as mountaineering

     Just recently a committee meeting at the University of Colora was interrupted by the spectacle of a young man 1scaling the wall of the library just outside the window. Discussion of new interdisciplinary courses 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 impulse to rush out and catch him being 3checked by the realization of futility.

The incident reinforced my sense that mountaineering serves 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.

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 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 solid 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 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.

The analogy to teaching seems 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 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 are not fully applicable to teaching. It is not a simple matter, for those faulty analogies create misunderstandings about the professor’s role, not only in the 12lay public, but in the professoriate itself. These wrong analogies have contributed to growing 13demoralization within the profession, and have confused the difficult issue of proper evaluation.

The 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 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.

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 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 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.

If the poor country curate has 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 things. Since they cannot understand him anyway, the curator has no 22compunction about sprinkling his presentation with Latin and Greek and with English so 23esoteric as to: 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 practices and language, best left behind its own inaccessible walls. Indeed, colleagues of the connoisseur measure his success by the 25paucity of devotees allowed in to the society through this 26winnowing process.

The teacher as actor also 27plays to a passive audience, but he measures success by larger numbers. A certain 28aura of the magician clings to him as he lures spectators into witnessing his academic sleight-of-hand without their ever really 29getting in on the trick. A certain 30tinge of the stand-up comedian colors the performance as the actor plays to the audience 31to register laughs big enough to drown out the lecturer 32droning on next door.

A 33bastardized version of the actor is that figure now thought so apt 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 takes the product to the people, wherever they are, and 34tailors the pitch to their pockets. While all of these analogies create a certain level of despair in the professoriate either struggling to pattern themselves 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.

The researcher 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 beyond his clouded trifocals. His measure of success is his students’ capacity to 39regurgitate factual data.

None 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 teaching 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 one’s whole being is caught up in it. None acknowledges the 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 ne’er hung there.

Mountaineering furnishes the needed analogy. The Swiss mountain guide, like the true teacher, has a quiet authority about his very person. He or she 41engenderstrust 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 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 possibility. The very 43precariousnessof the situation necessitates keen focus and rapt attention; slackness, misjudgment, or laziness I can bring doom.

The teacher as mountaineer learns, as E. M. Forster urged, to connect. The guide rope links mountaineers together so that they may assist each other in 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, joining the material of the course with the lives of the students, where possible, and with the wider national life beyond the classroom where 45pertinent.

Teaching as mountaineering does not encourage the 46yellowed lecture note  syndrome. Indeed, the analogy does not really encourage lecturing at all. 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 48sustained effort does the student approach the mastery 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 performer, not a pleader, but a confident, 49exuberant guide on expeditions of shared responsibility.

To encourage and further such mountain-top experiences the society must recognize teaching 50for 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.