Teaching and fraud
Jul. 9th, 2003 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
featherynscaleI've started teaching classes at Gaia Community, along with Caroline. We run a class one week, and a meditation/trance experience the next. Thus far we've had one of each, which seem to have gone fairly well. All of these are part of a program in pagan religious education, sort of a pagan sunday school for grown-ups.
We're teaching a sort of generalized-pagan curriculum - mythology, psychology, ritual technique, etc., trying to give people a vocabulary of paganism(s). I find that even a lot of the people who have been pagan for years don't have much knowledge of the gods themselves -for example, I told the story of Math, Gwydion and Arianrhod to the first class, none of whom had ever heard it before.
Although I have never had any problems talking to people about things I know or sharing knowledge, now that I am in the position of "teacher", I feel odd, like I'm just sort of pretending to be a teacher, and don't have the knowledge and whatnot that I need to actually have earned that role. I feel like a fraud, basically.
I know objectively that I am able to tell people things they did not know, explain things in a way that they will understand, and make them think about things they have not previously considered. These are the functions I associate with teaching, and I can do them. I just feel like the things I know and can share might not be worth all the formalities of having a class about. I wonder if other people who teach things feel the same way, like whatever they have to teach might just as well be learned in the library, or by observation.
We're teaching a sort of generalized-pagan curriculum - mythology, psychology, ritual technique, etc., trying to give people a vocabulary of paganism(s). I find that even a lot of the people who have been pagan for years don't have much knowledge of the gods themselves -for example, I told the story of Math, Gwydion and Arianrhod to the first class, none of whom had ever heard it before.
Although I have never had any problems talking to people about things I know or sharing knowledge, now that I am in the position of "teacher", I feel odd, like I'm just sort of pretending to be a teacher, and don't have the knowledge and whatnot that I need to actually have earned that role. I feel like a fraud, basically.
I know objectively that I am able to tell people things they did not know, explain things in a way that they will understand, and make them think about things they have not previously considered. These are the functions I associate with teaching, and I can do them. I just feel like the things I know and can share might not be worth all the formalities of having a class about. I wonder if other people who teach things feel the same way, like whatever they have to teach might just as well be learned in the library, or by observation.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-07-09 03:35 pm (UTC)Why do I not feel right saying I am a teacher? Because teacher is a title, a career. Like fireman, doctor, carpenter, hobo, or mime.
I prefer to say that I teach classes. Much as I dabble in building shit with 2x4s but I am not a carpenter. Some may call me a teacher, but I shun that title. Much like I might do things with the church, but shun the title of spiritual or 'pagan'. Both imply a devotion to something, I just simply help when asked.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-09 04:01 pm (UTC)Do that, and you are not in any way a fraud. To be a fraud would be to teach an untruth, because you didn't know the truth.
D.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-09 09:28 pm (UTC)we are all teachers in certain ways and form.
the jewish say that mother is the first teacher.
i think that everyone can be and is a teacher in some way and form.
even the lowly hobo on the street can teach you that you do not want to be like them.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-09 09:55 pm (UTC)But to assume the title of 'teacher' feels odd. Indeed, when you teach, you are the teacher of that class, but are you 'a' teacher?
Academia corrupts many things. Someone who got the four year degree and the shitty paying thankless job with no great future and now, no garuntee of security... THEY get the title of teacher.
One can be the 'programmer' of their personal website by adding javascript, etc. But does that give one the title of programmer? Not really. Therein lies the difference. ;-)