# What is your 'teaching' role?



## Teach on Ladders (7 mo ago)

_*“We are like actors who forget that they are playing a role. We become trapped in the theatre of our thoughts.*_ _*This is when thought starts to become incoherent. Reality may change but the theatre continues. 
We operate in the theatre, defining problems, taking actions, solving problems, losing touch with the larger reality from which the theatre was generated.”
Page 241 The Fifth Discipline by Peter M Senge*_

For the teacher, the classroom is the stage. We teach, we learn, and we encourage. We act, we demonstrate, we laugh and cry according to the improvisation needed in the 'scene' in the classroom. We demonstrate anger for behaviour when we have to, although we have no anger inside us. We show sadness when we hear about a pet that passed away, but we have no emotions about the animal one way or the other. It is all an act. But occasionally we become so fixed on the actors in the room that we forget that the classroom is the stage and therefore we lack the greater reality for which we were placed in the role. 

We are not there to create successful students, we are there to create successful citizens, humans, and contributors to society. Teachers often get sidetracked into their own importance, in their own professional standards of professional excellence, and forget the future trades, apprentices, graduates, entrepreneurs, and factory workers that are in the room. We look at failure in the classroom as failure in life. We forget that we are as far from real life as possible. 

Students at school can receive encouragement, grades, second attempts, and air-conditioned rooms. The world they are working in can be vastly different. Allow students the chance to learn and grow, but don’t take yourself too seriously. We are actors on a stage without realising the stage has limits in length and depth. Yet the students are transitioning to a world stage of no length, and the only depth they have is what they create in themselves. We expect children to ‘play the role’ of students in the classroom, but we forget that we are actually playing the minor role of the teacher in the episodic mis-adventure of their lives. We surround the students with props that we have used, created, or provided without realising that they have to develop, create or find their own ‘props’ in their lives. 
Worst of all we think there is a script they need to follow. There is no script. Your interactions with them have no bearing on the real world. Their interactions with you can make you feel like a great/poor teacher, but actually, you will never really know. The script has plots, stories, complications, resolutions, and consequences. But life is a script that students need to create for themselves. The classroom is the theatre in which ideas and thinking can be explored in isolation and with a safety net in preparation for the day that they will emerge into the spotlight of the first day of their lives with no script, plot, or props, and the only character they have will be the part they have been practising at school. 

Be proficient in your preparations, be respectful of your relationships, and demonstrate ethics in your desire to create higher learning. Act responsibly, act professionally, and act with integrity. Just don't 'act' like a teacher.

The book *The Fifth Discipline* is a fantastic read for teachers as it explores many concepts relating to systems, structures, and success.

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. *New Yorkoubleday/Currency, 1990*. 

www.teachonladders.com


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