I have a very similar sense of how teaching is situated as labor/activity with the only slight difference being that I think of it as a "practice," which I define as the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and habits of mind of a practitioner. (I refer to writing as a practice as well, and really, it's a lens that can be applied to any labor/activity.)
As you illustrate here, I think one of the key parts of a practice/craft is the necessity of experience as a way to practice the practice. There's really no substitute for it.
John--thank you! This means a lot to me, as I admire your work. I agree that the lens of a 'practice' is similar to that of 'craft,' and a tremendously helpful way to view the profession. This dovetails a bit with @Ryan Bromley's 'garden' metaphor and @Guy Craig's reference to Aristotle's 'Great Cooperative Arts.' You've all given me further ways to complicate and enrich my viewpoint!
I appreciate your insightful reflections. I agree, not a science, not an art, not a business; although, there are elements of each of these in teaching.
I'm still a fan of 'gardener', as per Fröbel's kindergarten. I think it best describes the care and nurturing of life (although, I am quite far removed from Fröbel's model). However, I do feel that one must love gardening to fully relate to the richness of the metaphor.
Ryan--thank you! I thought of 'gardener' and 'gardening' a few times while writing this post--and think of the metaphor often in all of my work. 'Planting seeds' is my favorite thing to do in life, and the work of pruning and caretaking, while difficult, always gives satisfaction. Appreciate the read, as usual!
Heart and head in excellent place with this one. It feels summative of a set of ideas you've been pondering for half a lifetime - while also feeling generous in spirit, and part of an ongoing conversation. Will be restocking with gusto 🤌
Thought-provoking piece - as a craftsman (B2B copywriter) for my day job, I appreciate the notion that craftspeople deserve more respect in our culture (worship me!), and that middle managers can sometimes complicate projects with unhelpful information due to their lesser knowledge of the nuances of craft.
A belated thank you for this post. I not only loved it, but it made me think and rethink. And it inspired me to write a whole post about it. I have a lot on my reading list, but I will find some room to check out your book. Seems like a good summer read for a teacher....Thanks. And check out what I wrote: https://laurenbrownoned.substack.com/p/teaching-as-_____-art-science-business
This was very affirming. Thank you for taking the time to write this. I will be sharing with educators I know. We need this (at this time of the academic year).
I’m a bit late to the party, but I want to share how much I love this piece. You’ve hit on something that I’ve felt, but couldn’t put into words. In my career, I’ve traveled through all of these labels, and now that I’m 23 years in, I’m looking for a better label. Words matter. I love the metaphor of a craftsman! I’ll be thinking about this piece for a while.
Adrian! I’d meant to get back to this sooner! I can only plead that it’s the end of the year! Any ‘teacher’ party I throw, I’m glad to see you show up at—thank you!
Great post. Love the take about teaching being a craft. Foremost, I can't agree more that K-12 public education cannot and should not be a business. Too much of our world, at least in the US, has become too much about business. The most fundamental goal of a business is to make money. If public education's goal is to make money, what does that make students? Widgets? Cases for billable hours? Scary to think about the sweat equity that goes into teaching and learning being reduced to assets and liabilities.
I was grateful for the added perspective on teaching as an art. I always leaned more toward that in the binary debate referenced. I hadn't thought about the performative aspects, which take away from learning and detract from the genuine efforts of good teachers. My best teachers always seemed to have that balance of preparation and ability to react in the classroom, like a great athlete on the field, where I saw a particular move and could tell when experience and instinct took over. It was like watching an artist at work. I wasn't aware of that until high school and college. My folks were teachers, and I still naively hold onto the romantic idea of a teacher's impact in a child's life, a la Professor McGonagle or John Keating, so thinking of them as artists is tricky for me to shake. I am glad to be thinking about this in a different light now.
A teacher as a craftsperson sounds right. I couldn't argue the accuracy. And I do like the idea of some inherent boundaries being created for teachers, for the benefit of all. Building a house takes a long time if the layperson watches over every nail and board that goes up. Nobody calls a chef to fix their clogged toilet. Far too much parenting, feeding, and raising children has been dumped on and/or assumed by schools. If we honored teaching more as a craft and simply gave educators time and space to do what they're trained to do, I suspect we'd see far better returns on the investments made by teachers and students. Some might even call that smart business.
Interesting! Doing science is of course itself not an (exact) science, and it occurs to me that one of the differences between teaching and crafts I am more familiar with (science and software engineering) is that the latter fields have much more prolonged and flexible mentorship/apprenticeship periods. A PhD student spends half a decade or more under the advice of a PI but also at the day to day level in the lab with more senior PhD students and post-docs, receiving scaffolding that is not considered to be "done" after a certain number of hours. A new post-doc will similarly be assisted by more senior post-docs, and a new professor by more established professors. Software engineering similarly has an understanding that the amount of scaffolding needed is specific to the project and people involved. None of which is perfect or always as supportive as this makes it sound, and figuring out how much you can take advantage of this without annoying the busy more experienced people is a challenge, but there is no point at which conducting ones experiments alone or tracking down bugs without assistance is considered necessary. Our experiments don't (generally) distract each other, so we're free to continue to help each other not just by discussing what happened after the fact but also in the moment, throughout our careers.
Wonderful, reflective piece.
I have a very similar sense of how teaching is situated as labor/activity with the only slight difference being that I think of it as a "practice," which I define as the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and habits of mind of a practitioner. (I refer to writing as a practice as well, and really, it's a lens that can be applied to any labor/activity.)
As you illustrate here, I think one of the key parts of a practice/craft is the necessity of experience as a way to practice the practice. There's really no substitute for it.
John--thank you! This means a lot to me, as I admire your work. I agree that the lens of a 'practice' is similar to that of 'craft,' and a tremendously helpful way to view the profession. This dovetails a bit with @Ryan Bromley's 'garden' metaphor and @Guy Craig's reference to Aristotle's 'Great Cooperative Arts.' You've all given me further ways to complicate and enrich my viewpoint!
I appreciate your insightful reflections. I agree, not a science, not an art, not a business; although, there are elements of each of these in teaching.
I'm still a fan of 'gardener', as per Fröbel's kindergarten. I think it best describes the care and nurturing of life (although, I am quite far removed from Fröbel's model). However, I do feel that one must love gardening to fully relate to the richness of the metaphor.
Ryan--thank you! I thought of 'gardener' and 'gardening' a few times while writing this post--and think of the metaphor often in all of my work. 'Planting seeds' is my favorite thing to do in life, and the work of pruning and caretaking, while difficult, always gives satisfaction. Appreciate the read, as usual!
Heart and head in excellent place with this one. It feels summative of a set of ideas you've been pondering for half a lifetime - while also feeling generous in spirit, and part of an ongoing conversation. Will be restocking with gusto 🤌
*restacking
Thought-provoking piece - as a craftsman (B2B copywriter) for my day job, I appreciate the notion that craftspeople deserve more respect in our culture (worship me!), and that middle managers can sometimes complicate projects with unhelpful information due to their lesser knowledge of the nuances of craft.
A belated thank you for this post. I not only loved it, but it made me think and rethink. And it inspired me to write a whole post about it. I have a lot on my reading list, but I will find some room to check out your book. Seems like a good summer read for a teacher....Thanks. And check out what I wrote: https://laurenbrownoned.substack.com/p/teaching-as-_____-art-science-business
This was very affirming. Thank you for taking the time to write this. I will be sharing with educators I know. We need this (at this time of the academic year).
Thank you, Jamie—your comment is appreciated and affirming!
I’m a bit late to the party, but I want to share how much I love this piece. You’ve hit on something that I’ve felt, but couldn’t put into words. In my career, I’ve traveled through all of these labels, and now that I’m 23 years in, I’m looking for a better label. Words matter. I love the metaphor of a craftsman! I’ll be thinking about this piece for a while.
Adrian! I’d meant to get back to this sooner! I can only plead that it’s the end of the year! Any ‘teacher’ party I throw, I’m glad to see you show up at—thank you!
Great post. Love the take about teaching being a craft. Foremost, I can't agree more that K-12 public education cannot and should not be a business. Too much of our world, at least in the US, has become too much about business. The most fundamental goal of a business is to make money. If public education's goal is to make money, what does that make students? Widgets? Cases for billable hours? Scary to think about the sweat equity that goes into teaching and learning being reduced to assets and liabilities.
I was grateful for the added perspective on teaching as an art. I always leaned more toward that in the binary debate referenced. I hadn't thought about the performative aspects, which take away from learning and detract from the genuine efforts of good teachers. My best teachers always seemed to have that balance of preparation and ability to react in the classroom, like a great athlete on the field, where I saw a particular move and could tell when experience and instinct took over. It was like watching an artist at work. I wasn't aware of that until high school and college. My folks were teachers, and I still naively hold onto the romantic idea of a teacher's impact in a child's life, a la Professor McGonagle or John Keating, so thinking of them as artists is tricky for me to shake. I am glad to be thinking about this in a different light now.
A teacher as a craftsperson sounds right. I couldn't argue the accuracy. And I do like the idea of some inherent boundaries being created for teachers, for the benefit of all. Building a house takes a long time if the layperson watches over every nail and board that goes up. Nobody calls a chef to fix their clogged toilet. Far too much parenting, feeding, and raising children has been dumped on and/or assumed by schools. If we honored teaching more as a craft and simply gave educators time and space to do what they're trained to do, I suspect we'd see far better returns on the investments made by teachers and students. Some might even call that smart business.
Interesting! Doing science is of course itself not an (exact) science, and it occurs to me that one of the differences between teaching and crafts I am more familiar with (science and software engineering) is that the latter fields have much more prolonged and flexible mentorship/apprenticeship periods. A PhD student spends half a decade or more under the advice of a PI but also at the day to day level in the lab with more senior PhD students and post-docs, receiving scaffolding that is not considered to be "done" after a certain number of hours. A new post-doc will similarly be assisted by more senior post-docs, and a new professor by more established professors. Software engineering similarly has an understanding that the amount of scaffolding needed is specific to the project and people involved. None of which is perfect or always as supportive as this makes it sound, and figuring out how much you can take advantage of this without annoying the busy more experienced people is a challenge, but there is no point at which conducting ones experiments alone or tracking down bugs without assistance is considered necessary. Our experiments don't (generally) distract each other, so we're free to continue to help each other not just by discussing what happened after the fact but also in the moment, throughout our careers.