Preparing to Answer Why

We, as student-teachers, are continually preparing to answer the question, "why are we reading this book?" While the question appears straight forward enough, I do not suspect that we will be checking back to our EDUC 498 notebooks for the answer when the time comes for it to be asked of us; nor, as we might be tempted to presume, will the answer be found in Gallagher or Appleman. No, like usual, it seems that instead of learning something straightforward or pragmatic, we are learning the only thing one seems ever to learn in the humanities, i.e. that we will need to keep learning.

Gallagher hints as much with a slight reformulation of the question that might typically inform our response to the why-are-we-reading-this question. He suggests that instead of teachers asking themselves "Why am I teaching this book?" they should instead be asking, "What do I want my students to take from this book?" (154). This subtle change requires educators to pursue a pedagogy informed by its goal instead of its means. In a grade 9 English class I've overheard two teachers comment on their material saying, ". . . well it's not the best piece of literature, but it's in the curriculum." In contrast, an enthusiastic intern began teaching last Wednesday on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven," hoping to ignite the students' passions for literature based on aesthetic value alone. They didn't get it. While it is good to appreciate a work of literature for itself (these things do have value on their own), we must be well versed in its practical value for our students as well. I'm not advocating merely for the pragmatic value of literature via reader-response but for its role in the development of the kind of social and cognitive competencies that are most coveted in the job world (for more on that, check out a short article by one of my former professors). If we are to adequately understand the goal of our teaching so that we can explain to students why read it, we need to keep learning for two reasons: 1) we will be choosing new texts, each of which has a value all its own, waiting to be discovered, and 2) we will be applying these texts to a new body of students under new circumstances in each and every semester. If we really believe that the study of literature, or of the humanities in general for that matter, has both practical and aesthetic value for our students, we will be all the more eager to seek out wherein that treasure lies. Even teaching the same text over and over requires life-long learning, reading deeper, and deeper still as our world, our students, and our identities continue to change. 

Claude Lefebvre - A Teacher and His Pupil