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For more than 15 years, I have taught high school in both Canada and the United States. I realize now, though, that I have learned far more from my students than I have ever taught them.
There is a lot of talk these days about how teachers are no longer the repositories of knowledge and that, because of the Internet, students have access to all the information they could need. Teachers know that is only partly true: Students can indeed find almost anything they want to know, but they don't necessarily want to know it. Or they don't understand how to weave what they encounter into coherence. They don't yet have the critical-thinking skills to separate the madness from the meaning, or to place what they discover into larger contexts. Without teachers, they might not even be inspired to head out on the quest in the first place.
Yet, at the same time, students are now autodidacts in a way that was not possible in any other era in history. Now, any 15-year-old can watch videos about the Higgs boson and its place in particle physics, or teach themselves to play the ukulele with a YouTube tutorial.
People who only know teenagers from watching them as a noisy aggregate at the local mall are quick to say, "Oh sure, as if kids are really going to sit around in their spare time reading about calculus and politics online."
But I am here to report to you from the front lines: They absolutely do.
The inquisitive aspect of human nature is a powerful thing. The same inherent curiosity that encourages people to explore the galaxy and map the human genome drives the average teenager to do "research." (Shhh, don't tell them because they don't know that's what they're doing.)
Traditionally, what we called research was the exercise of following a trail of breadcrumbs down a path of intellectual inquiry. Now, kids simply wander through the labyrinth of the Internet, clicking on videos and articles, fascinated and absorbed, learning as they go.
I know this because I am the beneficiary of their extracurricular "work."
They leave my classroom, and soon my inbox is full of TED technology talks that relate to Brave New World; examples of advertisements that mirror themes we’ve been discussing in Nineteen Eighty-Four; or obscure letters written by an author we are studying.
My own arsenal of material has been greatly enhanced by the things they send, or which they joyously bring to class to show me.
The best part is that this continues years after they have graduated. They still recommend films and plays, or send me links to articles and videos – many of which I end up using in class, always thrilled to report that this came to me via a former student.
I love to continue feeding that cycle of mutual learning, and to tell my current students that they, too, should be my teachers.
I’ve learned from my students in countless other ways, too. Their bold spirits have sent them to all the continents of the world, for school and work. Carried on the wings of their stories, I have “travelled” with them. I’ve awoken in the morning to a picture sent from the summit of a volcano in Bali, and been regaled over coffee about African adventures. I’ve vicariously attended math lectures at Ivy League schools. I’ve learned business-school case studies that captivated me despite being so far outside my own discipline – or maybe because they are beyond the scope of what I thought I would ever know.
As my students sit patiently and passionately explaining these concepts to me, I am proud to see what good “teachers” they have become in their own right.
Others have sent me their poetry, their music, their business ideas and their short films. With each gift, something in me expands and soars.
I have gone to the funerals of students’ parents and marvelled at how they coped. I’ve attended their weddings and been moved by how deeply they have learned to love. Through their triumphs and tragedies, my own experience has been vastly enlarged.
In the course of one’s career, it is not only rare to encounter as many people as teachers do – literally thousands of individuals – but also to do so in such a way that the lives of others truly become part of your own.
Year after year, my students allow me into their worlds, and I can never adequately express my gratitude for the gift of a life so richly lived because it is intertwined with all of theirs.
When I see former students, at some point they always ask: So, what’s new with you?
Oh, not much, I usually say with a shrug and a smile.
But of course that’s not true at all. I am endlessly changed with each passing year – because of them. My students, my teachers.
Suzanne Socken lives in Toronto.