On Teaching: A Light in the Classroom

I was thinking this morning that a good teacher is like a light in the classroom. What’s interesting about this analogy is that a light, in a sense, doesn’t have to do any work. It simply shines in a quiet, unvarying manner. When you enter a class room filled with light, you don’t get the sense that the light is laboring to make the room bright. No, it just glows in its unassuming manner, and in doing so, enables the students to both see and be seen. And isn’t that what teaching is all about? Isn’t a teacher’s job, really, to make it easier for his students to see – to clearly perceive what’s true, what’s important, what’s necessary, and how things should be done? Students, in a way, are like people living in a darkness which the light of the teacher slowly dispels. A teacher’s light, though, can also perform another wonderful task: it can bring out the beauty of the students. Just as a good light can reveal the colors in a sweater or a shirt, so the light of a good teacher uncovers the subtle radiance of his students. The teacher doesn’t have to rush about and make the students lives beautiful; they already are. The teacher simply has to keep shining quietly and steadily so that the loveliness of his students will be ever more clearly seen.