The business of a teacher is to teach

The business of a college teacher is to teach. If that is not accomplished his assignment goes by default. The writing of articles and books is indeed commendable since it should provide both inspiration and substance for his teaching. But if writing gets in the way of teaching the value of the work of the teacher tends to disappear. Addresses; commencement, convention, and the like, are a worthy commodity for a teacher only when they serve to whet his understanding and wit against the understanding and wit of his hearers and so to add a keener wit and understanding to his teaching. Teaching and not speaking is, however, his major duty and opportunity. The activity of teaching is at once exceedingly subtle and complex and of the crystalline simplicity of the parables. What should a teacher teach? Naturally, the courses which he and his superiors in administration agree upon, and which, by reason of that agreement, are published with contractual implications in the school's programme or catalogue. The subject matter of those courses, whether in current use or as yet undiscovered, in whatever directions it may logically extend, is his and to it his titles are clear. But he hasn't titles to any other. He must not, like a lawless steer, go rampaging in all the outlying pastures. If he is assigned to the pasture of mathematics he doesn't belong in the pasture of geography, either scientific or conversational. If he belongs in mathematics that is precisely where he belongs, and during class periods nowhere else. And that is ample area! During class periods he should infuse mathematics with vitality and newness. His teaching should be more, much more, than the uninspired repetition of phrases and formulae whch unimaginative teachers of mathematics have caused to harden into cant. Last year's thinking is never enough for this year's students. Fresh students -and they come fresh with each succeeding year-must be matched by a teacher whose mathematical content grows fresher and fresher as the years pass. Undoubtedly Euclid, Pythagoras, and Descartes are due the favor of scholarly men of all time, but mathematics would die if discovery ceased with them. The teacher of mathematics may perhaps not make major discoveries himself, but he must know when and where others have crossed new frontiers, and of those crossings his students must not remain ignorant. He must realize, too, that he hasn't drained Euclid and Pythagoras and Descartes dry, and that they are

Business education · Higher education · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Education, Leadership, and Health Research · Educational Challenges and Innovations · Psychology