What is a Teacher?
- by Gerald Grow
Available: <http://www.longleaf.net>
To a mind of flint, the teacher must be iron, and strike sparks. To the empty pitcher, the teacher becomes a well. To the fallow mind, a planter of seeds. To the cluttered mind, a gardener to weed, shape, and clear a space for growing.
To the lens, the teacher is light, and to the mind of light, a lens.
To the sleeper, the teacher is the wake-up call of birds at sunrise. To clay, the teacher is potter, sculptor, and trainer in self-shaping. To the wanderer, the teacher is a knowing guide. To the developed mind, the teacher is colleague, listener, friend.
To all, the teacher is a mirror that shows not only the self but the path and its choices, the task and its demands–the difficulties, the joys. To all and from all, the teacher is a learner, a person–and a prism through which the ordinary reveals itself to be miraculous.
© 1997. May be freely reprinted for nonprofit uses, provided credit is given.
If you like this, you might like “Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed.”