A good teacher is like Napoleon
Liz Whitt
When asked to find a metaphor to describe my teaching philosophie,
Of course a long list of important French figures came to mind, but who… oh just who would the best one be?
I could have chosen, Guallume le conquérant, Charlemagne, Jeanne d’arc, Clovis, Louis XIV, or Vercingétorix
But you see I had a major issue with the fact that nothing rhymes with quatorze… or Vercingétorix.
A little more pondering finally brought me to a pretty satisfying conclusion
I’ve decided that a good teacher should be a little something like l’empereur Napoléon!
I can tell you’re all thinking, Liz you’re insane, Napoléon was a frickin’ dictateur!
And while that may be true,
I must reassure you,
That he was not nearly as bad as M. Hitler.
I need to talk to you about my teaching philosophy, so I’ll try not to get the readings too blurred,
Just to warn you things could get a little existential, just stop me before I reach the absurd.
I firmly believe that the very first week a teacher must usurp control.
When the students are wild,
And quite easily riled
The teacher must have la parole!
Once the teacher becomes the emperor or empress
Self elected…
Hey, even somewhat respected…
He/she will be able to cultivate and mold young minds with the possibility of success.
In our classrooms we plan to teach what we know, be it l’histoire, la musique, les maths, ou le français
But we must also teach students to discover who they are, and that in fact who they are is ok.
Often joining the “real world” feels like invading the frozen tundra of la Russie
No matter what they intend,
It’s a big fat dead end
It’s going to suck to a certain degree.
We must teach through example how to pick ourselves up when we fall
If our students resign themselves to Elba we’ve taught them nothing at all!
Finally, it needs to be said:
I believe it is true
We all face Waterloo
The question is what will you do
Who will you develop into?
Which values do you wish to embed?
So am I traditional, modern, postmodern, contemporary, analytic, other… or none
I could make myself sick
Just trying to pick
I should probably take the best parts from each one.
