What is a Teacher?

Sometimes you teach without title
This is still teaching

Labels are useful so that we may point at a thing and say to someone else, “that there, that is what I mean.” Teaching is a process. When we label a process we must necessarily simplify the thing as we attempt to freeze it into a moment, to make it stay still as we talk about it.

A label or title such as “teacher” has the power to limit or allow.
If you choose to teach, I suggest that you take on and let go this title as if it were a coat that the weather sometimes calls for and sometimes does not.

I have heard people speak of an event as a teacher, of pain as a teacher, of an animal as a teacher. Trees, clouds, leaves — in truth, you can learn from anything. You can learn from a rock.

But you reading this now, you are not a rock.

When I say “teacher” I mean someone who offers themselves to others as a resource for understanding, who has chosen the path of teaching, who intends to teach deeply on that path, and who themselves is a student and seeker of what is.

In many traditions and cultures and institutions, you must be given the title of teacher to be allowed to teach. There is merit to this approach, and there is weakness, and this is another topic. But even in such authorizing traditions, those awarded the title of “teacher” must make the choice to become teachers.

No one can make you a teacher. They may encourage you. They may entitle you. They may push you. They may deny you. But they do not make you a teacher.

What makes you a teacher?

In some sense, you are a teacher only in the moment you are teaching. In other moments you are something else, or rather, you are doing something else.

Even so, the label is useful. It helps us sketch the path, the duties, the questions. The aspects of this role. The choices involved.

A teacher teaches a student. If there is no student, then there is no teaching. Does this mean you are not a teacher if you have no students? If you are between students? If your students have gone home for the day? This is a good question.

A teacher offers knowledge and perspective, but if the student does not learn, then there is no teaching. Does that mean you are not a teacher if your student is not learning? This is also a good question.

You may wish to ask these questions as you explore the meaning of your teaching. But I suggest moderation: you can ask these too often or too deeply and defeat the purpose of the inquiry, which is to understand better, not to damage the teacher’s confidence or will to teach.

For my purposes, if you choose to teach and you are willing to seek depth and excellence in the work, you are a teacher, and it is you I am addressing.

Does teaching require a student? Yes, of course. Does teaching require that learning take place? Yes again. Does this mean the student’s presence and learning bestow upon you the title of teacher? Perhaps. But perhaps no more so than an institution that has trained you, tested your skills, observed you in trial teaching, and authorized you to teach.

Ultimately, you must choose to take the role. No one can bestow this willingness upon you and no one can commit you to the obligations. As a teacher and a seeker both, you choose to take the role in a context of seeking what is true, of offering these understandings through your subject.

“Teacher” is a lable. Sometimes it carries too much weight to be useful, and sometimes not enough. Sometimes a student crosses your path for only a moment, not long enough to make introductions, let along to label the exchange, but long enough to offer something of value. Long enough to teach.

There are many labels available for what passes between teacher and student, but they are tools, and often less relevant than the work itself.

When you offer your understandings and another accepts, you are doing what a teacher does. You are teaching.