Assistant Dean of Students Drew Donaldson '92 and I spent most of Sunday together on an off-campus project. We passed several hours talking about Proctor and the qualities that make this place so unique.

 

There are countless ways this conversation could have gone, but we settled on the qualities that make some teachers particularly effective as instruments of change and growth. We asked ourselves, "If education is a talent game, what are the talents, skills and qualities that distinguish a teacher.....indeed, a whole faculty?"

 

It goes without saying that subject mastery (which infers the ability to continue learning and growing as an adult,) creativity and passion are at the foundation of effective teaching. But what are some more subtle elements?

 

One dynamic we identified requires some thought and deliberation. Almost thirty years ago, I found myself actually imitating the way two teachers--whom I obviously admire--engaged students in conversation. Derek and Lee (who are brother and sister and are not pictured in this page) have this way of communicating that is constant, and therefore highly predictable to students.

 

It's as if, when responding to a question or offering explanation, they say, "Let's look at this empirically; let's gain a perspective that is grounded in what we really know....." It's a comfortingly logical approach to problem solving that the student can emulate and mimic for a lifetime.

 

It establishes a highly cooperative relationship that many Proctor teachers seem to have mastered. It's like saying, "Here's how I look at this; can you see it this way....through me?" 

 

It's not a traditional master-student relationship in which "I know all of this stuff, and you don't." Rather, it is a relationship of common, shared exploration. This elevates the student in her relationship with the teacher in a manner that we have identified and championed for decades at this school.

 

This relationship of commonsense, empirical discovery makes the teacher a constant in the universe. The teacher "backs up" to a point at which we're standing on common ground and then advances with the student....side by side. Below, algebra students have fun physically demonstrating graph lines for various equations. This (obviously!) is y= 1/2x + 2.

 

In the end....



Adam, multitasking his way to college.