Of Success, Assembly Lines, and Craftsmen
As educators, we have many hundreds and even thousands of chances in our careers to create a meaningful, positive impact by way of each and every student placed under our influence. We also have many hundreds and even thousands of chances in our careers to create a meaningless or negative impact by way of each and every student placed under our influence. Every year we are given an enormous number of chances to succeed and to fail.
When we succeed we celebrate and tend to chalk it up to our expertise, hard work, and dedication. When we fail we commiserate and tend to chalk it up to outside influences that were too powerful for us to overcome. If only the student would have come to me in a better state, we think, or If only I could run everything my way, the right way, then success would always be reachable.
In a jaded way, we may think I’m so tired of getting these students that resist, that don’t want to learn, that don’t want to be here. Why can’t I have a good class for just once? Then I could be the kind of teacher I know I really can be.
It comes down to two opposing views of what it means to be an educator, really.
The first sees an educator as a worker on an assembly line, adding one extra bit to the product as it rolls down the conveyor belt. Every product has successfully assimilated every bit before, and each educator has only the responsibility to add his or her bit to allow the product to progress to the next worker. And if the product just won’t accept the new bit? If it’s damaged along the way? No worries. It’s tossed aside so that the rest of the products can continue to move along smoothly. No need to disrupt the entire flow just for one damaged item.
The second sees the educator as a master craftsman, pulling disparate materials together, building and refining each piece with whatever level of attention that may be required to create a functional, quality product. Products that don’t quite work as intended are disassembled, reworked, and reassembled over and over again until they do. The craftsman stands by each and every one of his products because he has given individualized attention to each one, putting forth enough effort to make each one an exemplar.
With every student placed under our influence we face the choice to act as the assembly line worker or the master craftsman. The former involves routine, easy and repetitive work, and insulation from failure – when failure occurs, it is the system’s problem, not an individual’s problem. The latter involves individualization, difficult and time-consuming work, and risk of failure – when failure occurs, the craftsman can only blame himself.
The craftsman also has one other key difference: he faces a challenge with each and every product he builds. The historian Charles Beard said, When it’s dark enough, you can see the stars. The most reliable path to pride of accomplishment is hard work; the most reliable path to hard work is a challenge so dark that failure seems almost inevitable. Almost.
Your questions, finally: Did you join the field of education to be an assembly line worker or a craftsman? And, having been in the field for any number of years now, do you still see yourself the same way? If your perception has changed, what changed it… and how might you change it back?
