In my business, you are supposed to have a philosophy of teaching. The professorate is interesting in that regard. We all spent four years getting an undergraduate degree in something that we were interested in. Then we spent several more years getting Masters and Doctorate degrees in subjects that few people know anything about, and fewer still really care about. Interestingly, because we are suppose to experts on some minutiae of the religious system of the Bongo Bongo of Eastern Alabamastan or the factors that influence resource allocation in the brown-headed nosepicker it is widely held that we are also trained to teach. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For most of us, graduate school was completely devoid of anything that would even remotely pass for a practical course in how to teach. Departments of Education were uniformly scorned among my fellow Ph.D.'s for being nothing more than a place for jocks and others weak of intellect to go to get a degree in something that they could "fall back on." No one in their right mind would ever think about taking a course in education, even though that was what many of us had set out to do for the remainder of our professional careers. Now given that background it seemed presumptuous of me to try to write about my philosophy of education. After doing something that I wasn't trained to do for over 25 years, I have picked up a few pointers along the way, and I must say I have enjoyed some modest success. Rather than pontificate on the more abstract ideas like what constitutes a liberal arts education, or the value of a particular pedagogical style, let me point out some practical aspects of teaching:

1. Being a college or university teacher can be as boring as watching empty soda bottles pass by on a conveyor belt, with the only relief being one that still has debris from a previous consumer or has a chipped edge. At the same time, it can also be one of the most rewarding things one can undertake. Whenever you introduce a new idea, concept, or observation that students had not previously been exposed to, and the "Golly Gee Whiz" light comes on, there is a real feeling of accomplishment.

2. A good teacher is able to wade through the jargon of the current generation, and actually decode the most common words in the language of many teenagers. To understand the meaning of "Like" is akin to finding the Holy Grail. Combined with "You know," "like" can almost be an entire vocabulary. Coupled with "You would never believe" it is possible according to some of my students to carry on an entire conversation. I suppose a good teacher would figure out how these particular bits of grammar became so commonplace in middle class American society, but for me ignorance is bliss.

3. A good teacher is able to instill some modicum of the values of humanity, into people who have been enculturated into the "What's in it for me?" school of interpersonal relations. In addition, if one is successful, some crude ideas about the ethics of cooperation might rub off on students. As George Carlin noted we might want to think about teaching courses in how to a responsible person (more on that later), or in how to be married, or in how to be a good parent, or at the very least, in how to be a reasonably honorable human being. But alas, students would likely have trouble in applying these lessons to everyday life.

4. A good teacher is one who is able to laugh at his or her own mistakes, and as importantly, admit when they have made a mistake. One of the great failings of American society is our inability to take responsibility for our own actions. It is never our fault that something goes wrong. Traffic was unexpectedly heavy because of an accident, my roommate's alarm did not go off on time and I overslept, it is raining, the time changed and it was still dark and I couldn't get up, are all excuses for students being late to my classes. A good teacher is able to point out the problems with these excuses, and impress the importance of simply accepting responsibility for one's actions and repairing the wrong that has happened. I must confess that I am not a good teacher in this regard. I am not able to treat showing up late to my classes with the same cavalier attitude that most of my students have. It makes me upset.

5. A good teacher is not one who coddles students. Catering to the whims of pubescent youth will do little to help them in the long run. The litmus test of success is not how hard you tried, how much you studied, how much you expected to do well, or the horrible fate that will befall you if your parents find out about your real performance. No, the litmus test is the results you obtain, not the effort you put in, nor your past record of achievement. Being a good teacher means pushing students to accomplish things that were previously unattainable goals, it does not necessarily mean being popular, a nice guy, or an entertaining lecturer. It means having standards and demanding that students meet them. Now this causes no lack of consternation for today's students for they have been brought up to be rewarded for simple participation so everyone can feel good about themselves and what they have done. Don't get me wrong, self-image is important, but enhanced self-image alone never learned Latin, the difference between sines and cosines, to recite the General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English, nor to understand an opera by Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini.

6. A good teacher discovers previously unrecognized raw intellectual talent and nurtures it to a more mature state. Being a good teacher means being willing to take a chance and invest in students just on the gut feeling that they have a hint of intellectual curiosity.

7. Finally, a good teacher is one who is intellectually honest, one who is willing to say "I don't know," one who is willing to listen to all sides of an issue and make a decision based on the data and not on a whim or flight of fancy, and one who is willing to take a side in a discussion and not apologize for having an opinion.

I am certain that this is not a philosophy of teaching as some might envision, but these are a set of ideas that I have found useful as principles to work from on a daily basis.