"Always live in the ugliest house on the street. That way you don't have to look at it." - David Hockney

I did not get to the end of today's to-do list. Specifically, I didn't finish the assignments for this orientation class, and have one left to go - my review of the course. That could get tricky.

Stream of consciousness....

Like playing the violin, teaching is part science, part art. You can teach the science; the art you either have or you don't.

Some violinists (or pianists, or...) are very skilled technicians who show mastery of their instrument, but their playing lacks soul. Others may not be as skilled, but they play with a passion and fervor that clearly consumes them and captivates their audience. It's the difference between someone who skillfully plays the instrument and a musician. Of course, all the passion in the world can't make up for scratchy, out of tune sawing; bad technique can obliterate the expression of someone who is, at their core, a total musician. But even if we can't put our finger on the reason, assuming a reasonable level of skill on the part of the violinist, most of us would rather listen to someone who plays from their soul than a superior technician.

(Note: this phenomenon is observable in many areas, including the various ice skating competitions at the Olympics. You can tell when a skater is not just completing the jumps, but leaping from their heart.)

OK, back to teaching. Some people teach, others are teachers.
Some who teach have learned the requisite skills - mastery of their content, having a lesson plan, balancing impressional and expressional learning, showing relevancy.... But they're boring, and you never feel truly caught up in their teaching.

Teachers, by contrast, may not meet all the pedagogical standards, but their enthusiasm for the subject and instinctive sense of the classroom environment, even as it shifts throughout a session, makes them engaging and effective. They almost have a sixth sense about how to connect with, to get inside the heads of, ordinary people, and draw them in.
Robin Williams in "Dead Poet's Society."

The college system seems to place more value on academicians than teachers. A prof with a double Ph.D. who has authored umpteen peer reviewed articles is more valued than a teacher whose classes fill up an hour after hitting the schedule. Rare is the teacher who has the required personality traits to labor for years in the dark corners of research rooms piling up the credentials his institution covets; he wants to be spreading the word about the subject that is his passion.

What happens in this environment where academicians and educational theorists have oversight of the classroom and the teachers who work within them?