Philosophy of Teaching, Robot Style, v. 2.1

Teaching is like living life: everybody does it differently, and some do it better than others, but nobody does it exactly right. I’ve always liked science-fiction writing, and although my own attempts at writing literary fiction often end up with characters in worlds where I’ve molded a few of the rules of their being (though always for their own good), it is my goal to consciously never change my students: I offer them my knowledge, but whether or not they choose to accept it and apply it to their personal writing is ultimately their choice. It is my hope that they receive my limited knowledge of writing and use it to form their own opinions of the craft. My students are not my robot characters of whom I have control over what they know and learn; my students are individuals—human beings—all unique in their own perfectly imperfect humanistic ways. I do not teach them to write in the same way I do; I do not duplicate them in assembly-line fashion and force them all to generate the same product as I might write. I lead my students to explore new ideas and different ways of looking at all things. I encourage authoritative voice, critical perspective, and audience emphasis, because I want them to believe in the words they write down—notebook scribbles or Times New Roman, everything they write is a direct reflection and representation of their beliefs. Ultimately, I challenge my students to understand and acknowledge but not reproduce my passion for writing. I do this in hopes that they might dare to care so much about their own writing that they, too, find it is one of the few ways to investigate and discover who they really are.