Statement of Teaching Philosophy

I have not been given a reason to write a statement of “Teaching Philosophy” for decades. My graduate students and newer colleagues certainly have—and many of them are model instances of thoughtfulness, inclusiveness, and compassion. Reading these statements, I often think, “good god, students are lucky to have teachers like these!” But this is not to say that I don’t reflect carefully and often upon my pedagogical practices. Far from it. But if I had to describe what teaching means to me, today, I like to remember a fragment by Kafka in which an Olympian swimmer, congratulated by fans, nevertheless insists that he does not know how to swim. Once upon a time, he did not know how to swim and that inability remains with him always. Part of swimming, indeed, swimming well, must be not knowing how to swim. So: I don’t know how to teach. Part of teaching, the most important part, beyond all the talk of gaining competences and perfecting practices, is not knowing how to teach. I hope every Teaching and Learning Institute is up to teaching that.

Long ago, yesterday, I did not know how to teach. And it’s important to shelter a place for that experience of not-knowing how to teach or even knowing what teaching is in every classroom in which I find myself. Each educational relation calls for the surprise and the insurgency of not knowing how to teach. I did not know how to teach and I do not know how to teach. I have never not known how not to teach. I need to help my students see this, even as I teach my heart out and because I teach my heart out. I do not know how to teach. And I hope that my students glimpse something in this not knowing and always treasure that sacred part of themselves that does not know how to learn.