What do you see as the true role of a teacher?

On returning from the Mind and Life Europe Summer Research Institute I received a beautiful email from a participant who wanted to know more about my work. She also poignantly asked 'What do you see as the true role of a teacher?'

I would love to know how you would have answered this.

This was my reply:

That is a very beautiful question to have in your heart and I think it is a question all teachers should lovingly carry with them always. For me it is deeply emotive question, it touches into something very deep in me. I am not sure there is one true role and thankfully there is huge diversity in how teachers embody and live their roles.

I have realised that teaching is not about passing on what we know, although that may be part of it. Teaching is about enabling others to see how their framing of world constrains their understanding and how new knowledge can release those constraints, whilst creating new ones. It is about encouraging and nurturing an open and reciprocal relationship with the world that unfolds in front of them, a sense of curiosity and deep relationality that cultivates an appreciation of the back-and-forth nature of self-world creation and understanding. To do this teachers need to first cultivate this in themselves, otherwise it is not possible to understand what we are trying to introduce our students to. If we teach from a place of wonder, awe and curiosity this will no doubt influence the attitudes of our students.

I can see now that certainty is the death of good teaching and yet still, I find that I cling to this, especially when teaching something I am unsure of myself. To facilitate learning teachers need to be able to create a rich context for learning that provides enough safety for challenge and questioning to emerge. It is not the job of teachers to make learning easy. I am not sure that deep learning ever is easy because it inevitably entails giving up something we have held onto. So, I think an important part of the role of a teacher is to encourage students beyond their current place of understanding, which may be fairly comfortable, and convince them that learning is worth the risk - that the infinite expanse of meaning beyond their current constricted view will lead to new horizons that can powerfully shape their lives and worlds in novel and unexpected ways that lead to greater freedom and deeper meaning.?