that teaching analogy

Asked about teach­ers who are wor­ried about coro­n­avirus out­breaks at their schools, Kayleigh McE­nany com­pared them to meat packers.

“We be­lieve teach­ers are es­sen­tial work­ers … our meat pack­ers did­n’t stop work­ing did­n’t this pan­dem­ic … nor should our teach­ers.” pic.twitter.com/DJfMYBRARz

— Aaron Ru­par (@atrupar) Au­gust 20, 2020

 

we re­al­ly are meat packers.

it’s how we are ex­pect­ed to work,
stu­dents see us that way on the first day.

i’ve been told mor than a few times

“you ob­vi­ous­ly don’t kno any­thing, you’re a teacher”

be­cause that’s a byprod­uct of our cur­rent ed­u­ca­tion­al system.

and in my experience
– as a faux butch­er work­ing be­hind the counter –
ad­min­is­tra­tions do be­lieve teach­ers are in­ter­change­able with any oth­er per­son who’s learned to butch­er the meat,

grind it up
and de­liv­er it in the same ex­act ra­tio in crisp,
clean cellophane.

 

hu­mans are individuals –
and i teach de­sign his­to­ry, graph­ic de­sign, ty­pog­ra­phy, and now film editing –

and if there’s one thing
i’ve fig­ured out
on the front lines of cre­ative education
it’s
one size does not fit all. 

even tho a hel­lu­va lot of us
are de­ter­mined to live the meat counter fantasy
be­cause the red pill al­ter­na­tive is of­ten a lot scarier.

but fun.
in­cred­i­bly fun. with in­sane chal­lenges and horrors.
which is how i’ve ex­pe­ri­enced it.

 

as of this summer
i’ve been teach­ing for 20 years
and my view is

real learn­ing doesn’t eas­i­ly fit into a fac­to­ry farm
or hen­ry ford-craft­ed as­sem­bly line –

even tho

that is the mod­el for 
most cap­i­tal­ist sys­tems that have jobs in them –
the places
one ends up
af­ter the ed­u­ca­tion process
is sup­pos­ed­ly done.

hint: it’s nev­er done.

 

the par­a­digm can and should be changed.

and in a pan­dem­ic, dis­tance learn­ing is the thing.
we have to learn to em­brace it.
like masks, it’s nec­es­sary right now.

 

—steve mehal­lo

Flom­mist Steve Mehal­lo is a graph­ic de­sign­er, il­lus­tra­tor, font de­sign­er, ed­u­ca­tor, food­ie and gad­fly. He is the cre­ator and founder of FLOMM! Thx to Shali­ni for the news update.

 

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