Tag: teachers

There is one thing, though, which never fails to bring real consolation to me in moments of stress, doubt, or wondering “what is it all for?” The obvious answer, for many teachers, is, of course, their students and the relationships they build with them over the years. This is true of myself as well, but recently my thoughts have dwelt on the everyday interactions, the words my students say, the things they notice, and the things they speak surreptitiously to each other in the back of class when they think, foolishly, that I cannot hear them.

Today there is confusion about the role of the teacher. It stems from a larger confusion about the role of education in the life of the student. The unfortunate truth is that education is seen primarily as a kind of job training, reducing students to receptacles for information and teachers to its delivery system.

Teachers should be free to use their natural and developed gifts to teach a robust curriculum in science, literature, mathematics, the arts, history, physical education and civics. This is the kind of schooling experience that students deserve, parents desire and society demands. -Dr. Dan Coupland

At Hillsdale College we know—from both experience and principle—the authority that teachers and parents have in the noble work of education. We profess this in all that we do, but especially through our work in K-12 education. No remote system of control or bureaucracy can supplant the knowledge, interests, and love that local communities bring to bear—primarily through parents and teachers—on the education of the young. As Hillsdale was founded to advance education, we will ever promote these great truths and the practices that arise from them. It is our mission, and we will not shrink from it.