Everyone a Teacher

by Mark Schwehn

Overview

“All of us teach,” begins Mark Schwehn’s anthology of readings on teaching and learning. Teaching is woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. It includes training children, forming habits and characters, witnessing to a way of life, nurturing reflection and imagination, and imparting goals as well as facts and skills. Teachers are parents, grandparents, spouses, friends, neighbors, pastors, siblings, and co-workers, as well as professional educators. Most people know good teaching when they encounter it, Schwehn argues, and few would identify it with a list of techniques. Although good teaching often seems closer to an art than a skill, teaching is not an occult practice, but a public activity that can be improved by practice and questioning and demonstrated by good examples. Through Schwehn’s choice of examples and deft introductions, Everyone a Teacher is an argument for a rich account of good teaching. It invites reflection yet avoids the abstractions of psychology and educational theory. From Socrates teaching a Greek slave boy geometry to Mark Twain’s river-boat pilot on the Mississippi, from a real classroom of kindergarten children in Chicago to the parents who tenderly raise their child in Agee’s A Death in the Family, the readings remind us of the historical and human importance of teaching and of the qualities of good teaching. These readings are intended to help us all think about the meaning of teaching and learning, for the sake of improving our teaching in everyday life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780268042103
Publisher:	University of Notre Dame Press
Publication date:	06/30/2000
Series:	Ethics of Everyday Life
Edition description:	1
Pages:	394
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Mark Schwehn is Dean of the College and Professor of Humanities at Christ College, Valparaiso University. He is the author of Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America (1993).

Editorial Reviews

If you know someone who’s about to become a teacher, a very suitable present might be Everyone a Teacher, edited by Mark Schwehn. Mr. Schwehn has a deep and sound knowledge of important works about education and every reader will encounter something new in his book. The book will be the ideal graduation present for anyone who has completed a master’s degree and is about to start a teaching career.” —The Washington Times

“Schwen is to be commended for compiling a stimulating book of primary texts about teaching and learning. I benefited from the balance of gender, race/ethnicity in the selection—a testament to a conscientious editor. One could use Everyone a Teacher as an outline for a faculty development workshop, where each section could be read, discussed and applications could be made for institution. Or perhaps the book can be better used in a mentoring relationship between a senior and junior faculty member. Or even as a gift for summer reading and reflection. Whatever the context, Everyone a Teacher reminds us that being a teacher should always be the foundation of teaching.” —Teaching Theology and Religion

From the Publisher

"If you know someone who’s about to become a teacher, a very suitable present might be Everyone a Teacher, edited by Mark Schwehn. Mr. Schwehn has a deep and sound knowledge of important works about education and every reader will encounter something new in his book. The book will be the ideal graduation present for anyone who has completed a master’s degree and is about to start a teaching career."

The Washington Times