westward, look, the land is bright!

It's hard not to be overly-concerned with outcomes when you're teaching. There is a special, awful, crumbling feeling that descends when you realize that the kids are not getting what you want them to get. My natural instinct has always been to try harder. 

The best teachers recognize what they do and don't have control over. Can we control learning? I'm not really sure. We can present our lessons, our activities. We can motivate and inspire our students. But can we actually control and refine every piece of information that goes into their brains? No. Should we try to? 

No!

 

Great teachers realize that they are in control of the teaching, but only the student can be in control of the learning. And that vast, awe-inspiring process of learning is subtle, complex, and unpredictable. Like the third stanza of the poem below, the waves of our teaching might not always seem to be breaking through into our students' understanding. That's okay, the poet tells us, because we don't know what inlets of growth and development are surging up around us, outside of our power. 

The final stanza is absolutely stunning. The sun may rise in the East-- and instruction might begin with the teacher -- but daylight falls across the earth, and learning occurs in wonderfully unpredictable ways. 

Say not the struggle naught availeth

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
   The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
   And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
   It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
   And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
   Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
   Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
   When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
   But westward, look, the land is bright!

Arthur Hugh Clough

1849