We’ve all seen the inspirational quotes likening teachers to gardeners or shepherds or other semi-passive soft power authority figures. Watch children grow, ensure they fit into the plot or pen to which they’re assigned, nice and safe controlled development. But knowledge has shown itself to be not water nor food, but fire. Think: what has been more satisfying, the moment a student of yours completes the pre-set guided assignments or the moment you can see the recognition wash over a young person as they realize that the way they think has changed?

You have to remember those moments from your youth when you felt invincible, like a broad untraveled path lay ahead of you and called you to explore and discover. I can remember the first time reading ‘Equus’ by Peter Shaffer and as Martin Dysart struggles with the forces of passion and safety in opposition, I felt like a hand had stretched out across time and grasped mine (to steal a phrase and idea from ‘The History Boys’ by Alan Bennett). I wanted to do more, I wanted to learn and create, and this moment was exhilarating. I’ve seen that same look in the eyes of my students (often in my Philosophy course, Plato has that effect on young minds when approached right). What are you supposed to do when students tell you they want to do the assigned work because they want to know more and do more? What are you supposed to do when a 15 minute warm-up activity you planned turns into a several-week-long project at student request? At a certain point you have to acknowledge that the success you find, the real true teaching and educating that we all got into this field to create, is not due to the seeds you plant or the fences you post, but instead the fires that you start and coax.

Really it’s just about finding some existing kindling and giving it a spark. Once you hit that mark, you enjoy the warmth and ensure the fire is sustained and fed. Young people want to learn, they want to grow and create, and they desperately want to feel like they belong and that they have purpose, or better yet to feel like the belonging and purpose they can feel inside of themselves is recognized and legitimized no matter its shape or color. We can work so hard in schools to stifle and hold back a young person’s natural drive and inertia, to laden their kindling with the damp leaves of “supposed tos” and “by Junior year you should haves” (I think we’re reaching the natural end point of this extended metaphor, don’t worry), when really our efforts should be focused on directing the existing efforts of our students and broadening their horizons beyond what they thought was possible.

Think of the number of students you’ve met who, when asked what their passions are or what they want to do with their lives, answer with, “I don’t know,” or, “Nothing.” Are we really satisfied with this? Do we really think that assuming these young people will just eventually figure out what their lives mean, maybe somewhere in the middle of a Graduate program they chose to attend because they couldn’t find anything else to do, is sustainable, worth it, or even functional in the first place? I think you can probably assume my answer to that semi-rhetorical question at this point: Light some fires.