I was visiting with a colleague today, and he and I got to talking about my perspective on the school and on my students as well as the effects I’ve had on my students over the years (perhaps simply by virtue of longevity, but that’s a separate story). He spoke at one point about “the end game,” by which I think he meant my goals for my students, where I tried to make sure my teaching was leading (hard as that is to do in the day-to-day press of business sometimes).
As we continued to talk, I realized that my “end game” for students doesn’t really begin until they have left St. John’s. To the extent I can, which in our culture isn’t always a huge amount, I focus less on what they are doing here and now and more on their meta-learning. My goal is to turn them into competent, thoughtful, self-actualizing adults. Or, in my colleague’s words, I want to teach them how to fish. To continue the metaphor, after they graduate, I love to see them, and I want to go fishing with them, but I don’t want them still to need me to help them figure out which bait to use or how to replace a hook or anything. Yes, they need to know those things, but more important, they need to know how to do them (or get them done) themselves.
