The Teacher as an Opera Conductor

The demands of the teaching profession circles around learning. Without a doubt the teacher is a learner. The graduate who signs up for this call becomes that learned teacher with time. Well, who then is the learned teacher?

1.       The learned teacher has learned how to learn.

2.      The learned teacher has learned how to unlearn non-working learning.

3.      The learned teacher has learned how to help others learn.

4.      The learned teacher has learned how to check if learners learned.

5.      The learned teacher has learned how to find how much they learned, if at all.

6.       The learned teacher has learned how to address whatever hinders learning, if any.

To transform into that learned teacher therefore, s/he adjusts from day to day, sometimes an inch at a time. The profession demands it. When that adjustment is done, s/he turns something like a successful trial lawyer, a genius neurosurgeon or somewhat skillfully, an opera conductor.

If the opening speech of a trial lawyer has no bearing, the entire case falls flat. If the first thing a surgeon does in an emergency is all wrong, the patient dies. If the structural fiber a civil engineer designs into the foundation is weak, no matter how great the building is, all the people in it are simply waiting for a collapse whether they know it or not.

There’s no point painting a dreary picture. We are teachers. Let’s think of exciting things, say a theatre, an opera. If the first scene is boring, the audience is forever lost! So, the play’s director – in our case, the teacher – must ensure that s/he captures the attention of every person in the audience. In an opera, that first piece of music is called the overture. It must be beauteous so that everybody who bought a ticket is entirely and irresistibly raptured in the production.

The job of a teacher in school is something like that of a conductor of the symphony orchestra. The members of the teacher’s orchestra are not violinists, flutists, trumpeters and percussionists. They are the styles, sequence and strategies of learning that come to play during the lesson. They are the comeliness, comportment, methods and management principles with which he carries himself from day to day. Members of her audience – pupils, students, parents – would feel they have been served well when she has assessed her students and they have come out in flying colours. But that’s not where she began, although assessment is a crucial part of the learning process.

    You might want to see an opera. I recommend Guiseppe Verdi’s La Traviata available on YouTube.