The University (in the capital-U sense) wants my “teaching philosophy.” Reasons for that request are happy, which isn’t always the case with a cap-U request. But happy doesn’t get the work done. So…

First: Thank God and Whoever Else had more important things to attend to while I taught at Missouri for 15 years without figuring that bit out.

Second: Even greater thanks, with apologies, to the students on the receiving end of me figuring it out. And a deep bow to the Missouri Method – learn by doing – which doesn’t end with students.

Third: I had to write something. Cue anxiety, procrastination, much abuse of the F-word, coffee and wine.

(I’ll no doubt return to this theme of writer insecurity again and again in these posts. My students seem to think successful writers pop out of the womb fully formed as such. I can tell them, and even show them, how much I sucked when I was their age; they seem amused but not convinced. They certainly aren’t convinced when I tell them you only get good at this by doing it – one paragraph at a time.)

That’s a deeper exploration for another time. For now, a peek into my messy mind as I was pondering the assignment I faced. I have no training in education philosophy or psychology or practice, and still wonder at my credentials to do this – much as I love it. I’m always caught off guard when someone calls me “professor.” And I default to thinking of myself more as a journalist than a teacher.

So I found myself wondering: What is a teacher? Or, at least, what am I as a teacher?

With no immediate answer, and ever the reporter, I put the question to Facebook. (And whoa! There be dragons!)

A long-ago editor of mine, with whom I share a scratchy respect, sent this: “Just show them how you did it.” I scratched back: How I did it might not be how someone else should do it.

Several friends urged me to tell war stories from my career. Sure. But my stories, like even the best Wisconsin cheese, grow moldy with age. Being sage on the stage is fine for some momentary entertainment, but then what? Any personal indulgences better illustrate a greater lesson.

One dear former colleague suggested I do my “Jacqui swan dive.” I hope that was a compliment.

That external back-and-forth led to an internal back-and-forth and lots of word play in one of my many notebooks. It includes things like “Model enthusiasm, purpose and joy.” “Make the work worthwhile.” “Meet them where they are.” “Provide the tools and give them something to build. Do NOT build for them.”

And that soon morphed into a list of cultural bumper stickers that are like little beacons of meaning to me. A couple are serious and historic. Others are, well, other:

  • Buddha: The answer is within you. (Or, as a book I once read was titled: “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!”)
  • Socrates and my Jesuit university education: Searing and unending questions.
  • That Zen-teacher-guy in the old “Kung Fu” TV series: “Patience, Grasshopper.”
  • Space-cadet Suzanne Sugarbaker in “Designing Women:” “Wherever you go, there you are.”
  • Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry: “Boldly go.”
  • Star Trek Enterprise Captain Jean Luc Picard: “Engage!” (Yeah, I am a Trekkie, and could go on.)
  • Yoda: “Do, or do not. There is no try.” (I struggle with this one. I told a friend once I wanted my tombstone to say, “She tried really hard.” But it keeps me thinking.)
  • US Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks: “Again! Again! Again!”
  • Ethel, my Scotch-Methodist-Depression-era-practical-deal-with-it mother: “Quit whining and apply some elbow grease.”
  • Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers: “R-E-L-A-X.”

If this seems like a lot of wasted time and blather en route to a clear one-page document, that’s how my writer-mind works. An editor once said that watching me get ready to write was like watching a dog find a place to lie down: Circle and sniff, circle and sniff. I used to fight that process, but have learned to embrace it because it eventually gets me somewhere.

And if you’re still with me, here’s where it got me, the final version of Banaszynski TeachPhilosophy PDF, (also on my ToolBox page) written with the sage guidance of a colleague who grocks the cap-U world: “Be yourself. But err on the side of conservative.”

So sorry, Aaron, but you’re out of here. Ethel gets to stay.