There are great teachers, and there are absolutely terrible ones. Both types inspired me to teach — I think the impact of a good teacher is just as resonant as that of a bad teacher. I felt I owed it to the good teachers to pass on the lessons they taught me, and also to the bad teachers to make right where they went wrong. What I discovered was that teaching was much harder than I expected, but also the clearest way to make a real impact as a designer. In this chapter, I’ll share stories from my experiences as a teacher, as well as from my time spent making tools for teachers and students alike.
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I think everyone should try teaching something they don’t know well at least once. I mean, that’s what I did the first time I taught code. From that terrifying experience, which involved at least one panic attack, I learned that knowledge is not simply passed down. Instead, learning happens between a teacher and their students. It’s a collaboration. And it felt like the most impactful collaboration I could ever have.
I haven’t finished this story yet, but I will. When it’s finished, I’d love to meet you back here so that I can share it with you.
I think my obligation as a teacher is to teach critical thinking. To me, critical thinking is a combination of creativity and technique. It’s a constant loop between learning a skill and then interrogating that skill. By this logic, craft is all about dexterity, which deepens our ability to question technique. And so, it has always felt woefully insufficient to just give students a prompt and run with it — I owe them skills, too.
I haven’t finished this story yet, but I will. When it’s finished, I’d love to meet you back here so that I can share it with you.
Teaching can be lonely. Even in a single school, in a single department, there is often little to no communication between teachers sharing the same students. One consequence of this loneliness is that teaching is inefficient. Instead of building on the work of our peers, we frequently start from scratch when creating a course. But there is another way, and it requires looking beyond traditional institutional structures.
I haven’t finished this story yet, but I will. When it’s finished, I’d love to meet you back here so that I can share it with you.