Teacherly Ethos Revisited

Abstract

I discussed teacherly ethos back in Chapter 4, but ethos is so central to teaching excellence and to the argument of this book—it is so pervasive an influence in all classroom interactions—that a full account of its significance requires further and final analysis. Teacherly ethos is not so much about what a teacher should do (in an instrumental or methodological sense) as about who a teacher should be (in terms of character and virtue). Students care little about what methods their teachers use but do care immensely about what kinds of persons their teachers are. I have never heard a student apply the word “ethos” to their teachers, yet I know that it remains a primary student concern. I find in my seminars that this sometimes strikes teachers as unpleasant and even unfair: “What difference does it make what kind of person I am as long as I really know what I claim to know within my discipline?” Bad question. It misses the issues that lie at the center of both excellent teaching and effective learning.