Scenes From The Battleground

“Well then I think we are all agreed as to what a teacake is. What’s the next word, Jessop?”

“It’s ‘teach’, sir. In our last edition we defined it as `give systematic information to (a person) or about (a subject or skill)’. However, we define a `teacher’ as ‘somebody who teaches, especially in a school’ and, as I was a teacher before I became a lexicographer’s assistant, I can’t help but notice that, as a teacher, I was never expected to give systematic information”

“Were you not? Do teachers not do that these days?”

“Well, some do, sir, but generally speaking it’s frowned upon. Children aren’t really meant to be informed anymore, they should be finding things out for themselves and thinking about open ended questions. The general feeling is that they shouldn’t be bogged down with lots of useless knowledge that they could look up on the internet if they ever needed it.”

“Are they instructed in how to discover things for themselves? Could we say that teaching is `systematic instruction’?”

“Again, I’m sure some teachers do instruct but it is frowned upon. Students don’t really have to follow instructions any more. They are meant to be self-directed.”

“If teachers aren’t meant to give information and aren’t able to make students find out information for themselves, then what are they meant to do, how are they meant to learn?”

“The teacher is meant to entertain them.”

“But if a teacher can’t tell them entertaining information or make them do entertaining things, how is the teacher meant to entertain them?”

“Well by getting to know them, building a relationship.”

“This is all very vague, Jessop. They aren’t parenting the children, they aren’t instructing them. What sort of relationship is this?”

“One based on personality, I guess. Teachers are responsible for children’s emotional well-being”

“Emotional well-being?”

“Happiness. Teachers should be cheering children up. Making them smile.”

“Oh, I see. Humorous entertainment, Jessop. So could we say that to teach is to be systematically entertaining in a humorous way?”

“Teachers aren’t really meant to be systematic anymore. They are meant to fit their teaching to individual pupils instead of following a rigid style.”

“Could we say teaching is being humorously entertaining about a subject, then?”

“Actually, the last I heard was that teachers were meant to see themselves as teaching children not subjects. Traditional subjects are seen as artificial.”

“I see. So to `teach’ is to ‘humorously entertain children’?”

I guess so, sir.

“It all seems very odd to me. But I guess it will have to do. What’s the next word?”

“It’s `teacher`”

“So, Jessop, can we say a teacher is `a person employed to humorously entertain children?’”

“I think so. Hang on, sir, just one slight problem.”

“Yes, Jessop?”

“We’ve already used that as our definition of `clown’.”