Here’s a story for you: once upon a time there was a college professor–and a good one at that. The rest of the faculty loved him. He was articulate, thorough, ambitious, friendly. The students liked him, too.
Now his field of teaching was in philosophy. You probably already have an image of him, too–old cords, a rustic brown sports coat, a five o’clock shadow on his face, messy hair, long nose, and he always carried a pipe. You’re absolutely right. That’s how he looked–like you’re stereotypical philosopher. Only he didn’t teach his philosophy; he taught other philosophies:
Neitzsche, Foucault, Marx, St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis. You name it, he taught it.
This was the most amazing thing about this college professor: all he carried around was a notebook. He didn’t have binders filled with grades, papers, nothing. Just a notebook. All that was written in it were names, words, phrases–simple stuff. The scary thing was he was able to recite every bit of knowledge from every philosopher you could name–even some of the oldest like Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. He knew it all.
He never gave out homework. There was only one test at the end of the term, and that was it. What was astonishing about his teaching method was this: his students not only excelled in his class, but other classes as well! And it didn’t matter what kind of classes either. Every student had a variety of different classes–computer technology, music, calculus, economics, physical therapy, bio-engineering–and yet they still hit the mark with most every other class including the professor’s philosophy class.
One day his colleagues asked him why his students would always do so well from semester to semester….
He answered simply. “Because the material didn’t teach them what they needed to know. I did.”