Teachers, Writers, Actors, Artists: Why They Learn from What They Do

Abstract

It is obvious that teaching, writing, acting, and creating works of art are psychotherapeutic activities: people who ply these trades can learn about their own personalities and as a result may change their inner feelings and outer behaviors. Something else professionals obviously learn through experience is how to improve the effectiveness with which they deliver service. Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that cognitive content or subject matter is learned through the act of simplifying and organizing it for presentation. Subject matter is learned through the prodding of student questions or audience criticisms. Discoveries in subject matter and technique are fostered through the natural momentum of ideas leading to other ideas in the midst of vocal, written, or manual expression. A teacher can learn more from his introductory-level courses than from his advanced ones. Introductory-level students ask questions and make criticisms that are startlingly simple and naively profound. One must ponder subject matter deeply and analyze it precisely when preparing to reduce it to its simplest elements for presentation to beginning students or lay consumers. The purpose of this essay is to describe all these phenomena in greater detail and to offer the outlines of