Written by Jeremy S. Adams |
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Classrooms have become emotive enclaves of a stark student-centered universe. This pivot towards the teacher-cum-protector role has colossally diminished the authority of the everyday classroom teacher because it has transformed the way students look at us. They are difficult to impress these days because the things that once commanded respect and imbued authority—intellectual achievement, virtuous behavior, classroom dynamism, prodigiousness, substantive life experiences—no longer attract the high regard they once did.

“I learned ancient Greek just so I could read Aristotle in his own language.”
It was early in the fall semester of my freshman year of college and we were reading a passage from Aristotle’s Politics in a political philosophy seminar. In addition to learning Aristotle’s view that man “is a political animal,” this divulgence from my young, first-year professor was neither a verbal thunderclap nor a haughty declaration. It was an offhanded remark, uttered as a trivial aside. As usual, he radiated confidence without the slightest hint of ego. His mastery of Greek wasn’t a topic of conversation among my classmates and no one ever mentioned it again. And yet, almost 30 years later, I can still recall experiencing a subtle pulse of enthrallment.
Granted, it did seem a little odd to my 18-year-old self. Was Aristotle so earth-shattering and profound he merited this type of Herculean effort? I was too ignorant at the time to be impressed. I didn’t know until much later how much harder Greek is to master than Latin, with its mercurial alphabet, foreign declensions, unique conjugations, and Byzantine rules of grammar. I now understand why people devote years of their lives in pursuit of this particular linguistic treasure from antiquity. And not just to read Aristotle. Goethe considered Homer to be superior to the Gospels.
Of course, not all the teachers from my youth were this impressive. Most were forgettable. Teachers try to make an impression, but as the decades pass most of our teaching moments are mentally tucked away into a few fleeting images. Our students might remember who wrote the Federalist Papers or how to write down the Pythagorean theorem, but that doesn’t mean they remember the moment they learned it or who taught it to them.
Still, most teachers radiated a genuine sense of authority. Children, by and large, once looked to their elders for answers to their most important questions. They did so for a simple reason: adults were recognized as depositories of guidance, or even wisdom. They knew what a youthful mind needed to master because they, too, were once young. In the course of life, adults had fallen in love and knew about rapture, longing, and the many ecstasies and agonies of the heart. They had made friends and lost friends and occasionally eulogized their friends. Many fought in bruising wars, marched against injustices, and still sensed the goodness of American idealism. They climbed mountains, walked trails, read dense books, memorized impactful poems, and knew what it meant to aspire and dream. They had first-hand experience with frailty of the body, myopia of the mind, and hubris of the spirit. They could detect the difference between true leadership and empty demagogy. They knew what was truly important, what was genuinely frivolous, and appreciated the scarce commodity of time.
As they aged, these adults sensed the seriousness of life. They recognized answers were “out there,” in the nectar and lemon juice of life, in the grasp of adventure and endless engagement—the answers were never found in the monotony of petty amusements or the prison of mindless distraction. But most extraordinary, if these adults happened to be teachers, they drew on their lives to bring the classroom to life. This is what the best teachers always do.
There are extremes, of course. When famed Yale English professor Harold Bloom died a few years ago, it was fondly remembered that he had all 10,000 lines of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” committed to memory, word for word. Conservative political theorist Harry Jaffa supposedly had a memory that was nothing less than encyclopedic, capable of retrieving long passages of dense texts from books he had read decades earlier.
In my own educational journey, there were plenty of impressive teachers who radiated authority without having to master ancient Greek or memorize the entirety of a canonical text. My freshman English teacher in high school, who also happened to be my father, could diagram complex sentences and had long sections of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar memorized. Many of my professors in college were respected scholars in their academic fields. The president of my university was a world-renowned expert in the work of Danish existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Authority was not in short supply.
Which is why I remember feeling a strong and buoyant desire as a student to impress these men and women. I wanted to contribute meaningfully to a class discussion, or write a cogent paper, or elicit a laugh during office hours. I wanted more than just a good grade or empty praise; I wanted them to see me as substantive, praiseworthy, and laudable. I wanted to earn their approval and affirmation, not because it was owed, but because it was freely given. I would have done almost anything to avoid disappointing them. As Adam Smith wrote in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, “To a real wise man, the judicious and well-weighed approbation of a single wise man gives more heartfelt satisfaction than all the noisy applauses of ten thousand ignorant though enthusiastic admirers.”
A Sinister Replacement
Modern education has replaced authority with empty adoration. It now encourages “ignorant” and “enthusiastic” admiration of children who frankly do very little to earn it. We have a lot of “noisy applauses” but precious little “well-weighted approbation.”
What caused the death of authority in the classroom? The answer is really quite simple: both the teachers and the students. In the time since I first started teaching over two decades ago, a radical reformulation has taken place in our midst.
The educational universe has slowly tilted away from its original mission of transforming and improving the inner fiber of young people. It used to be understood that because life is difficult, because success is fleeting, because relationships are enigmatic, and because our bodies and minds constantly disappoint us, a good life requires strength in all of its forms—moral, physical, intellectual. It is why character is destiny. It is why high expectations are a blessing. Life is tragic, yes, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a tragedy. We can successfully confront the world by improving ourselves.
While certainly not as important as the home or the chapel, the classroom used to be an important ingredient in the shaping and eventual ripening of a young person’s inner nature. Until quite recently, the world and the broader universe itself were considered fixtures to confront, not canvases to improve.
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Written by Jeremy S. Adams |
Thursday, October 28, 2021
The notes about my father weren’t about test scores and college admission. They were about the universal aim of human flourishing. His former students flourished in their lives not because of my father’s compassion, but because of his inspiration.

My father passed away a few weeks ago. He had spent his entire working life teaching junior high and high school students. Most communities in our country possess a few teachers of my father’s ilk, educators who are considered local celebrities—the type who can rarely enter a restaurant or movie theatre without encountering at least a smattering of former students or thankful parents.
Often, teacher-celebrities teach for decades. They oversee successful academic, athletic, or artistic programs. They might even win a teaching award or two. But most of all, they are fondly remembered by their former students. They hear superlatives like, “You made a real difference in my life” or “I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.” They are localized versions of Jaime Escalante or non-fiction avatars of John Keating.
Still, I was overwhelmed by the volume of notes, e-mails, and letters I received from his former students, all painting a similar picture of my father: he was a tough teacher, a bit intimidating at first, but ultimately a man who helped generations of young people find their own paths in life. The letters were filled with powerful and colorful testimonials about his unwavering sense of purpose and ubiquitous passion.
One of the letters I received was from a former student who became both an ER doctor and an award-winning medical school instructor. Looking back on my father 35 years later, this is what he had to say:
Only through the natural course of time have I come to appreciate how he engaged his classroom, how he mastered the material he taught, and how he truly cared about his students. I now see his wisdom, humor, and devotion to his craft with a clarity I lacked at the time. His “tough love” approach, which seemed personal, mean, and unbearable at times to my immature 14-year-old brain, was exactly the inspiration and motivation I needed to push me to reach for my potential.
Here was a man who ardently believed in the Socratic method of teaching, walking up and down rows of desks, never allowing anyone to hide in a classroom crevice or sulk with proud indifference. Students eventually came to understand that his affection for them was intimately tied to his belief in their capacity to learn and achieve. After all, a good teacher doesn’t tolerate student ignorance or indifference.
And yet, my father would probably be appalled to learn that the Socratic method is woefully out of step with a generation of young people who find feelings—not facts, evidence, or knowledge—to be sovereign. Challenging a young person to defend the material they devour on TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter—and doing so in front of the entire class, mind you—would probably land him in a bit of hot water these days. Administrators would demand to know the learning objective to which his questioning was tied. Parents would complain about how “uncomfortable” their son or daughter now felt. Fellow teachers would counsel him, “Be careful. Let them think whatever they want to think.”
He never let students chew gum or even wear hats in class because a classroom is a serious place and serious places demand respectful behavior. If you were in his second period class (home room) you learned the proper cadence of the Pledge of Allegiance. “There is no comma after ‘nation’ and before ‘under God,’” he thundered at successive generations. He always respected those who didn’t say the Pledge for religious reasons but would probably be aghast at the blasé, nondescript platitudes offered up by modern students who can rarely articulate concrete reasons for sitting during the national anthem beyond avant-garde pieties about generalized “oppression” or “white supremacy.”
He taught short stories, essays, plays, and poetry if they were instructive about the human condition; he had too much regard for the transformative power of literature to ever use it as a political cudgel with which to insist upon different forms of “representation.” He never judged literature through a postmodern kaleidoscope of race, gender, or class.
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