Why Do You Teach
I finished up my Master’s coursework in Special Ed and was awarded a teaching certificate. It was 1988 and teaching positions were scarce. I landed one at Laird Elementary in Tempe where I had student taught.
As a new teacher I was expected to take district classes to teach me how to teach. (Excuse me, I just finished 2 years of coursework and a semester in the classroom mentored by a very capable teacher.) One of the classes had each of us answer a questionnaire. We were then divided into groups according to our answers. It evaluated why we chose teaching as a career. 80% of the group wanted to be in control of a classroom. They liked the idea of being in front of a group of students telling them what to do — domination. Dominance is rewarded by hierarchical systems, i.e., schools, churches, corporations, etc. 15% of the group had some other idea about teaching which I don’t remember. Then 5% of the group, me and another guy, were in our own group because we wanted to teach, we wanted to facilitate learning. The exercise was somewhat disconcerting. Control? Dominance? No entiendo!
It was a small moment, but it rearranged something in me. I saw the profession clearly, and I saw myself inside it — not above, not below, but apart.
People don’t seek dominance because they’re cruel; they seek it because it organizes their inner world. For many, being in charge creates a sense of safety — a buffer against uncertainty, inadequacy, or the fear of being exposed. Authority becomes a way to regulate themselves: if they control the room, they don’t have to feel what’s happening inside them. The appeal isn’t the power itself; it’s the relief that power provides. Dominance isn’t necessarily pleasurable; it can be more like anesthesia.
People like me come to teaching for a different reason entirely. I wasn’t looking for a room to control; I was looking for a room to open. What drew me in was the quiet miracle of learning — the moment a student understands something for the first time, the spark of curiosity, the shared dignity of discovery. I wanted to facilitate, not command; to guide, not direct. Teaching, for me, was never about being the
voice at the front of the room. It was about creating a space where other voices could emerge. Connection regulated me. Mutuality steadied me.
Get Jana Mckay’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
When I inadvertently stumbled on the Suzuki Piano Method as a way of teaching, something really clicked. We had moved from Enoch, UT, where piano teachers were few and far between, to Murray, UT. I knew I needed to up my game. I had taken a piano pedagogy class at the college in Cedar City and found it lacking. There was a semester course in the Suzuki method at University of Utah. It changed my life. The entire first year focuses on teaching Book 1 — songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb and Go Tell Aunt Rhody. There is some technique involved, but it’s mostly on how you encourage and treat your students.
Shinichi Suzuki had worked in his father’s violin factory before WWII. The factory was bombed during the war and the family lost everything. Suzuki was heartbroken from the effects of war. For therapy, he would watch children playing on the playground. After awhile, he realized something amazing. Here were 2 and 3-year-olds speaking a very complicated Japanese dialect. How did that happen? “Ah-ha”, he realized — they had been listening for months before they even tried to speak.
Music is a language. He developed the Mother Tongue Method — listening before speaking. Listening to music before playing — “speaking” it. Its basic tenets are, 1. Love who you teach, 2. Love what you teach. If a teacher has those 2 things in place, everything else follows, but it is necessary to have those 2 things to teach the most effectively. I learned way more about teaching from Suzuki than a master’s program. First and foremost — COMPLIMENT YOUR STUDENTS! Tell them they are doing great. If you can’t think of something specific, tell them they are breathing nicely. If a correction is needed, say something along the lines of — Here’s a way to do it even better. Treat the students like the gold they are. They are bundles of capacity. I look back at the way I could have blossomed with that philosophy. This outlook changed the way I looked at everything. It changed the way I parented. It changed how I treated others. What a gift!
To be fair, in graduate school, there was a study presented called “The Pygmalion Effect”. A random set of students were chosen and told continually they were good students, were learning the material well, were performing above average. Guess what? These students did better and learned more than those who were not complimented. This is powerful.
I have taught Suzuki piano now for over 35 years. For several years I taught at a Montessori school. Every student received a 15-minute lesson once a week. The teacher faithfully played a recording of the repertoire everyday. I had my own teaching room with 2 pianos. Another piano was right in the classroom where the students were allowed to play whenever they wanted. Every student, save 3 or 4, graduated from 6th grade and played the entire Book One repertoire (19 songs) from memory, flawlessly. I went into this experience with no expectations and was blown away by the outcome.
There are teachers who withhold from their students because the student might became better then them at what they are teaching. There are parents who are threatened by the brilliance of their children. How is that possible. Some teachers don’t just want control of a classroom; they want control of the talent inside it. I learned early that brilliance in a student can unsettle an adult whose identity depends on being the most knowledgeable person in the room. A gifted child exposes what they cannot bear to feel in themselves — the fear of being surpassed, the terror of being ordinary, the shame of not being enough. So they withhold. They limit opportunities, dampen curiosity, or quietly discourage excellence, not because the student is too bright but because the teacher is too fragile. In a profession that should elevate others, dominance becomes a shield, and the classroom becomes a place where some adults protect their own sense of worth rather than expand someone else’s. Unbelievably this happens with parents, too. Hierarchy, on any level, in any setting, is wrong. Equality! Nothing above or below.
Why do YOU teach?
