I've got a question that's been bothering me for awhile now: When did the concept of "teaching" become an anathema?

Not only do we value a man who can hit a three-pointer more than a man responsible for the future of our society -- paying teachers less than almost every coporate position above entry-level -- not only do we have a near-crisis in the form of a dearth in teachers, not only do we as a society treat teaching as a FAILURE -- "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." -- but those who ARE teachers have a tendency to be BAD at it. They didn't WANT to be teachers, it was just what they ended up doing. This is really quite true in the sciences, where more than a fair share of teachers wound up in that job because they couldn't hack in the field. It's a fallback, a safety net. And it's killing the value of the education received.

And don't think this is only limited to high schools. Oh no, not in the slightest. The institutions of so-called "higher learning" suffer from this teaching malaise, as well.

Allow me to illustrate.

Imagine yourself a professor in a prestigious university. For some of us, that's not too hard. Now, imagine you're assigned to teach a graduate-level class in some specialized aspect of a scientific field. How would you do that? Would you assume that your students, even being graduate students, knew as much as you? Would you assume that you could give out homework exercises that utilize material that you've NEVER covered, even in passing? Would you assume that your students could read your mind as to what you expect of them? I doubt many of you would make these assumptions, yet it is a tendency I have spotted amongst FAR too many professors.

Is good teaching style NOT teaching at all? Is good teaching style avoiding your students when they have questions? Is good teaching style refusing to help your students? Is good teaching style publically insulting students who ask questions in class? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should be shot and left out for the vultures.

In order to be a good teacher, one has to CARE. Care about their job. Care about their students. And one has to ENJOY what they do. You can't teach if you don't like people. You can't teach if you hate explaining things to people. You can't teach if you expect people to already know everything about a subject.

So why they hell are some of these people teaching?