Stellar article. The kinds of problems highlighted in the article are really obvious in stories with cop protagonists. (Think cop shows.) With all the attention on police brutality lately, it...
Stellar article.
The kinds of problems highlighted in the article are really obvious in stories with cop protagonists. (Think cop shows.) With all the attention on police brutality lately, it suddenly struck me how absolutely crazy it is that we have so many stories where cops have to heroically break the rules to get things done, and that any kind of oversight (especially decisions made by any kind of rules or committees of people) is considered antagonistic by the story.
It's a good observation that rule-breaking is almost always treated as justified for the protagonist, and that the protagonists are the only ones able to push the plot. Not only is it possible this affects how we lead our own lives, but it makes stories more predictable than they need to be.
A story I thought interestingly subverted some of these issues about the protagonist problem was The Last Jedi. You have protagonist rule-breaking swatted down, you have protagonists try and then fail to accomplish a plot goal, etc. I think its execution wasn't all there, but I found the movie super interesting for attempting some stuff that's so rarely done.
I’m co-signing on your endorsement — this really was a stellar article. The part about applying protagonismos in real life is especially resonant for me, as I feel like teaching is a profession...
I’m co-signing on your endorsement — this really was a stellar article.
The part about applying protagonismos in real life is especially resonant for me, as I feel like teaching is a profession that is almost exclusively looked at through this lens.
The students I teach, when they reach graduation, will have had upwards of 40 teachers over the course of their educational career. By mere definition, most of those 40 are unexceptional. They are not life-changing, movie-moment type teachers. They’re just people doing a job. I am one of those people.
Even the ones that could be called exceptional are still bit parts in the student’s educational career — there for usually only a year of direct influence across twelve. Some might have longer exposures (a coach who works with a student across multiple years, for example), but the majority don’t. And even outside of teachers there are other auxiliary roles as well — librarians, counselors, custodians, secretaries — people who still impact students without being in a direct teaching position.
Also, students are people themselves! They are fully fledged human beings with agencies and abilities all their own. Education is ultimately a pipeline of numerous professionals all working together to help little humans get better at being humans as they become bigger humans.
But when teaching is talked about, examined, or even just directly experienced, it is almost always through the lens of “protagonismos” — important and singular teachers shaping a specific plot, for good or for bad. Students who hate school can often point to a specific teacher as the cause of that. They often mirror the people the article talks about who don’t see themselves as protagonists. School is simply something that happens — something in which they have no active role.
Meanwhile, on the flip side, there’s also the archetype of “super teachers” — educators that are so good they transcend to near-deity status for how impactful their practice is. Nevermind that these teachers work in teams; nevermind that these teachers have resources supplied by the district and sufficient tax dollars; nevermind that they build off the groundwork of the teachers that came before them and have a specific direction to aim on account of where they know kids are headed; nevermind that they have administrations running the functional school in which honed their skills for years or decades.
Education cannot and does not happen in a vacuum, but we treat it as if it does. That Algebra II teacher might have reached the unreachable student in her class, but was it because of her skill, or was it because the band director put the student in a leadership position and the confidence from that translated over into a new setting? That third grade teacher might have made math come alive for his students, but that was only possible because his students had solid foundational skills from their second grade year and parents volunteered their time to help out in the classroom.
Correspondingly, that awful algebra teacher might be awful because they’re also stuck teaching geometry, calculus, and biology all in the same day as well. That French teacher might be terrible because literally no one who was qualified applied for the position and so, as a favor to their principal, the now-former history teacher figures they at least might try to put their study abroad semester to good use.
When I comment about teaching on Tildes, I’ll sometimes get PMs or exemplary labels in which someone mentions that I’m a “good teacher”. I’m certainly not one to nitpick a compliment, so I’m happy to hear this (though I question how anyone here genuinely knows the quality of my practice). I will admit though that there’s also always a bit of personal discomfort in receiving statements like that, as I really don’t see myself as a good teacher. I don’t see myself as a bad one either. Instead, I see myself as a part of a procedure that is (mostly) designed and (mostly) enabled to do good. If I am good, it’s not because of any sort of protagonismos on my part — I’m good because that’s what our pipeline of professionals does, and I’m no more than 1/40th of that for most kids.
Stellar article.
The kinds of problems highlighted in the article are really obvious in stories with cop protagonists. (Think cop shows.) With all the attention on police brutality lately, it suddenly struck me how absolutely crazy it is that we have so many stories where cops have to heroically break the rules to get things done, and that any kind of oversight (especially decisions made by any kind of rules or committees of people) is considered antagonistic by the story.
It's a good observation that rule-breaking is almost always treated as justified for the protagonist, and that the protagonists are the only ones able to push the plot. Not only is it possible this affects how we lead our own lives, but it makes stories more predictable than they need to be.
A story I thought interestingly subverted some of these issues about the protagonist problem was The Last Jedi. You have protagonist rule-breaking swatted down, you have protagonists try and then fail to accomplish a plot goal, etc. I think its execution wasn't all there, but I found the movie super interesting for attempting some stuff that's so rarely done.
I’m co-signing on your endorsement — this really was a stellar article.
The part about applying protagonismos in real life is especially resonant for me, as I feel like teaching is a profession that is almost exclusively looked at through this lens.
The students I teach, when they reach graduation, will have had upwards of 40 teachers over the course of their educational career. By mere definition, most of those 40 are unexceptional. They are not life-changing, movie-moment type teachers. They’re just people doing a job. I am one of those people.
Even the ones that could be called exceptional are still bit parts in the student’s educational career — there for usually only a year of direct influence across twelve. Some might have longer exposures (a coach who works with a student across multiple years, for example), but the majority don’t. And even outside of teachers there are other auxiliary roles as well — librarians, counselors, custodians, secretaries — people who still impact students without being in a direct teaching position.
Also, students are people themselves! They are fully fledged human beings with agencies and abilities all their own. Education is ultimately a pipeline of numerous professionals all working together to help little humans get better at being humans as they become bigger humans.
But when teaching is talked about, examined, or even just directly experienced, it is almost always through the lens of “protagonismos” — important and singular teachers shaping a specific plot, for good or for bad. Students who hate school can often point to a specific teacher as the cause of that. They often mirror the people the article talks about who don’t see themselves as protagonists. School is simply something that happens — something in which they have no active role.
Meanwhile, on the flip side, there’s also the archetype of “super teachers” — educators that are so good they transcend to near-deity status for how impactful their practice is. Nevermind that these teachers work in teams; nevermind that these teachers have resources supplied by the district and sufficient tax dollars; nevermind that they build off the groundwork of the teachers that came before them and have a specific direction to aim on account of where they know kids are headed; nevermind that they have administrations running the functional school in which honed their skills for years or decades.
Education cannot and does not happen in a vacuum, but we treat it as if it does. That Algebra II teacher might have reached the unreachable student in her class, but was it because of her skill, or was it because the band director put the student in a leadership position and the confidence from that translated over into a new setting? That third grade teacher might have made math come alive for his students, but that was only possible because his students had solid foundational skills from their second grade year and parents volunteered their time to help out in the classroom.
Correspondingly, that awful algebra teacher might be awful because they’re also stuck teaching geometry, calculus, and biology all in the same day as well. That French teacher might be terrible because literally no one who was qualified applied for the position and so, as a favor to their principal, the now-former history teacher figures they at least might try to put their study abroad semester to good use.
When I comment about teaching on Tildes, I’ll sometimes get PMs or exemplary labels in which someone mentions that I’m a “good teacher”. I’m certainly not one to nitpick a compliment, so I’m happy to hear this (though I question how anyone here genuinely knows the quality of my practice). I will admit though that there’s also always a bit of personal discomfort in receiving statements like that, as I really don’t see myself as a good teacher. I don’t see myself as a bad one either. Instead, I see myself as a part of a procedure that is (mostly) designed and (mostly) enabled to do good. If I am good, it’s not because of any sort of protagonismos on my part — I’m good because that’s what our pipeline of professionals does, and I’m no more than 1/40th of that for most kids.