We had an interview with Dear Dr. Tim McGee who shares his lectures for free with students around the world, and has been nominated for different teaching awards in the U.S.A. We talked about many important topics such as teaching, intellectual arrogance, and the importance of literature especially for the 21st century. Let's start with the first question:
As a teacher, what does lifelong learning mean to you?
Well... we begin with a simple observation. You have never met a 200 year old person. That means the only real difference between you and a fly is that you know about flyswatters. That means you know that you exist but not for long or maybe a better way to say it is... you exist as body, mind and spirit and one of those three must soon die. This means that all of our life is a preparation to meet death... both our own and the deaths of those we love. If that’s true, then we must spend all our lives learning how to prepare for that final moment. This is why we love to study Plato’s Phaedo... those final words of Socrates before he drinks the hemlock... he’s giddy about being able to take a new journey... a new odyssey...
What is the difference between being human and being humane? What do literary works tell us about these two?
What if we are not born human but rather just mammals... and what if being human is a choice... a choice that only can be made by those willing to take the time to learn what that means... acting in a human way then is to act in a humane way.
That’s one view of it. Another view is to say that we are born human but that only really means we are born the way all other mammals on this planet are born. There’s no difference between us and our birth and other mammals... but when we decide to qualify our existence as something other than just mammalian then we decide to learn what it means to be humane...
I do believe that great works of literature help us to understand both of these distinctions well... a text like Lord of the Flies comes to mind right away or Slaughter House Five but of course all of the great epics remind us of this... that final scene in Virgil’s Aeneid comes to mind, the debate has always been... does Aeneas behave in a humane way by killing Turnus or in just a human way... it’s a very thought provoking idea. This question is why I argue that great works of literature and art, that is to say classics in that old use of the word are forever young.
What is the role of literature in the 21st century and what is the role of literature in directing people to goodness, kindness and compassion?
Well I agree with dr Jordan Peterson here. He has followed the ideas of Jung to describe why the great myths matter. We know better now than we ever have what it means to live in a world of the known, the unknown, and of course ourselves as the knower. We must remind ourselves that life is a constant battle, struggle, a hugging between the known and the unknown. This is why we love the study of taoism so much and the yin-yang symbol.
We will only behave in ways that we define as good, kind, compassionate, when we are wiling to admit what we don’t know everything. That is when we are ready to admit our own faults, our own lack of absolute knowledge, that is to say, when we are humble. That’s why we love that line of T.S. Eliot’s East Coker, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. Humility is endless.”. In my lectures on the Four Quartets I tried to outline my thoughts on this topic.
As a successful teacher, what does teaching mean for you? What are you doing to be better at teaching?
Wow! Well, I’m not sure how successful I’ve been as a teacher. I like to tell my students that I’m a nobody… teaching in a nobody place to somebody’s…
Teaching for me is about trying to live the life of the seeker, the explorer, the poet in front of my students. I want to share the sense of wonder and curiosity that I still have (after over 3 decades of teaching) with them.
I hope that I can continue to challenge myself to find new ways to adapt to the changing student. I think the key is good energy and learning to be a better listener. I like to stay abreast of the new ideas in education so I can be reminded of that old adage, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
While we are studying, we fill our heads with scientific information, which is of course necessary; yet, this information might cause intellectual arrogance over time. At this point, what is the importance of spiritual development as we progress in science?
Yes, this is a very important question. You are right to ask it. The more we grow in our knowledge the easier it is to believe that we are better than others who maybe lack the same level of knowledge. I think this is why Plato is so important. Above his school he had a sign, “Let him is devoid of math knowledge enter not here.”. That means that Plato valued the maths and the sciences very much but he also was always challenging his students like Aristotle to keep growing, keep learning.
With that in mind, you are right. If all we do is grow intellectually and not spiritually, we are not going to be able to confront the real challenges of the 21st century. This is why we love the Integral Philosophy of Ken Wilber. In 303, he continues to remind us that there are at least 4 quadrants we must be thinking about as we grow as students. His Marriage of Sense and Soul is an excellent introduction to these ideas as well as his book Quantum Questions. I challenge any of my students going into the math-science field to read that book closely.
What would you recommend to prospective teachers? How can teachers adapt to the new age?
I’m asked this question often. I always recommend to prospective teachers that the most important thing we can do is to leave the world a more awakened place than we found it and how will we do this? By first taking care of our own spiritual and intellectual inefficiencies. And then... and only then... can we help our students. Because if our students don’t see us as seeking to be fully authentic then we will never be able to really help them, they won’t trust us.
The other thing i keep saying to soon-to-be teachers is how hard this work of teaching is. It demands so much energy to do it well. So invent a system of training that can help to accommodate to the energy loss. Pick up some kind of yoga training for example so you can find ways to replenish lost energy every morning before you meet your students. Over time, teaching will drain your energies if you don’t find a way to replenish your energies. Taoism has a lot to say about this, and obviously tai chi is a classic training example that I recommend. Whatever you do as a new teacher, learn the practice of meditation or prayer. I believe it’s central to success over the long haul.
The lessons that most students sleep through are literary lessons sometimes. What do you think is the reason for this?
Well... they might just be tired. Maybe they need a good sleep...but seriously, when I watch a student fully engaged in playing a video game she loves or he loves, I’m reminded that students are fully engaged in the stuff that challenges them, entertains them. The job of those of us who get to share stories... and by the way, that’s all of us as teachers both in the sciences and maths as well as in the humanities and the arts (when you are teaching Pythagorean’s theory you are actually teaching a story to know that story is vital to really teach the math well... Pythagoras was a student of the mystical arts of harmonics, for example). We must find the best energy to present those stories... as if they matter... as if they are life and death... because... of course... they are...
I keep being told that students are changing and I’m sure there is some truth to that but at their core... when mammals decide to become human, that’s a choice that can only happen when certain kinds of information has been shared and processed. That information comes in the form of stories. This is why we say in 303 you are the stories you tell, you retell, you accept, you reject.
Here also... is why teachers are so different from doctors, a brain surgeon is not paid to take crazy risks. If she does and the patient dies, the surgeon will be out of a job but we teachers... we are paid to take risks, to try things that have not yet been tried and we fail all the time and we say to our students, well, that approach didn’t help you, let me try another way, another approach. This is why we love the ways that the great teachers taught like Socrates or the Buddha or Muhammad or Christ, they all were always looking for a new way to teach an old lesson.
You remind me of John Keating in Dead Poet Society in many ways. There is a deep questioning in your literature lecture rather than rote training. It is really important that you focus on what the texts tell us, and what we can learn from them to be a better person. What do these inquiries bring to your students in their daily lives? Can you talk about a memory that you witnessed in your professional life? (If there are students who make an important decision about their life after a literature lecture.)
Wow, so you are going to go there. When Robin Williams made that great film there were a number of students who wanted me to talk about it, especially since i have a great love for Walt Whitman as well. There were some English teachers who hated that movie because they felt like the Robin William’s character in John Keating had set the bar too high. I saw it the opposite. I felt like what Williams was trying to do was to remind us what makes great teachers. They are willing to take a risk, to reach out and challenge students to sound their barbaric yawp.
In my time in 303 I’ve enjoyed... I’ve been blessed to enjoy. So many occasions when students have reminded me why I love to teach... not all of those stories have been happy ones. My students like all students have to deal with the pain and suffering of life that’s always coming. The greatest joy is when i started to teach the children of my old students... I guess I realized the great circle of life, and I realized I was getting older.
I do recall once finishing a lecture on Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and a student wrote me a note to say thanks. She was considering taking her life and my lecture had challenged her to dare to hope. Together I was able to help her find some good counseling help and she graduated and went on to do great work and to live a great life. I’ve seen her once or twice over the years, and we always enjoy a quiet exchange of a look. What I hope she knows is that she changed my life as much as I changed hers.
Based on what you witnessed in your teaching experience, what do you think students suffer from most and need most?
Students today have lost three basic institutions of stability and I mean this globally. They no longer have full trust or belief in these three institutions of stability... there was a time when they could trust in them but that trust has been eroded and that means they now are more alone than they have ever been.
Those three institutions of stability are the family, the church (religious faith) and the state (politics). No matter what the country, the town, the village, students are more sophisticated today. That is to say, they are more aware of the inauthentic and they are more skeptical because of this. So that puts more pressure on us as teachers to be honest.
I find it amazing that the only institution still left on this planet where most young people are still somehow a part of is schools. That fact places more stress, pressure, responsibility on us as teachers than ever before. Jordan Peterson is right to critique so harshly our universities but the same is true of our high schools around the world. W must do a better job of helping students find the right values to build a good life, a productive life.
I’ve often pointed out to teachers that when the great samurai warrior Mushashi wrote his book of Five Rings, his first principle was "Do not think dishonestly". Why not, because our students will see quickly that dishonesty and they will not trust us, listen to us. That's a huge responsibility for us as teachers.
What students the world over long for are teachers who actually live their code, they live the seeker’s life. They long for heroes, and we have to show them that life each and every day in the classroom. That’s a heavy burden and it’s so much more heavy now than it once was. It scares us and excites us at the same time or it should anyway.
As an alternative to watching TV and to be in front of a screen all day, what do you suggest to students during quarantine, or in general?
Yes, this is an important question. I’ve tried to challenge students over the years to learn how to ask, “Why did this happen FOR me?”. When bad things happen, anyone can ask “Why did this happen TO me?” but that’s not a very useful question. We are in the season of the germ. We are in the season of the protest about inequality in the world. These are real issues.
Most students will feel the attraction of just trying to pretend like these issues are not their issues. What does TS Eliot call it in Burnt Norton “distracted from distraction by distraction” classic line. Watching TV or our phone is nice and we can enjoy it but we must never fool ourselves into believing that this is the real life. We must get involved in the actual living of life. That’s when we become truly human. For example, yes, there is pain and suffering in the world. The real question is what are you going to do about it, can you help to make it less. Yes, there is racial prejudice in the world, there is hate. What can you do to alleviate it, that’s the real question. I love how Gandhi taught this... go find someone to befriend who can teach you something about life that you didn’t already know. If you are a person of color and you believe that a white person enjoys privilege you don’t, don’t hate that person, go find that person and introduce yourself, have a conversation. If you are a person who enjoys white privilege, don’t feel ashamed of that, go and find someone who might hate you for that and ask, honestly ask what can you and I do to make this world a better place, a more awakened place.
It seems to me that this is a far better way to respond to the hate and pain in this world... then pretending like the suffering isn’t real... or doesn’t apply to you... Walk up to a total stranger and ask what can I do to help you, to understand you better. Of course this is the classical tradition of sharing ideas through stories. Right.
Of course, I would also suggest to students that they use this time of quarantine to improve as a reader. Pick up a classic text like Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book and try to improve as a reader and a thinker. Find authors who are new to you, who can challenge you to see the world from a new, a fresh perspective.
And of course, I would say you could do a lot worse than picking up Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and taking a walk to a park and reading a few lines. It’s even better, more fun. If you take someone along with you, if you have a child in your life... teach that child how to read and enjoy the great poets.
Thank you very much for this wonderful interview!
Thank you for your questions.
You can access and enjoy his lectures through these links: