TEACHERS AS BUTCHERS: Reflections on Extreme Pedagogy In some ways teachers are like butchers – instruments of violence, yet strangely compassionate: with pedagogical hacks students are anesthetized & arranged in stacks. Moving past superficiality, expert teachers get down to the bones and carve up lessons without putting learners on racks. No one obsessed with decorum can teach transformatively: deep change doesn't come by merely doing what others wish to see. Transformative instructors move beyond the flesh: knowing time, patience and incisive insight usually brings out the best. Indeed, teachers can learn from butchers whose sharp blades cut confidently as a few bits of ≈ are removed while preserving the rest. who chop with precision causing minimal pain Satoru: (shaking his head) This poem makes teachers seem like sadists! Melissa: Indeed, there is something strangely hyper-masculine, almost sociopathic about it. . . . Devani: Agreed. Butcher-teachers might be good for training soldiers. However, our planet needs more compassionate and caring human beings – not self-righteous jihadis ready to slice off anything with which they disagree. Beg.: 2005 Nagoya – T Newfields Fin.: 2023 Yokohama Online Art Creative Commons. Attribution {{CC-BY-4.0}} Satoru: This makes teachers seem like sadists! Tim:    Well, most students are already dead. Perhaps skillful hacks are needed       to bring them back to life? Liao:   (shaking his head) I'm afraid you're blinded by the metaphors. Melissa: Yeah, there is something strangely hyper-masculine, almost sociopathic       about this poem. . . . Devani: Well, butcher-teachers might be good for training soldiers. However,       doesn't our planet need more compassionate human beings? ===================================================================================== from _Crassroom Voices - Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Education_ by T Newfields SUMMARY: A weird conversation, image and poem likening teachers to butchers. KEYWORDS: pedagogic butchery, cutthroat teachers, butcher-educators, hyper-masculine teachers Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955) Begun: 2005 in Tokyo, Japan / Finished: 2020 in Yokohama, Japan Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted < LAST http://www.tnewfields.info/CrassroomVoices/inv.htm TOC http://www.tnewfields.info/CrassroomVoices/index.html NEXT > http://www.tnewfields.info/CrassroomVoices/grill.htm