The Skillful Teacher

Maxim 15: Don’t Trust What You’ve Just Read
Everything in this book should be regarded with great skepticism.
Just because words appear on a printed page doesn’t make them right,
helpful or, even more important, trustworthy. So don’t trust what
you’ve read in this book. What to me appear as truths and tenets of
skillful teaching may, for you, be partially or entirely inappropriate.
Keep in mind that in the time between writing these words on a
computer and having them bound and printed in the book you are
now holding, I may have significantly amended some of these max-
ims, deleted others, and added replacements. My continuing jour-
ney as a teacher through diverse contexts and irresolvable dilemmas
is bound to generate new insights. The one thing I can expect with
real certainty is that I will be surprised by what’s coming. It would
be a contradiction of what I have written in this book if I ended it
by proposing a standardized set of maxims supposed to hold true
across all the varied contexts in which readers work.
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Obviously I feel these insights have some grounding in reality;
otherwise I would not have allowed them to be published under my
name! From responses I have received to the first edition of this
book, I suspect that many readers will recognize parts of themselves
and their practices as they read these chapters. But don’t think that
if some element of your practice contradicts what I’m saying that
you’re wrong and I’m right. The world is far too messy to conform
to the analyses and suggestions of any single author or teacher. Lis-
ten to that inner, nagging voice that says you might be right and
your superiors, your colleagues, your union, the professional code of
conduct that you work under, and the writers of books like this one
might be wrong. In a very real sense, you are the ultimate expert on
your own experience so be ready (particularly if your CIQ data sup-
ports your hunch) to act on what this voice is telling you. And if
you do act and find out that your hunch was wrong, you can remind
yourself that continually making mistakes, and learning from these,
is endemic to all good teaching.
Surviving Emotionally
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