Draft for the teacher's role

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+---
+postid: 000
+title: The teacher's role
+date: April 8, 2019
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+tags: cogitatio
+---
+
+[i] Knowledge, in its general sense[^1], is structured as a set of
+[trees][btcbase-1881723] whose ramifications stem from
+[concepts][btcbase-1631714][^2], which interact with each other
+linguistically in [complex manners][btcbase-1587276].
+
+[ii] The child, having gone through the direct experience of
+[tree parsing][trilema-ai] is at some point left entirely baffled by the
+complexity of the process' output -- "[two plus two][two-plus-two]" is,
+weirdly enough, more than the simple sum of "plus" and "two", and the
+relations between all these things only keep growing in number as one
+advances through the trees. Eventually, trees will have structured
+themselves into trees-of-trees and trees-of-trees-of-trees and so on,
+while, even more baffingly, the danger of circularity lies at every
+turn.
+
+[iii] In the face of this maze, the role of the teacher then becomes
+apparent: the teacher will see to it that the child's knowledge trees
+are correctly constructed. More concretely, the former is to guide the
+latter in this journey of navigating the trees, pruning the
+[diseased branches][cockroaches], while tending to the healthy ones.
+
+[iv] The teacher, however, isn't going to be around forever; and
+moreover, the child, assuming it intellectually capable of navigating
+the trees of knowledge, has in it the potential of becoming
+[human][humanity], and moreover, a teacher himself, so that him, or
+herself is able to raise humans.
+
+[v] Thus, through training, emerges a reflective meta-cognitive process:
+the child learns *how to learn*, i.e. how to navigate the tree himself,
+and tend to it, being guided by a set of pillars set in ground by the
+teacher -- the so-called *basic* notions, the ones without which the
+trees will collapse into an eventual [nothing][death].
+
+[vi] Having identified these two essential components that together form
+the teacher's role, we can, conversely, identify what is *not* the
+teacher's role. The teacher isn't to "make things
+[more accessible][btcbase-1880015]", this is only what an anti-teacher
+would do; he isn't there to provide his student with
+"[the facts][just-the-facts]".
+
+[vii] This process of anti-teaching leads in the very best case to
+individuals who are [less than impressed][btcbase-1907214], in the very
+literal sense: deep inside, there is very little there to impress upon,
+and thus indeed not much [to discuss][btcbase-1907689].
+
+[^1]: Into which we won't delve, mainly because of the difficulty of
+    taking an entire branch of philosophy that's studied it for millenia
+    and fitting it into this modest page. Suffice it to say that the
+    proximate genus of knowledge is belief, while the specific
+    difference comprises at least truth and justification.
+
+[^2]: The proximate genus of the concept is representation. The specific
+    difference is... well, this is where I'll have to admit that my
+    philosophical muscle is so weak that I daren't go further.
+
+[btcbase-1881723]: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-19#1881723
+[btcbase-1631714]: http://btcbase.org/log/2017-03-23#1631714
+[btcbase-1587276]: http://btcbase.org/log/2016-12-21#1587276
+[trilema-ai]: http://trilema.com/2017/my-three-days-of-ai/#selection-9100.0-9112.5
+[two-plus-two]: /posts/y03/05f-two-plus-two.html
+[cockroaches]: http://btcbase.org/log-search?q=cockroaches
+[humanity]: /posts/y01/032-your-worth-to-humanity.html
+[death]: http://trilema.com/2019/radical-feminism-in-the-romanian-fin-de-siecle/#selection-444.0-444.5
+[btcbase-1880015]: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-12#1880015
+[just-the-facts]: http://btcbase.org/log-search?q=just+the+facts
+[btcbase-1907214]: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-04-07#1907214
+[btcbase-1907689]: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-04-08#1907689
+[btcbase-1907689]: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-04-08#1907689