Against Froot Loop Teaching
This morning I ate a hefty bowl of Froot Loops. This is not something I’m proud of, mind you. I’ve been around long enough to know that these colorful, fructose-laden particles have the nutritional value of dyed cardboard. But I ate them just the same. And for the briefest period of minutes, they sated me. They extinguished that craving in my gut and my psyche for sweetness. For a few seconds, I was awash in smiles and delight.
And shortly thereafter, I felt sluggish, foggy, and hungry again.
So much of our teaching is like this. ‘Froot Loop Teaching’ abounds. Publishers sell educators on the virtue of processed lessons with shiny packaging. They sell stories about how their glimmering prepackaged curriculum is fortified with standards-based nutrients. Pretty layouts and clever branding make it easier to ignore how devoid of intellectual value these “resources” actually are.
Educators themselves have gotten in on the action. So called classroom ‘influencers’ peddle their wares on the aisles of Pinterest or ‘Teachers Pay Teachers’. It’s so easy to visit the virtual teaching megastores offered by the Interwebs. It’s so easy to snatch up a glossy lesson activity that will engage students for a few minutes in lively commotion totally bereft of actual, lasting learning.
Yes, there’s some good stuff out there. And yes, I’d rather put dollars in the pockets of teachers than publishers. But, like food, processing too often strips the offerings of their original value. The surface remains; the substance disappears.
To understand how, it helps to explore an analogue from the world of food. In his brilliant polemic In Defense of Food, Michael Pollon (2009) argues against the ways that we have come to produce, select, and consume our food. He argues that most of what we’re consuming today is not actually food but “edible foodlike substances” (p.5). The plates at the dinner table are now full of items that would be unrecognizable to our great grandparents. So it is in the classroom. In the accountability obsessed, standards-driven environments of most public schools, ‘teaching-like practices’ pass for real teaching.
Pollan’s insight maps almost perfectly onto education: What fills our lessons may look like learning. It may even taste, briefly, like learning. But it often lacks the real substance needed to nourish thought.
In Zen, this problem is not new. Shohaku Okumura (2010) writes, “Practice is not about producing something. Practice is about being with what is real, moment after moment” (p.4) Teaching, too, at its root, isn’t about manufacturing polished performances. It’s about cultivating presence, depth, and intimacy with what is real—real minds, real struggles, real questions.
But I have a solution: oatmeal.
What if our teaching were more like oatmeal? Preferably steel cut. What if lessons were grown with care, prepared deliberately with minimal processing, and ingested and metabolized slowly. What if they weren’t shrouded in color and sweetners, but offered simple nourishing fare? What if they embraced complexity and subtlety?
Oatmeal lessons develop mastery slowly.
They require time, intention, and care.
They are cultivated through thoughtfully planned questions, through real attention to craft.
But such lessons produce learning that lasts and endures well beyond the moment. They clear the mind of facile thinking. They nourish new ideas. This is the type of teaching we need - oatmeal teaching.
As Norman Fischer (2013) reminds us in Training in Compassion: “Real practice does not promise excitement. It promises just what it is: quiet, steady, sometimes boring, nourishing work.” (p. 32)
Oatmeal teaching doesn’t entertain. It transforms.
It’s the kind of teaching that insists on slowness in a speed-obsessed world. It’s the kind of teaching that trusts students to metabolize complexity over time. It’s the kind of teaching that feeds understanding, not just achievement.
Susan Murphy (2010) writes beautifully of Zen practice which might as well be teaching practice, when she writes:“The real work is ordinary, repetitive, groundless—and the most beautiful thing.” (p. 134)
Real teaching is often plain.
Real teaching is sometimes slow.
Real teaching looks a lot like oatmeal.
And we need it more than ever.
It is as I’ve long suspected: oatmeal will save us all.
References
Fischer, N. (2013). Training in compassion: Zen teachings on the practice of lojong. Shambhala Publications.
Murphy, S. (2010). Upside-down Zen: Finding the marvelous in the ordinary. Wisdom Publications.
Okumura, S. (2010). Realizing Genjokoan: The key to Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Wisdom Publications.
Pollan, M. (2009). In defense of food: An eater’s manifesto. Penguin Books.
REFERENCES
Pollan, M. (2008). In defense of food : An eater’s manifesto. Penguin Press.
