Teaching Writing as a Way of Living

My instincts often tell me that teachers in general fail to consider something very important when it comes to education, teaching, and the learning process. In many ways, I consider myself fortunate to have come through my current teaching position by an alternative path, (a BA in English/Rhetoric, rather than an Education degree, and years of practical field experience), because I lack the same pedagogical background an average MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching) student does. I've had to teach largely on instinct and my own personal experience with writing and reading (which doesn't lessen the importance of pedagogy by any means). However, it's my personal belief or "gut feeling" that often enough, young teachers come out of college twisted, tied, and bound up with more educational theories, models, and benchmark standards than they know what to do with.

I've seen this firsthand in many workshops, conferences, and the few non-matriculated Education courses I've taken over the past few years. At the risk of sounding flippant, instruction in Education and the teaching process has become very "buzz-word" and "teaching model" oriented. I'll admit this is mere generalization on my part, but I often imagine waves of students graduating from teaching preparatory programs armed to the teeth with every instruction model, classroom behavioral technique, lesson plan guideline, and new learning theory, with the most important component of the learning process left out:

The students themselves.