I believe the teacher's work is largely negative, that it is largely a matter of saying, "This doesn't work because ..." or "This does work because ..." The because is very important. The teacher can help you understand the nature of your medium, and he can guide you in your reading.
Interpretation
The role of a teacher is primarily to point out what is effective and ineffective in a student's work.
Flannery O'Connor emphasizes that the teacher's main function is to provide critical feedback, helping students discern what works and what doesn’t in their creative endeavors. This process of evaluation is vital, as it not only guides students in their understanding of their artistic medium but also informs their approach to reading and interpreting works of others, fostering deeper insight and growth.
In practice
During a teacher training seminar, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of constructive criticism.
Let me make no bones about it: I write from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. Nothing is more repulsive to me than the idea of myself setting up a little universe of my own choosing and propounding a little immoralistic message. I write with a solid belief in all the Christian dogmas.
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.
There won't be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.
Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are
He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery.
Teaching sometimes seems like not one profession, but every profession. We ask them to be doctor and diplomat, calf-herder, map-maker, wizard and watchman, electricians of the mind.
We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.
The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.
My main hope is eventually, in modern education field, introduce education about warm-heartedness, not based on religion, but based on common experience and a common sort of sense, and then scientific finding.
Telling purposeful stories is interactive. It's not a monolog. Ultimately, purposeful tellers must surrender control of their stories, creating a gap for the listener(s) to willingly cross in order to take ownership. Only when the listener(s) own the tellers' story and make it theirs, will they virally market it.
No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.
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