In October 2021, Beth McMurtrie, senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote an article titled “The Damaging Myth of the Natural Teacher”. The piece explores how, despite decades of research showing otherwise, teaching is often considered an innate talent rather than a skill that can be learned. The article highlights how damaging this belief is for professors, students, and higher education in general. In today’s episode, Beth shares how and why she wrote this article, and discusses the cultural, structural, and economic reasons that the “teaching as an art” myth persists in the academy. 

Transcript available at ctl.columbia.edu/podcast.

Resource: “The Damaging Myth of the Natural Teacher” by Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 20, 2021