Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya...

I've heard this phrase in several leadership/management classes/seminars:

"You're not a leader unless someone is following you."

This makes me wonder: Are you a teacher if noone is learning from you?

In our American low-church culture we assign the title of teacher to folks who are officially in charge of a class or small group. We also consider those who are able to regurgitate vast amounts of information to be "gifted" as teachers. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, "We keep using that word. I do not think it means what we think it means."

I think that many who we call teacher fall into one of these two categories:

1. Those who accept a position as teacher because they feel like they really should be doing something.

2. Those who have an innate ability to store innumerable facts in their grey matter and call it up on request (or on a misguided whim).

Perhaps we need to consider how to nurture, equip and motivate those who have a heart for imparting truth: those who might actually teach those who seek to learn from them. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I suspect that it's worth pondering. Don't you?