Teaching faculty just teach, right?

 I am always amused when someone regards faculty positions with a comment like 

"Well, research (read:tenured) faculty do research and teach, while teaching faculty just teach."  

It comes across just as it sounds, like everyone has the ability to do the classroom thing, while only some of us have the ability to be the big thinkers.  One could discount it not as an intended or meaningful slur, but it does carry weight.  It actually is implicitly used in policy regarding TRT faculty, like when establishing teaching loads (a still as yet un-uniformized or systematized practice here at Hopkins).  In effect, because you do nothing but teach, you need to have a bigger teaching load.  It's what you do.  And here, discipline-specific teaching loads seem to be determined only by a joint decision between a Department Chair or Program Head, and an appropriate member of the Deans Office.  Unless the department or program leadership is TRT (nonexistent for a Department, rarely for a Program), there are no TRT in the room when teaching loads for TRT are established.   

I find myself trying to educate my colleagues on a continual basis (although not very well, it seems) as to what it entails to actually teach like a Teaching Professor.  

Teaching faculty do teach, yes.  It is our craft, and we are proud of our efforts in the classroom, excited by them, intrigued by the whole idea of how to well-communicate our thoughts to a large audience within our local learning communities (each instance of a course each semester).  We study each and every classroom on a continual basis, learning from each lecture and group activity how to better the next engagement.  Every time we teach a course, it is a brand new experience, like the ones before, but all new with new understanding.  Each group of students is different from the others, with a different collective personality, and needs.  We, as teachers, do not teach as much as we mentor, both the individuals in the room, and also the collective "person" that is the class.  Each lecture informs the next, building on the narrative that contains the story of the course.  One can plan out a semester's lectures, but one must replan after each lecture the rest of them.  Every step involves a replan of the next steps.  Every student, to us, is a lone student under our care, even as we use the other students as resources in the class.  The classroom is our laboratory for the continual study of how to transfer knowledge from one to many (and, really, back to the one again!). 

Plus, we wind up mentoring other faculty in their teaching.  I am continually asked to help other faculty in their teaching, step into their classrooms to evaluate and comment, provide supervision and mentorship to post-docs, Assistant Professors, and graduate students.  Yes, we are the experts.  And so much of our expertise is utilized outside of the classroom, as well as inside it. 

Some have said that I teach well.  Perhaps I do.  I do love the classroom.  And I care.  And I am exhausted after teaching two different courses in one day.  It takes great effort to teach a course well.  Precisely because we do not simply step in, talk for an hour, and walk away, offer a few problems for the student to do, graded by a TA.  That would be easy.  But who does things just because they are easy?

Instead, we mentor each and every student for the entirety of the semester.  Teaching two courses (in math) in one semester is a LOT.  Teaching three is insane, and would instantly degrade the entire experience!  

Chairs and Deans need to hear us for what we are:  The experts in the classroom.  We know what we do.  We know what good teaching  is and what a good teaching load should be within our discipline.  Listen to us.

So, maybe is is best to say: 

"Research faculty do research and teach, while Teaching faculty teach and do research."

Are we really THAT different?