This is privacy with a vengeance.

There are probably at least two reasons why teaching is such an intensely private activity. First of all, the academy has few institutionalized, formalized structures to make teaching a more public and a more accessible venture, which is not the case for the other major parts of faculty work: scholarship and service.

Although research may be done in the privacy of an office, study, laboratory, or library carrel; although research results may be written up by a single individual working alone; nevertheless, the articles and books generated are submitted to journals and publishers for others to read, review, and comment upon.

Likewise with service. Faculty members may read a tenure candidate's dossier in the privacy of their offices, but then they go to a meeting and talk about it.

There is no such mechanism for teaching. Teaching involves only the lone professor. Teachers may share and discuss and form a community with their students, but not with their colleagues, their peers, their equals.

If we believe that free exchange of information makes for better research; if we believe that discussion and conversations make for better decisions about tenurings and promotions and curriculum; in short, if we believe that discussion can improve research and service, then it seems likely that discussion can also improve teaching and learning.

The second reason that teaching seems so inaccessible and invisible is that it is often perceived to be a black box; that is, something that we accept, admire, sometimes even reward, but never analyze very well. Exactly what do we mean when we say "teaching"?