Yesterday the Quote of the Day was from William Pickering, our ambassador to Russia. He said:

"In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known."

Now, in this context he's clearly using a very specific meaning for "cover" and "uncover." With respect to archaeology, his meaning is literal: archaeologists unearth artifacts. Concerning diplomacy, he still focuses on unearthing or burying something, but the something in question is conceptual (information) rather than physical (object).

I'd like to expand the idea somewhat, however, including the meaning we intend when we say that a runner "covered the miles to the finish line at a record-setting pace," or that a teacher "covered a great deal of material during this class session." That is, there's a sense of displacement involved: you end up somewhere other than where you began.

And that's of course a desired outcome in education. People are drawn out from where they started in their thinking, and led out into new thinking territory (that's where we get the word educate, in fact). You finish school with more skills than when you began, and (to extend the displacement motif further) you approach any new problem or situation from a different angle.

Now, here's the question: in terms of covering and uncovering, what is the teacher's approach to the known and unknown?

Consider Pickering's quote as laid out on a two-axis graph:



If the green dot represents diplomacy and the purple dot represents archaeology, where would you put a dot (or dots) for teaching?