"'Educational' refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger"
About this Quote
"Educational" is not a property that clings to a toy, a book, or a lecture like a sticker on a box. It names something that happens: curiosity sparking, attention engaging, minds wrestling with ideas. The jab about teachers being replaceable by a cheeseburger turns that insight into a joke with teeth. A cheeseburger sits there. It is present, inert, caloric. If a teacher functions like that, merely occupying a space and dispensing undigested content, then nothing educational is happening, no matter what the syllabus claims.
The line attacks two habits at once. First, the habit of slapping "educational" on objects for marketing gloss, as if a label could substitute for engagement. A microscope is not educational until someone looks, wonders, and experiments. A history book is not educational until a reader starts questioning causes and perspectives. Second, the habit of treating teaching as transmission from a full vessel to an empty one. When the classroom becomes a place where students are acted upon rather than invited to act, a burger in a chair would have roughly the same effect.
Terry Pratchett loved skewering institutions that confuse ceremony with substance, and his Discworld novels are full of universities and guilds whose routines outlive their purposes. The joke works because it flatters no one and lets everyone in on the fix: learning is a verb. It depends on attention, feedback, dialogue, failure, and revision. The best teachers are catalysts, not monuments; they design problems, ask better questions, and help students build meaning rather than swallow it whole.
There is also a quiet mercy in the humor. It suggests that blame does not rest solely on individuals. Systems that prize compliance, coverage, and testable outcomes naturally produce cheeseburger-shaped teaching. The antidote is not a shinier object but a livelier process: more wonder, more making, more conversation, more room for minds to do what they do when they are actually learning.
The line attacks two habits at once. First, the habit of slapping "educational" on objects for marketing gloss, as if a label could substitute for engagement. A microscope is not educational until someone looks, wonders, and experiments. A history book is not educational until a reader starts questioning causes and perspectives. Second, the habit of treating teaching as transmission from a full vessel to an empty one. When the classroom becomes a place where students are acted upon rather than invited to act, a burger in a chair would have roughly the same effect.
Terry Pratchett loved skewering institutions that confuse ceremony with substance, and his Discworld novels are full of universities and guilds whose routines outlive their purposes. The joke works because it flatters no one and lets everyone in on the fix: learning is a verb. It depends on attention, feedback, dialogue, failure, and revision. The best teachers are catalysts, not monuments; they design problems, ask better questions, and help students build meaning rather than swallow it whole.
There is also a quiet mercy in the humor. It suggests that blame does not rest solely on individuals. Systems that prize compliance, coverage, and testable outcomes naturally produce cheeseburger-shaped teaching. The antidote is not a shinier object but a livelier process: more wonder, more making, more conversation, more room for minds to do what they do when they are actually learning.
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| Topic | Teaching |
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