I teach English.

There are two kinds of high school English teachers. There are the ones who say things like, "I don't teach English; I teach kids!" and then there are the ones who roll their eyes when they hear stuff like that. The introvert knows content but is stereotyped as weak or boring; the extrovert does not usually have the same content-area preparation but is, as Willy Loman said, "Well liked."

Content is, as I've explained in other posts, often brushed off because you can "use" any literature to teach a "process," whether it be writing, critical thinking, or interacting with others. But I think it's still about the content. After all, look at the alternatives.

If education is all about the teacher, we have a dictatorship. If it is all about the student, we have narcissism. You shouldn't hold blindly onto some fixed canon from the good old days nor should class be a big therapy session for students obsessed with the ephemeral.

The content is life. The content is the great conversation that people have been engaging in for eons about how to live a good life. If a class is focused on that, both students and teachers learn.