When Content Isn’t Enough: Docents, Shortcut Licenses, and the Craft of Teaching

I’ve been thinking lately about a parallel between two worlds that don’t often get compared: museums and schools. On the surface, they couldn’t be more different; one houses T. Rex skeletons, the other features cafeteria food and standardized tests. But here’s the common thread: both often fall into the trap of assuming that delivering content is the same as teaching. Let’s unpack this idea a bit more.

The Museum Side of Things

I love docents. They are some of the most passionate, enthusiastic people you’ll meet in a cultural institution. They care deeply about art, science, history, you name it and they’re eager to share that love with visitors. When you’re wandering through a gallery on a quiet afternoon, having a docent give you context about a painting or point out a small detail you’d otherwise miss can be magical. They are skilled at mastering a collection and sharing their mastery with guests.

To be clear, docents aren’t automatically unqualified to lead a field trip. Many bring natural teaching instincts, and some receive additional training that helps them thrive in those settings. The issue isn’t the people. It’s the assumption that knowing content and presenting it automatically translates into designing a meaningful learning experience for students. If your field trip is little more than a truncated tour, with teachers helping to guide their class through a space, then docents may be a great fit.

Typically, though, field trips demand skills that go beyond content delivery, like group management, pacing, questioning, differentiation. When institutions don’t recognize that distinction, they can unintentionally set docents up for frustration and students for a thinner learning experience than they deserve.

The Classroom Side of Things

Now let’s shift to schools, where teacher shortages have led to the dramatic rise of shortcut licensing programs. The logic goes something like this: we need more teachers fast, so let’s take people who know their subject (say, a biology major) and give them a quick onramp to the classroom. A couple of weekends are often seen as enough time to help these candidates translate their subject matter expertise into teachable moments for students.

Again, the intent is good. Just like with docents, we’re drawing on people’s subject-matter knowledge and enthusiasm. Candidates in these programs tend to be enthusiastic and hopeful about making a difference. But just like with docents, the gap emerges when systems assume that content delivery is the same as teaching.

Shortcut-licensed teachers often don’t get the time to develop core skills like questioning techniques, differentiation, assessment design, or group management. They may know their content, but they may not yet know how to help others understand it, too. And when leadership treats subject knowledge alone as “good enough,” the classroom experience for students suffers.

The Common Thread and the Bigger Lesson

In both museums and schools, the problem isn’t individuals, it’s assumptions. We conflate enthusiasm over content with preparation to teach. That’s where the role dissonance comes from: people are being asked to do things they haven’t been prepared to do. It’s not about effort, passion, or desire - both docents and shortcut-licensed teachers bring plenty of that. It’s about leadership recognizing that teaching is its own craft and investing in the training, structures, and support that allow content experts to also become skilled educators. When we reduce teaching to content delivery, students miss out on the deeper, richer experience that makes learning meaningful. They might memorize a fact about dinosaurs or mitosis, but they don’t leave with curiosity sparked, questions formed, or the confidence that they can pursue the next step on their own. That’s the difference between checking a box and lighting a fire. “We went to the museum” versus “I still think about that exhibit.” “I passed the test” versus “I want to be a scientist.”

This isn’t just about museums or teacher licensing. It’s a reminder that whether we’re designing out-of-school experiences or staffing classrooms, we can’t shortcut the act of instruction. Teaching requires both content knowledge and the skill to guide learners through it. And here’s the irony: the best educators often step back from delivering content so that learners can step forward into it. They create structures that give learners room to explore, space to ask their own questions, and support to go deeper. That’s not something you can improvise on the fly. The lesson here isn’t that docents (or fast-track teachers) lack value; they often bring deep passion, subject expertise, and dedication. The real risk is when leadership assumes that subject knowledge alone is enough to guide learning. Content delivery and learning design are not the same thing, and role dissonance can occur when we treat them as the same. In the end, the shortcuts end up costing much more, in lower retention rates of workers, in increased recruitment costs, and in lowered outcomes from students.

When leaders face gaps, it’s easy to fill them with whoever is available and hope for the best. But if we don’t stop to ask what expertise the role actually requires, we create situations where even talented, motivated people are set up to struggle. A better approach is to:

• Clarify the role. What are the core skills and responsibilities, beyond just delivering content?

• Assess the gap. Do you have people with that training currently on staff (you might consider using a skills matrix to assess this)? If not, is it a matter of additional preparation, new training opportunities, or a need to rethink staffing altogether?

• Invest with intention. Sometimes that means training; sometimes it means building partnerships with educators or external stakeholders; sometimes it means adjusting expectations.

This kind of intentionality prevents role dissonance from creeping in, and it makes programs more sustainable, equitable, and impactful.

So here’s the call: as we continue to face teacher shortages and new pressures in education, we need leaders who can tell the difference, respect both the contribution of content specialists and the expertise of trained educators, and will invest in the structures that let both flourish, rather than blurring the lines and hoping for the best. When we confuse roles, students are the ones who miss out. But when we clarify and strengthen them, everyone wins.