Do you teach content or do you teach kids?

This question came up on Twitter recently and I gave a twitterly response (140 character limit) that "I teach kids content" because I don't think the question, as posed, makes a lot of sense. Certainly in light of reading Willingham's book and pretty much agreeing with him on the issue of teaching content vs. critical thinking, the same idea applies here. Without content there's nothing to "teach" the kids. There has to be a "who" (the kids) as well as a "what" (the content). Otherwise your just standing in front of a group of kids doing nothing or standing in an empty room talking to yourself.

Now, maybe I'm missing the point of the question and stating the obvious. But there is a tendency in education circles to make these over-simplified false-choice kinds of dilemmas, and it becomes a marker for group identity, a way of dividing people into camps of progressive vs. traditional, old vs. new, caring vs. cold, etc.* The question has an implied "right" answer - we are supposed to respond that we teach kids, that is our central goal and purpose.

The original poster of the question was not satisfied with my answer and followed up, "but at the core of it, what is your focus?" That led me to wonder just exactly what problem in education the question is designed to address, leaving aside for a moment the logical absurdity of the choice it proposes. I thought of the following scenario: A teacher is obsessed with "covering the curriculum" and keeps a strict pacing calendar, covers every topic deemed essential to the field, in order, on schedule, and refuses to compromise when the kids are left behind, dazed and confused. This is a bit of an exaggeration and while I have known teachers who express some sympathy for a modified version of this approach, I don't know anyone who is serious about teaching and follows it to this extreme. Even here, though, at the heart of this attitude is a feeling that this is what the kids need to know, so it's still about the kids. Misguided, perhaps, but it's not only about the curriculum. People who feel this way aren't indifferent to the kids, they just have a different conception about what's right for them.

Furthermore, the conflict becomes more acute when we talk about covering the curriculum to help kids prepare for the high-stakes assessments they have to take. In (NY State) high schools, if you don't pass them you don't graduate. If you get a higher score you may qualify for a diploma with honors, which looks good on your college transcripts. Then we also have to worry about the kids going to college and being unprepared for the work that is required of them at the next level. So teaching the content to the best of your ability is every bit about what's good for the kids. The challenge is knowing how to help every child progress in the content as much as possible. It's also about, on a practical level, when to stay on a topic the kids don't understand at the risk of not covering some other topics, and when to just move on. Again, this is a question of what's right for the kids given two equally unpleasant choices.

Am I still missing the point?

*The term "child-centered" education comes to mind. What school isn't "child centered" in the non-specialized sense of the phrase? The term is used as a weapon against schools or teachers who have more traditional approaches to the needs of the child.