I’m really struggling to understand my teaching self.
I started my college teaching career trusting that students would read the text, think about the ideas, and be prepared for class. After having many experiences which eroded my trust, I’ve tended to become frustrated and even angry. There’s nothing I hate more than discussing an essay or chapter and it becomes apparent that no one has read it. It kills what I love about teaching—the give and take, the clash of ideas, the on-the-spot melding of differing views. To avoid being angry at students, I’ve tended to create more and more little assignments (busy work?) to “ensure” that students are prepared for class, that they have something to add to the discussions. I mean I don’t want to sit up there are lecture—many studies show this is not effective. Yet…
The unintended consequences are huge—one, students feel and report that they are too rushed, confused, etc. And I know this kind of feeling does not contribute to learning or thinking carefully—it just can’t. Also, I’m overwhelmed with the number of assignments coming in—I have three huge piles of the stuff next to me right now. Should I check them off in class? Give feedback? If they are important enough to assign shouldn’t I evaluate them? When I start looking at a batch of assignments it’s often clear that some students totally missed the point or merely wrote down some BS to get the points. So what am I really accomplishing with these little assignments?
It seems clear, then, that I should allow students to choose—agency!--to engage in the course; if they don’t then that’s their own problem and it will show up, generally, in the big papers. And I think I could get ok with this idea. I’m really not a control freak. But then what do we do in class? My pedagogy centers around having students share their responses to readings and the textbook in small groups and pairs. I like this because it pushes students to articulate the concepts to their peers, rather than just listening and writing notes. If they haven’t been given a specific assignment which forces (or at least invites) them to really consider the issues, then what will they talk about?
Also, while I always get dinged on my evaluations for expecting too much work, 99% of my students indicate that they were intellectually challenged by my course and many specifically mention this in their comments on evaluations. In a recent evaluation a student said, “He didn’t expect us to write papers in which we can b.s. our way through them. He expected us to actually delve into an issue and prove it! I love it! Way to go! About time!” Can I maintain this kind of rigorous atmosphere without these small, checking in, forcing to engage kind of assignments?
And that last comment introduces a whole other layer of complication. Even if I can decide for myself what the correct approach is with all this, some teachers clearly are asking for something else (“About time!”). Should what other teachers do and expect impact how I run my courses? Maybe what it means is that I must choose my battles. I know the battle I can’t give up on (pushing students to think, the intellectual challenge, the difficult texts) so then it seems simple—the battle I might need to give up on is workload. Sometimes, they say, less is more. And, for me personally, something has to give because I no longer have the energy to fight this battle on multiple fronts.
BTW I use the war metaphor knowingly (I just reread two articles by Lakoff) albeit uncomfortably. Maybe my whole construction of teaching needs revamped; maybe I need a new metaphor.
