Tag Archives: teaching

What a Life

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Anyone out there? Anyone? Yes, still alive. Do note however, that I did not go so far as to say, “Alive and well.”

But there’s enough negativity in the air without me adding to it, so today I’m all unicorns and rainbows.

I just wrapped my semester of teaching first year writing and a course titled “Multicultural Perspectives in Classrooms”.

I’ve only told the inner circle, of which you are now a part, that it might have been my last rodeo.

So let’s fast forward to Grace, a first year writer, and the last day. Grace is a black belt in tae kwon do. In her paper on social infrastructure, she wrote beautifully about her tae kwon do studio where she grew up and now teaches.

There are two types of students, those genuinely seeking an education and those simply wanting certification. The later sacrifice curiosity for figuring out “what the teacher wants”. Other “tells” are how they tune out their classmates and focus intensely on grades. Not their fault I have to remind myself. Our factory model of education tends to socialize students to prioritize product over process, but I digress.

Grace was all education from the beginning. Her eyes locked on mine from the jump. Near the end of the last class, an informal day of peer editing small groups, she asked, “Do you have any more advice for us?” I thought that was sweet, since I understood her to be saying she didn’t want our time together to end.

Flashback. December 1993. Guilford College. Greensboro, NC. The end of my first college course, a small senior seminar. I waxed philosophic for probably ten minutes using as many ginormous words as I could muster. Reminding my students of all they had been blessed to learn under my tutelage.

At the very end of the sermon, a hand. “Ah,” I thought, “Josh is going to thank me for changing his life.”

“Dude! You have a pierced ear!” Josh’s observation inspired his classmates to chime in on why the hell I had never worn it to class. Things quickly spiraled down. In the end, no one thanked me for the sermon or for changing their lives.

Back to Grace. Still haunted by Josh, in response to her question I said, “No, not really.” The look of disappointment inspired me to add, “Well, just keep doing exactly what you are and you will flourish.” Weak, I know.

An hour later, I was making a quiet get-a-way. As I entered my car and looked across the parking lot to see if I could pull out, there was Coleton, Hudson, and Lily walking side-by-side in my direction. All three of my first year writers smiled at the surprise interaction. I lowered my window and asked whether Coleton, wearing short sleeves in December, ever gets cold, and we made some more small talk. I had no idea they were friends outside of class, a class whose theme was “The Art and Science of Human Connection”. Obviously, they had connected. “My work here is done,” I thought to myself.

During that final week, after recycling a quarter century of paperwork, I texted the Good Wife, “My take-away. I’ve done a lot of good work. For a long time.”

Then Makida, a talented young writer from Ethiopia, wrote me. “I wanted to let you know how grateful I am for the incredible impact you’ve had on my first semester. It’s been almost six years since I had a teacher who made me love learning as much as you have; my 7th-grade chemistry teacher was the last, and he has always been a special figure in my life. You remind me of him in the best way, with your encouragement, kindness, and ability to bring out the best in your students.”

And Jordan. “Thank you for providing a space of enlightenment and discomfort for my brain this semester. I feel as if I had the ability to grow a lot.”

And Emma. “I’ve had a hard time putting my appreciation for you and your class into written words. This was my last semester at PLU, and I feel so grateful to have had a chance to learn from you before my undergraduate journey came to an end. I typically struggle in humanities classes because I’m not a very talkative student; but something about the way that you structured your course made it easy for me to participate and engage. You have an accepting and approachable energy that makes your students feel comfortable having brave conversations in class. . . . I’ve taken a lot of difficult classes at PLU, but none of them challenged me in the ways that this course did. I came into this semester thinking I knew a lot about education from my mom, but I never realized just how much there was to learn. You said on the first day of class that the skills we would learn in EDUC205 would be useful in many different careers and areas of our lives. While I still don’t know if I’ll ever teach, I know that I’ll use the lessons I learned in your class to make an impact on the world in some way. I think that regardless of their vocation, everyone should take a class like this. The multicultural introspection and reflection that I experienced was more valuable to my career as a physician than any biology course I’ve taken in my time at PLU.”

These messages made me want a do-over with Grace, but it was too late. In hindsight, my advice to her and her classmates would have been to pursue work that does more than provide economic security. Find work that enables you to make a positive difference in others’ lives. Work that enables you to express your values. Work that is mutually rewarding. Do that, and you won’t consider it work.

Sometimes There’s A Breakthrough

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The final paper. A self-assessment of one’s writing progress. Which admittedly, is a bit presumptuous.

A fave excerpt from one student’s paper.

“But this prewriting is different than what I thought it would be; my prewriting involves putting my professor into a (metaphorical) box, and I put that box into another box. Then, I put that box in the garage and forget about it. Only at this point do I return to my brainstorming and drafts. I have learned that if I do not do this I expend too much energy trying to inject the professor into my creation. Once I realized that my writing is for myself, not the professor, I found that writing is an engaging process of self discovery and growth. This is most evident in my penultimate paper on the concept of soulmates.”

Typically, academic writing is an impersonal jumping through hoops, with students preoccupied by grades. Students inevitably develop a teacher-centric orientation when writing in school, asking themselves, “To get the best grade possible, what and how am I expected to think and write?”

If I could only get all of my students to put me in a box, inside a box, in a garage. Yes, I would prob suffocate to death, but I would die happy.

A Pastor, Comedian, and Educator Walk Into a Bar

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And compare notes.

The pastor says, “I can tell when my congregation is with me. When they’re watching and listening intently, we’re connected.”

The comedian says, “I can tell when my audience is with me. When they’re watching and listening intently, we’re connected.”

The educator says, “I can tell when my students are with me. When they’re watching and listening intently, we’re connected.”

One never arrives as a teacher. On the best days, a distinct majority watches and listens intently. And the connection is strong. More often, some watch and listen intently, while others are elsewhere. The eternal challenge is tilting that balance.

I Failed

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How will large language models/artificial intelligence change K-12 education? Maybe the better question is will large language modes/artificial intelligence change K-12 education? Through teaching, research, and writing, I spent most of my academic career trying to make high schools more democratic, more international, more personal, and more relevant and purposeful.

I’m sad to report that I failed bigly. The fact of the matter is, except for all the surreptitious texting under desks, the typical high school today functions remarkably similar to the way Cypress (California) High School did when I graduated in 1980. What other institution in American life can you say that about?

Lesson learned. K-12 education is incredibly resistant to change. Like YouTube, surely ChatGPX-like devices will have some effect, but probably not enough to fundamentally alter the teacher-student relationship. One education scholar uses an ocean metaphor to explain the futility of education reform. Schedule tweaks, new curriculum initiatives, education technologies, all create changes on the surface of the ocean just as high winds do. Descend to the ocean floor however, meaning the teacher-student relationship in the classroom, and the water’s darkness, chemistry, and animal life are completely unaffected by the tumult on the surface. The teacher still mostly talks and the students listen.

Despite it being so obvious, it wasn’t easy to admit my my failure, you know, professional identity and ego and all. But the consolation is a quiet confidence that I have made a positive difference in a lot of individual teacher’s lives. Despite not having dented their work environment, I have made meaningful contributions to their professional success. I’ve failed, but I’m not a failure.

And even though I’ve admitted defeat and let go of my teacher education identity, I am still helping individual teachers on occasion, just fewer of them. Yesterday, for example, one of my first year writers from Fall 2021, a prospective teacher, wrote me seeking advice. Here’s how she started her missive:

“I hope all is well! I am reaching out to you because I need some advice. I figured you would be an excellent person to reach out to because you are part of the education faculty and have taught abroad and done things I want to do with my life. I also think you won’t sugarcoat things and you will tell me the truth.” 

I liked that she didn’t think I’d “sugarcoat things”. So, in that spirit of keeping it real, I predict high schools in 43 years, make that 2066, will still look and feel pretty damn similar. Given my protein bar consumption, it’s unlikely I’ll live long enough to see if my prediction comes true. I hope it does not.

Postscript: Not an “institution”, but same idea.

Put A Fork In It

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The semester is a wrap. My parting words to my students.

“The very end of my first class as a brand new professor at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC ended in a humorous manner. I spoke for about ten minutes, doing my best to tie together all the course’s loose ends. I was pulling out my egghead professor vocab and thought everyone was listening closely. After I finished, Josh raised his hand. ‘Oh great,’ I thought, ‘Josh is going to thank me for the brilliant summary and the course more generally.’ Instead, he said, ‘Dude, you have a pierced ear!’ Then the discussion devolved into why I had never came to class with an earring. Lesson learned, keep the end-of-semester spiel very, very brief.

Price writes that ‘the more we train ourselves to notice delights—the everyday beauties and kindnesses and amusing absurdities, the things that make us laugh or that we feel grateful for—we will feel more positive.’ She goes on to suggest we say ‘delight’ out loud whenever we experience anything that sparks joy. I’m trying to adapt this practice. This morning, on my drive in through the Nisqually Delta, I saw a huge flock of birds flying in ‘V’ formation. I said ‘delight’ to myself. Then I immediately thought of this class and what I wanted to say to you now that we’re at the finishing line.

And here it is. Delight.

It’s been a complete and total delight to get to know each of you individually and collectively. I hope the rest of Year 1 goes well and that we cross paths again sometime in the future.”

Ron

The Academically Disengaged

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We need more Bill Waltons, the former college and professional basketball legend whose playing days were cut short by numerous injuries and related surgeries.

“My injuries piled up,” Walton explains. “Bad back, broken bones, ankle and foot problems, broken hands and wrists, knee injuries, and broken noses.” By his count, Walton had 38 orthopedic surgeries to mend his various injuries.

Currently, Walton is a wonderfully idiosyncratic basketball analyst whose “glass of life” is constantly overflowing. The list of things he appreciates is exceedingly long. His positivity is contagious. His commentary is 45% basketball and 45% philosophical, interdisciplinary ramblings. The remaining 10% of the time he’s busting his partner’s chops. Their faux exasperation with each other can’t hide their chemistry and mutual affection. It just works.

Midway through yesterday’s UCLA-Oregon game (Bruins off the Duck schneid), Walton said something that instantly clarified my thinking about my teaching this fall. He said, “You can’t learn what you don’t want to know.” Turns out, after a little sleuthing, he was quoting Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, who in one of their songs wrote, “You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna to know.” Shame on Walton, one of the greatest passing bigs of all time, for not crediting Garcia.

Much is being written about the growing academic achievement gender gap. Here is my Reader’s Digest point of view on it based upon my “on the ground” experience. A third of my students are male. At least half of them are excellent, by which I mean they think deeply about what they read, participate actively in class discussions, and write better and better over the course of the semester as a result of working at it. They’re sensitive, caring, and socially conscious. A privilege to work with.

The other subset doesn’t read, participates sporadically in ways that do not deepen our discussions, and pay little to no attention to their peers. They’re way more interested in their phones than what we’re reading and thinking through.

“Well Ron,” the K-12 teachers are probably saying, “your job is to get them interested.” I don’t want to ever become some of my colleagues whose answer to this dilemma is for the Admissions Office to just admit “better” students. My K-12 friends are right, but so is Walton, I mean Garcia, no matter how much magic my engaged students and I can muster, “You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna to know.”

Compared to my female students, a disproportionate number of my male students don’t like to read and lack curiosity about themselves and others. While still a minority of males, this disengaged subset seems most interested in two things. A diploma and a job. Rightly or wrongly convinced of the need for a diploma for improved job prospects, they are resigned to playing the game of school for four years. At a large cost. 

These students would benefit immensely from a gap year or two. Especially if we had a respected National Service program that they could opt into. 

Absent that, some of the apathetic will do just enough to graduate relatively unchanged. And for many others, their apathy will get the best of them, and all they will have to show for their limited effort is years of debt.

Teaching My Ass Off

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Just because I’m oldy and moldy, some might think I should call it a career. But the passion for the classroom still burns bright. I woke up at 2:30a.m. with these thoughts rattling around. Don’t call it a lecture, that’s demeaning. It was more of a homily/sermon.

  • all we’re doing is practicing “thoughtful inquiry”and learning to have “true fun” with ideas— playfulness, connection, flow
  • the cutting and pasting of ideas/approaches to life from other especially thoughtful people
  • social infrastructure . . . we are products of our environments, you are the company you keep
  • how closely have you read the key content, how closely have you listened to your classmates’ ideas, how much time/energy have you invested in examining your inner life?
  • epiphany—a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

How closely has the student-writer read the key content?

  • there are no references to any of the author’s key concepts . . . the paper could’ve been written completely independent of the reading—35%
  • the student-writer briefly touches upon the author’s key concepts—55%
  • there are repeated, thoughtful references to the author’s main idea(s), the student-writer’s thinking is changed— a little or a lot—as a result of their careful consideration of the author’s main ideas; the student-writer’s ideas are nuanced and demonstrate an appreciation for complexity—10%