The University of Chicago: where I hope to go soon!
I made a rather shocking discovery last night: I really like school, and learning. This, coming from a person whose hand had to be pried off of the car door handle every single morning of elementary school and junior high, who purposely walked .2 mph to the bus stop to "accidentally" miss the bus, who dreaded back to school supplies, clothes, and even avoided playing with friends from school outside of the school premises, is quite surprising. Even college was disagreeable, well, my time at Biola and Abilene ; I had to force myself to attend droll classes because of attendance policies, and even ended up with mediocre grades simply for this fact. CSUB was a bit more fulfilling. I liked learning from people who loved their subjects, even geology!, because their expertise and enthusiasm made learning fascinating, and convinced me that my time studying silt layers actually mattered for something.
The point is that I'm not the cookie cutter "good student," and in fact my grades display a correlation between classes that I felt had a point, beyond just checking in, and those that did not. Enter graduate school, where classes are aimed solely at cultivating area-specific expertise, taught by THE people whose work keeps these disciplines alive. Beyond the ideal, this just means a bunch or quirky, somewhat radical enthusiasts toting books and specialized vocabulary from conferences to the classroom -it's awesome! How I loved night classes after daylight savings time that began at 7:30. We gathered after dark to discuss Samuel Johnson's application of ethics and reason to human nature, and often got onto a tangent about his contemporaries, biography, etc. And the previous semester Patrick and I sat through readings of middle English tales, and the influence of Germanic Anglo Saxon legend on enchantresses, Merlin, and Sir Gawain's Green Knight. Though I complained often about the tangents in this class -modern adaptations of medieval legend, sword fighting and medieval martial arts, and the woman as a temptress, it was nice to sit beside Patrick, exchange knowing and bored looks with a few friends, and to engage my mind in patience.
I conclude that a part of me is missing. I feel a gaping hole in my mind, for fellowship, intellectual collaboration, ideas, and scholarship. I still pursue my own study, but it isn't as satisfying to debate with myself, or take notes that will remain in a notebook.
And secondly, I think I miss my students. I would have admitted in the past that "I hate teaching," but to be honest, it's just hard work, so very hard because students break your heart. Their pride, stubbornness, insecurity, rude behavior, disrespect, and fear of worthlessness all display that they just need to be loved; as children becoming adults, it's crucial that they receive a sense of identity that I, in part, have an opportunity to instill, and it's more my disappointment rather than offense that causes me to respond in anger.
One of my professor friends sent me an email today containing this section from an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education:
All you need is love. Well, maybe that's not all you need to be a good teacher. It helps to have an advanced degree, and maybe some actual knowledge of the subject matter. But in teaching, as in other human relationships, a little love goes a long way.
When I talk about love, I mean, first and foremost, love for students. Of course you're not going to experience strong feelings of affection for each and every student, and that's probably just as well. There will be some students you don't like much at all. That's normal.
But a good teacher has a love for students in general, students as a group. I make that point because I've known so many teachers who seem to dislike students, even to hold them in contempt. You can tell by what they say about students in private.
Whenever I hear a faculty member constantly talking about how stupid or rude students are, I think to myself, "Then why are you doing this?" It's little wonder that their teaching ratings show that students don't care much for them, either.
Also when I talk about love, I'm referring to love of the subject matter. We've all had teachers who appeared bored with their own lectures, disenchanted with their assignments, and indifferent to class discussion. Then we've had teachers whose passion for their subject matter made us feel passionate about it, too. For many of us, it was the latter group who inspired us to become teachers.
Of course, even if you clearly love teaching, grant students adult status, give an Oscar-worthy performance every day, and resist your jerkier impulses, that doesn't mean your students will come to love your class. But at least maybe they won't hate it—or you—quite as much.
-Rob Jenkins
All you need is love. Well, maybe that's not all you need to be a good teacher. It helps to have an advanced degree, and maybe some actual knowledge of the subject matter. But in teaching, as in other human relationships, a little love goes a long way.
When I talk about love, I mean, first and foremost, love for students. Of course you're not going to experience strong feelings of affection for each and every student, and that's probably just as well. There will be some students you don't like much at all. That's normal.
But a good teacher has a love for students in general, students as a group. I make that point because I've known so many teachers who seem to dislike students, even to hold them in contempt. You can tell by what they say about students in private.
Whenever I hear a faculty member constantly talking about how stupid or rude students are, I think to myself, "Then why are you doing this?" It's little wonder that their teaching ratings show that students don't care much for them, either.
Also when I talk about love, I'm referring to love of the subject matter. We've all had teachers who appeared bored with their own lectures, disenchanted with their assignments, and indifferent to class discussion. Then we've had teachers whose passion for their subject matter made us feel passionate about it, too. For many of us, it was the latter group who inspired us to become teachers.
Of course, even if you clearly love teaching, grant students adult status, give an Oscar-worthy performance every day, and resist your jerkier impulses, that doesn't mean your students will come to love your class. But at least maybe they won't hate it—or you—quite as much.
-Rob Jenkins
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