Teaching: The Agony and the Ecstasy

Today was a normal day--drove in late, but after that, prep, teach, prep, teach, prep, teach, office hours. And then the long drive home. A slow steady wax and wane, like a tide, throughout the day. No surprises, no crises. Within that rhythm is the melody my own unique contribution to the world, my legacy, if you will, that thrums somewhere beneath all the noise and clatter of this corner of the modern world. I'm talking about what I bring to the classroom, what I give to the world 13 or 28 or 88 students at a time.

It occurred to me that what I bring to the world is uniform in its consistency of good intent. I always go into the classroom prepared and hoping to enlighten my students in a specific way. But the consistency of outcome or product is of lacking. Despite what I put into the teaching and learning system, I don't always succeed in the end.

Case in point: my first and second classes. Very different classes in terms of the level of material and the dedication of students. The first class is large, full of people from various majors, mostly sophomores and juniors, in a large, anonymous room. My second class is methodology, all majors, sophomores and juniors, but there are only a handful of them.

In the first class I am working with them toward one of the big end of year projects. Over the course of a few weeks I explained the project, told them about various pieces of the whole, modeled it for them (twice), and then today had them do a practice run in class. They formed pairs, accepted the handouts gratefully, worked diligently for about 30 minutes, and then I had three pairs come forward to showcase what they were doing for the class. We discovered that some understood the assignment differently, and we made corrections. It seemed to fall together like a dream and I was very happy when I left class.

One hour later I began my methodology class. I was prepared to bring them to a whole new level of understanding of how to draft their long research papers. I engaged them (as I often do) in a white-board chat in which I pulled their ideas and my ideas together into a pretty detailed discussion of the writing process. But somewhere in there the thing did not gel. The discussion broke down, fell apart, disintegrated into a series of sullen grunts. And when I probed their brains for further information they revealed a lot of angst. The discussion had not enlightened them at all. My new vision of the writing process had shut them down. I left class a failure.

But not a failure for lack of preparation or good will toward my students. And not, I would further posit, because the students in that class are dullards, because we've had good discussions on difficult subjects and they seem bright, perceptive, inquisitive.

I shall ponder this further.