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Thinking about teaching
Oct. 8th, 2008 08:12 amThere's a lot of weird stuff that goes into teaching. I don't think I really appreciated the kind of person that makes a good teacher until I'd done it for a while.
For example: you have to be absolutely rock-solid certain deep in your heart that you're teaching them something that they need. Because every single day someone will treat what you're teaching as bullshit. In developmental education they frequently tell you this to your face. If you're just teaching because you're good at it and you think it's kind of a neat subject, the caustic disregard will eventually wear you down. Fortunately, for most subjects there's ample evidence that the skills are, in fact, needed-- and you can always go back to the well to remind yourself why it's not just "good to know."
For another example: you have to understand that consistency is genuinely more valuable than flexibility in 90% of cases. Students, whether they like your class or not, tend to think of school as a game. The game has rules, and they play to win (whatever their personal victory conditions are). Changing the rules means altering their chance to win, and that disturbs every single student up and down the ladder. When you enforce clearly defined rules the students will complain but usually comply-- they get that it's part of the game. When you change your own rules, someone will feel genuinely betrayed and you may have just lost the ability to teach that person forever.
I know now that I wasn't a particularly great teacher. I went in with a reasonable talent for explaining things, a good knowledge of my subject, the ability to make my students laugh, and a strong improvisational streak. But I didn't know students, and in a lot of ways I didn't know myself. But on a weirdly good note, taking this job has both given me a much clearer picture of what I would need to do if I went back to teaching and a lot of the skills I'd need to make it work. I'm more organized now, with a better sense of my personal limits. And I've been hanging out in the bigger picture, which has shown me... well, a lot.
Teaching is something I could do much better if I chose to go back. The question, really, is do I want to.
For example: you have to be absolutely rock-solid certain deep in your heart that you're teaching them something that they need. Because every single day someone will treat what you're teaching as bullshit. In developmental education they frequently tell you this to your face. If you're just teaching because you're good at it and you think it's kind of a neat subject, the caustic disregard will eventually wear you down. Fortunately, for most subjects there's ample evidence that the skills are, in fact, needed-- and you can always go back to the well to remind yourself why it's not just "good to know."
For another example: you have to understand that consistency is genuinely more valuable than flexibility in 90% of cases. Students, whether they like your class or not, tend to think of school as a game. The game has rules, and they play to win (whatever their personal victory conditions are). Changing the rules means altering their chance to win, and that disturbs every single student up and down the ladder. When you enforce clearly defined rules the students will complain but usually comply-- they get that it's part of the game. When you change your own rules, someone will feel genuinely betrayed and you may have just lost the ability to teach that person forever.
I know now that I wasn't a particularly great teacher. I went in with a reasonable talent for explaining things, a good knowledge of my subject, the ability to make my students laugh, and a strong improvisational streak. But I didn't know students, and in a lot of ways I didn't know myself. But on a weirdly good note, taking this job has both given me a much clearer picture of what I would need to do if I went back to teaching and a lot of the skills I'd need to make it work. I'm more organized now, with a better sense of my personal limits. And I've been hanging out in the bigger picture, which has shown me... well, a lot.
Teaching is something I could do much better if I chose to go back. The question, really, is do I want to.