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Call me Professor Pete, a partially rejuvenated professor of Psychology at a terrible tier 4 college in the West. I read your recent call for posts about why we still teach, against all odds, despite the knowledge that the world of higher education has gone to pot, has become seedy and disingenous, has become as trite and boring as our own students seem to be.Well I do it for three reasons:
1) It makes me feel like I'm doing some good. My students are mostly lousy, but in a class of 40-45, 2 or 3 end up surprising me. I take some dimwit and turn him/her into a Psych major. These kids sometimes go to grad school. Sometimes they become professors. I know I've played a positive role in these people's lives. Even my worst students learn something about what it means to think, to study, to be responsible.
2) It builds a continuing thread of information between the generation before me and the generation after. I believe in knowledge. I believe that there is information that needs to remain vital and interesting. When I teach the theories or ideas of a famous mind from an earlier decade or century, I'm casting it in all new light, in all new context. It's one thing. My teaching of it makes it a new thing. The understanding my students create is yet another new thing. It's alive.
3) It makes me feel good. Selfishly, I love my discipline. If there was no shitty college with its low pay and heavy workload, I'd still read much of what I read each semester. I'd still debate the ideas from my classes with like-minded people (even if I had to find them on Friendster.com. It's a vocation for me, but it'd be an avocation, too. It blows my hair back, and I'm lucky enough to have found something that makes me happy that I also can get a few ducats for.
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Q: So, why do you do it? Even though the misery surrounds us, most of us are still pitching. Some of us have great jobs, envious jobs. Others are barely hanging on. Yet we're all starting to get syllabi together for fall. Most of us still get a thrill from walking into that first class. Why do you teach?
I love you, Cal. You make me think.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the answer to this question isn't so simple. Part of me has been conditioned to think that this is all I can do, given my training, and a full-time job with benefits in this economy is worth holding on to. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
I'm no idealist. When I first started teaching, I enjoyed my interaction with students, enjoyed spending time spreading the gospel of subject matter I love. I got to teach people about something that is a real passion for me, and (when I first started teaching, more than 20 years ago), this was a very rewarding activity.
Same with colleagues. Once upon a time, I worked with other people who were likewise passionate about their fields of interest. We would discuss and argue and laugh about all of it, most passionately.
That was then.
Two decades later, I'm at a CC where most of my colleagues are pretty good teachers, but teachers who do not wish to socialize with each other much, on or off the job. Those passionate discussions are a long-ago memory. Most of the time, we just bitch about students, who are woefully unprepared for college in every single way.
Ah, my students. I spend a huge amount of classroom time dealing with behavioral issues. I also have so many students who do not have the skills to complete my course that I spend a huge amount of time going over basics that are even more basic than the intended basics my classes are designed to convey.
For me, the beginning of every semester still feels like a new beginning--maybe that is the short answer to your question, Cal--but the newness, the enthusiasm, the love for the potential of the thing burns out earlier and earlier each term.
I do have students who inspire me, without question. Every once in a while, I get a student who has a light bulb moment, and that keeps me going.
Then there's the passion for subject matter. I still have that and I still enjoy imparting that to students. These days, however, it's more of a one-way street than an interaction.
I'd sum it all up with this: I don't regret having gone into teaching, but if I could go back 20 years, I'd choose a different path.
On my worst days I hate thinking about this. I occasionally have felt trapped by my degree and my choice of career. Teaching writing has gone from a joy to a chore in a short career, so poorly the typical freshman is now.
ReplyDeleteBut I love some of the same stuff "Pete" above reports on. If I didn't have tiny successes in class, I couldn't do it, though, not even for the tiny security the career offers.
The short answer is that I teach because, deep down, I like school. What about it appeals? I'm not entirely sure. Some of it's the march toward understanding (forced march or no). Some of it's the interaction with students (they keep me young[er]). Something about the constant rhythm of the semester appeals to me, too. And, of course, let's not forget the long summer vacation, even if it's nigh-on-mandatory to teach a summer class in order to afford eating. Plus, I'm comfortable speaking in front of groups, and I think I'm pretty good at leading classes. School just appeals to me.
ReplyDeleteI get off on blowing their backward little minds.
ReplyDeleteWhen I tell them all the non-mythical and less flattering reasons for the American Revolution, or the extreme violence used to convert so many millions to "peaceful" Christianity, or that there are cities in Africa (and that it is a continent, not a country), it blows their tiny minds to bits.
Oh, how I enjoy the destruction of an idiot's capacity to hold on to racist ideas.
I once revealed to some jackass that there are civilizations with "third" (and fourth and fifth) genders, and he didn't leave me alone for about 4 months after term ended, doing more and more online research, finding more and more examples of such places, and exploding his brain to such tiny pieces that I feared for the future of his 6 kids. The implications for him were huge: maybe girls were right about all this equality stuff.
So, no benefits, but my own schedule and 500 minds to blow a year. I usually get the stupid ones, so that's probably a 60% success rate. Not what I expected, but it's why I don't stomp out and never come back.
Teaching not research pays the bills and student loan. But, I still try to be the best possible teacher I can be because my job depends on it, literally.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm new here and I love this blog!
Welcome, Rattie! I like your avatar (and of course immediately thought of Wind in the Willows, and NIMH).
ReplyDeleteI do it because I continue to be fascinated by ideas, and how they are created and communicated, especially when that process involves playing around with primary documents from the past. And I really like showing students how they can make and communicate their own knowledge, not just accept and repeat what someone else has written. Not all of them appreciate being exposed to that process (it's a lot quicker to find the "right answer" in a book, or on the internet, of course), but it's great when one of them does. And, like Monkey, I sort of like unsettling the ones who just want to find and repeat someone else's answer.
I wish my job included time for me to do some knowledge-making and communicating of my own, but sadly, at this point, that's mostly a hobby (though the library privileges and conference travel funds that come along with the job do help support it).
Love this post. #1 more than compensates for the "misery"; #3 is also a worthwhile reminder for those of us in the "useless" liberal arts disciplines. There's nothing sinful with loving to study and teach the subject matter for its own sake.
ReplyDeleteThat point late in the semester when I get to tell them that when they lose weight, the fat on their thighs leaves their body through their lungs.
ReplyDeleteMinds. Blown.
See? The best lessons have pieces of snowflake brain littered on the floors.
ReplyDeleteI do it for the free glue I steal from the department office. After all these years, it's still my favorite thing to inhale. And I don't have to hide it like I do the bourbon.
ReplyDeleteFeh. I teach overstuffed undergraduate lecture courses full of students who just want an A for showing up because otherwise I would be terminated. I teach small undergraduate seminars (once in a blue moon) and graduate courses (yearly) because I absolutely love exchanging ideas with people, and the students who show up for these generally feel likewise.
ReplyDeleteMy students are adult non-trads, so there isn't a whole lot of "mind blowing" going on. And since so much of my teaching is online, even if there are minds blowing, it is hard for me to notice. When it goes "pop" and the slimy, uncoiled mass of gray matter is sliding down their computer screens and seeping into their keyboards, I don't hear or or see it.
ReplyDeleteI continue to learn myself and that makes teaching the material continually interesting. I used to enjoy, very much, the feeling that I was part of a great tradition, but I'm beginning to find it hard to hang onto that, and it turns out that was a large part of my pleasure in the job. I'm finding that hard to replace.
ReplyDeleteI am unfit for another occupation and too lazy to start my own business.
ReplyDeleteI get paid to read and speak to a captive audience about things I find fascinating.
ReplyDeleteAnd during the Summer, all I have to do is read, think and write about this stuff.
And it doesn't make my muscles ache like the work my friends do, which is nice since I'm getting old.
And now that I'm tenured, I can't get fired by incompetent management.
But I also get to prod my students into considering questions they've never dreamed of asking, never mind answering.
I do it until I can find another job that will give me summers off to do my own research... I have no sense of excitement about Fall creeping up... not even a little. So for now, I think I teach because I get vacations that make up for the avalanche of snowflakes we get.
ReplyDeleteNow that I have to teach every summer to make up for my inadequate 9-month salary, I don't get that excited about fall. But I still love teaching. I love the "I get it" moments. I love the students who come back to tell me that what I taught them in Class X is now helping them in Class Y or on the job. I love learning new things, which, believe it or not, still happens when I listen to my students' responses and read their work. I love playing with new technology and making it work for my discipline.
ReplyDeleteFrom a practical standpoint, I love the professional aspects. I like being able to choose (for the most part) what and when I will teach. I love the flexibility in hours and the variety of tasks I can choose (or not) to participate in. I love interacting with colleagues who are still interested in teaching, the discipline itself, and students. And I am forever grateful that I don't have to wear a uniform, fancy clothes, a name tag (they gave us all one; God knows what happened to mine, but I swear it never pierced my clothing), or makeup.