A few times in previous columns I have mentioned what I call my "in-class persona." Recently, an adjunct wrote and asked me to elaborate on that. I decided to devote a column to the topic because it is central not only to the success of adjunct teachers, but of all teachers.
No one should be surprised by the notion of teaching as a performance, although some of you may be appalled at the idea. Maybe you don't want to be a performer, or you don't think you should have to be one in academe. Maybe you're worried that your performance in the classroom isn't good enough or funny enough. Or maybe you have some combination of these concerns.
When I say that teaching is a performance, what I mean is that who you are in the classroom may or may not be who you are when you're with your friends, colleagues, or family members. We have different selves that make up who we are in different settings. Trust me when I say that my classroom persona really doesn't work in my intimate relationships at home, and yours probably doesn't either.
Whether you like it or not, whether you're conscious of it or not, whether it's intentional or not, you have an in-class persona that determines a lot of what goes on between you and your students. You might as well put some thought into yours and construct it in a way that will serve both you and your students. If you don't construct one, what I call your "default" classroom persona will take over for you. If it works for you, consider yourself lucky. But if it doesn't, the results can be messy.
Several years ago, an adjunct friend of mine and I were both teaching at a suburban campus of a large city university. She was very petite, pretty, and relatively young, and also very smart and capable in her scholarly work. She had some classroom experience, but mostly as a teaching assistant. She hadn't given much thought to her in-class persona. Unfortunately, her default persona was defined by sweetness and passivity. That, combined with her small frame and pretty femininity meant that her students ran roughshod over her.
She complained to me at length about the struggles she had maintaining classroom order, keeping the discussions on task, enforcing her deadlines for papers and assignments, and so on. She ended up with a syllabus several pages long that addressed in detail every possible problem that could arise in class.
I finally watched a videotape of her teaching and, to my shock, saw that she had many of my own students in her class but that they acted completely differently with me than with her. As we talked about this later, we realized that the two of us projected completely different images to the same students. They saw her as smart, sweet, but a pushover, someone they could manipulate -- and they did. They saw me as nice, fair, smart, and tough, someone not to challenge on things like deadlines and rules -- and they never did.
It was then that I realized the power of perception. Until then, I had not understood that my in-class persona largely dictated how my students related to me. When I saw it finally, it made perfect sense, and I began to hone that image carefully, and to maintain it semester after semester.
My sweet adjunct friend, too, went into the following semesters with a new understanding of how the students' perception of her personality affected her success in the classroom. She never had those kinds of problems again. She was still sweet and petite, but she learned to establish certain things about herself on the first day of class and to hold firm throughout the semester.
For example, she laid out her syllabus simply, clearly, and firmly -- not apologetically, as she had in the earlier course. She spoke more loudly and pointedly. And she answered students' questions about her classroom policies with simple "yes" or "no" answers when possible and, if not, with as few words as possible. That impressed upon them that she was calling the shots and that she didn't have to justify her rules. Finally, she wore jeans and cowboy boots (we live in Texas, after all) with her nice blouse and blazer on the first day of class, instead of the skirt and heels she had worn before.
What seems clear from this singular anecdote is that a number of factors combine to create our in-class persona: How we speak, how we dress, how we answer questions, how we give tests, how we deal with late assignments, to name a few.
The question for you is, Who do you want to be for, and with, your students? You have lots of options: cool, funny, fair, hard, demanding, aloof, intellectual, hip, chic, distinguished, professional, severe, serious.
And just think: If we can intentionally construct and adjust our in-class personas for better results in the classroom, we can do the same thing in all the other areas of our lives, too. We're not stuck in any one version of "who we are" because "who we are" isn't fixed in stone. We can work with ourselves, draw out hidden dimensions, take on new traits, and minimize some aspects while maximizing others.
In some circles, this is called growth.
