Question (from "Geneva"): I'm in my second year as a tenure-track assistant professor this fall, and I'm already a worn-out worrywart.
I worry too much while I'm teaching about how the class is going. And if it hasn't gone as well as I'd hoped, I feel ill afterward. Following a day or two of undue moping, I do come up with improvements. (For problems with student participation and attention, I'm now starting group discussions.) But even as I'm trying to be positive and proactive, worrying about student reactions is seriously affecting my health and well-being.
I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm shy and quiet, like so many academics, and putting myself "out there" is an extra strain. I loved the summer respite this year. What can I do about this, besides junking my academic career?
Answer: Many sages, though not Ms. Mentor, will claim that life is suffering and quiet desperation. Instead, she will point out that your students will always be less attentive and respectful than you were at their age. Socrates' contemporaries certainly weren't the first to think, "Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way? What's the matter with 'phebes today?"
Socrates learned to pace himself, to teach to his strengths, and to force his students to do a lot of the heavy lifting and public thinking. They were the ones who risked total humiliation and annihilation in front of their peers. He wouldn't be called nurturant or sensitive—but until the hemlock, he did survive.
Newish teachers, even if they've had significant graduate-school experience, are always exhausted. "I got through" is their mantra, and most get sick (flu, even pneumonia) by Thanksgiving. There's too much to do, too many people to meet, too many germs to share, too many mysterious meetings. (It takes awhile to decode a department meeting and figure out what it's really about.) But the most tiring aspect is the part that's supposed to be the most exhilarating: the teaching.
Teaching has the qualities guaranteed to make a job stressful: high responsibility and low control. Mix that kind of job with driven perfectionism of most successful new academics, and … Ms. Mentor sympathizes.
It may help to think about Professor Curmudgeon, a literature teacher Ms. Mentor once knew, who deplored the "lowered standards" and "rampant illiteracy" of everyone. "The best, most Platonic moment in teaching comes from naming the course," he would mutter. Next was the creation of the syllabus. (This was before syllabi had to be the draconian legal documents that they are now, with pages of rules, assessment "objectives," and warnings against plagiarism, sleeping, or other crimes against humanity).
Professor Curmudgeon's syllabi were gemlike reading lists, polished collections of the best that had been thought and written. His best students were said to swoon at the intellectual riches offered. "But then the others come in," he would complain. "After that, it's all downhill. If you're lucky, it's not the pit of hell."
Professor Curmudgeon might be said to have had a bad attitude, but he recognized that the students determine whether a course "works" (however that might be determined). Beginning teachers often feel that they are responsible for everything that happens everyday in the classroom when, in fact, much of it is beyond their control. Bad weather can ruin a class dynamic.
So can a student who interrupts class with, "Why do you make us read such a boring textbook?" or "Why do we have to do these problems if they're not even going to be on the test?" Worse yet are the grade combatants: "I deserve an A because I worked really hard on this. I even read most of the assignment."
Those students drain your motivation to teach, to learn, to live. They give you chest pains. They worry you sick if you're an adjunct, dependent on student favor and evaluations to keep your job. They make you question why you ever wanted to be a professor, unless …
You can train yourself to say, "So what?"
Your field matters to you, or you wouldn't have studied it for at least a decade. But disgruntled students—most often teenagers—will learn what they wish. You cannot be their helicopter parent.
"Pauline," for instance, worried herself into sickness over her students "Linda" and "Lewis." They were a couple, and then they weren't. When they were quarreling, Lewis's homework suffered; Linda, it seemed, had "helped" him a great deal. Both fussed about numbers of points on their exams, but never about intellectual points made in lectures. They would ambush and harangue Pauline during office hours.
And then they stopped coming to class. Pauline wondered and worried. After a few days, she sent them e-mail messages, and got no answers. A little after that, she phoned one of them. No answer. She considered stopping by their apartment, a few blocks from hers, to see if they were lying dead, asphyxiated by gas or eaten by pet hamsters. Luckily she mentioned her fears to a seasoned mentor who said, "Really, it's none of your business. The only thing you should worry about is their intellectual growth—which, to be quite frank, seems to have totally stalled."
Linda and Lewis never returned, the happy majority of the class shaped up, and the last day was a love fest—partly because Pauline, more relaxed, had learned to shrug. She stopped tallying up what she'd failed to cover, stopped fretting about students she'd failed to motivate, and celebrated and learned from what gave her intellectual pleasure.
Ms. Mentor, in short, urges you not to be overinvested in reaching all of your students. But if you can't stop taking every complaint personally, and seeing every failure as yours, then teaching may not be for you. The conditions are no longer bucolic, if they ever were. Tenure-track jobs become rarer and rarer, and you may have to leave loved ones to live and work wherever someone will hire you.
Ms. Mentor suggests that you befriend, or refriend, nonacademics. Think about career alternatives for someone smart and dedicated whose thinking may be underappreciated by a callow bourgeois society.
Or you may get lucky and encounter that star pupil who'll record your wisdom for the ages and keep your name before the public for 2,500 years. That's a good Platonic ideal.
Question: For my first Thanksgiving alone in a new place, I seem to have two alternatives: (a) Volunteering at a soup kitchen, inviting international students to make a potluck dinner, and cooking a feast for myself and my cat, or (b) Wallowing in loneliness, self-loathing, and despair. Will Ms. Mentor help me decide?
Answer: No.
Sage Readers: As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes queries, gossip, and rants, including additions to her collection of academic legends. She invites reader comments on holiday deportment for academic souls. (Do you hide? Is Halloween your favorite?) Ms. Mentor regrets that she can rarely answer letters personally. Confidentiality is guaranteed, and identifying details are disguised. Your story may not be all that unique.
Comments
1. 22108469 - October 26, 2009 at 11:15 am
Ms. Mentor is always brilliantly succinct. It cannot be repeated often enough: remind all who think they want to be professors that they must love the subject more than life itself, because they'll have no outside life on or off the tenure track, they'll have to move to places that are beneath their brilliance, and they'll have to teach spoiled kids who aren't interested in much except sex, booze, and drugs.
2. selenology - October 26, 2009 at 11:48 am
Changing your attitude will surely help. But learning to teach well is what will help the most. Find out who the best teachers (not the best researchers, nor the easiest teachers) are on your campus and talk with them about their methods. Sometimes, what seem to be small changes in approach or method can make a tremendous difference in student response and achievement.
Teacher quality is the single most important factor in a student's academic achievement. This has been shown in younger students; surely it holds true for young people at university, too.
3. dld310 - October 26, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Always being "on" IS exhausting; one of the most difficult parts of the job. People outside of academia aften don't know/understand this. If you search for comfort outside of academia, they may have little empathy for you. Don't beat yourself up. There will always be those students who don't want to be there and could care less. Teach for the ones that do - even if they are the minority. And have debates be part of your class - not matter what the subject. Having the students debate one another is a great way to get them more involved and give you a break. And debates can be a teaching tool with almost any subject. ..and they're often very interesting to the other students.
4. uschistory - October 26, 2009 at 01:29 pm
Don't give up, and give yourself a break. I started out very much like you, and learned from experience AND from getting tips from good teachers. Seek advice from trusted colleagues and attend workshops on teaching if they are available. Now after almost thirty years and usually high evaluations, I still sometimes have days very much like what you describe. No matter how much experience we have, our egos are on stage and very vulnerable, unless we are also quite talented actors. Hang in there--don't leave academia unless you really decide that you hate what you do (including scholarship).
5. lydacher - October 26, 2009 at 02:05 pm
All good advice above. I'd add: rediscover your sense of humor (assuming you HAD one before incessant worrying ground it down). After 20+ years of teaching, I have an extensive collection of stories about just how bad it can get in the classroom. Included are lame student excuses, students' writing errors (oddly, most are scatological or sexual in nature), astoundingly-bad student oral presentations, and--yes--goofy mistakes I made in front of the class. Entertaining colleagues and non-teaching friends with these stories yields a huge amount of empathy and hilarity and makes it possible for me to go back in the classroom each day with good cheer.
6. 11274135 - October 26, 2009 at 04:26 pm
#2 above is really important. Your love for your subject matter does not make you a good teacher. Learning to teach does.
Do not underestimate the difference bewteen yourself and your students. They are the normal ones. You are not. Don't get mad at them for being normal. It takes just a slight change you your cast of mind to find your students interesting rather than frustrating. As a faculty member, your students, not your suject matter, are the puzzle you are committed to solving. If teaching just annoys you, you are in the wrong profession.
I disagree a bit with #5. I get disturbed with teachers who get together and laugh at the expense of their students. Such activities may be therapeutic in a way, but they also foster a bad attitude toward students and are cheap and non-nutritious ego food. It's like the rich making fun of the poor.
7. 11161452 - October 26, 2009 at 09:43 pm
For "Thanksgiving alone": don't knock holiday solitude until you've tried it. For years, I dutifully accepted the well-meaning invitations of colleagues and friends, resulting in a less-than-relaxing time in a room with dozens of their relatives I didn't know and would never see again. Finally, I just decided to tell everyone I "have plans, but thank you for the nice invitation."
Learning to enjoy your own company brings many rewards, including stress-free holidays. Enjoy!
8. scottcatledge - October 26, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I gave up college and university teaching because the salaries were too low. I should not have been surprised: my senior year in HD, we gad four former professors from a local college (Rollins) who came to the school district and the school salaries were atrocious. I taught secondary school until I heard myself describe my job as 50% policeman and 50% babysitter. I started working outside Acanemia and taught only in the evenings for the fun of it. My last academic offer (ten years ago) was $30K full professor, tenure track at a state university in subjects that I loved teaching; English grammar and ESOL. I write them that I loved the offer but could not afford a $25K cut in pay with far fewer benefits.
Teaching at any level is a two-way proposition: if the student has not learned, then the teacher has not taught. I did not say that the teacher did not present the most appropriate material in the most efficacious manner for learning--just that the student, for whatever reason has not learned. I felt badly once and was chewed out by the principal because 1/3 of my mathematics failed.
I felt better for me but sorry for the students when the same 1/3 taught by a more experienced math teacher the next year also failed their repetition of the class. They had been victims of social promotion for the two previous years. They were not mentally handicapped--just ignorant of elementary school math.
If you do not love your subject, it is hard to teach it' however, loving a subject does not mean that you know enough about it to teach it. Ask a public English grammar teacher the difference between 'some' and 'any' if you doubt my word. That is a topiv wuth which only ESOL are familiar--the native speaker normally internalizes the rules before starting school.
9. scottcatledge - October 26, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Please ignore the grammatical and punctuation errors in the above.
I am used to reviewing my postings before their release. Obviously, I am more literate that the errors would indicate.
10. upallnight - October 26, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Anxiety in the classroom is a big problem for beginning teachers. Students can sense when you are tense and worried and rushing to get through all the very important material. The first step to successful classes is to relax. Connect to the students the way you might connect when having a good, long conversation about a topic that you love. When I discovered this tip, I made it a point to take ten minutes or so before class to empty my mind of any worrying thoughts about anything and then just focus on "being present" in the classroom. I made better eye contact with students. They asked more questions. They could tell that I was there and was calm. When they sense that you are worried, it puts a wall up between you and them and causes them to be less engaged. The addage "less is more" is appropriate here. Slow down and cover less in class; sometimes it leads to better learning.
11. nmckeen - October 27, 2009 at 12:11 am
While there is a definite period of adjustment (learning to shrug or whatever), there are some people that should NOT teach--not because they've failed, and not because they're doing something wrong, and certainly not because they don't love the subject enough--because for a variety of reasons it makes them miserable. I take great offense, as should any educator, at #1 above. Being a teacher is about TEACHING, not about the subject, and you must be willing to love the students MORE than the subject, at least intermittently, or you will ally yourself with the subject AGAINST the student. Our classrooms are stocked with professors that love the subject, but that does not mean that they love or even know how to teach it. If you love your area of expertise, AND love the lightning rod effect when you actually connect with someone about that subject, you can be a good teacher. If the subject's all you got, and it's a subject that no one will pay you to study by yourself without teaching, there's no shame in moving on. If more grad students were told that it may NOT get better, that they simply may not have an aptitude for teaching and/or finding a way of developing as a teacher, our universities wouldn't be bloated with the dead weight of students that had to quit being students, and now resent and fear having to teach "normal" people. Imagine, a search committee that considered a teacher's teaching, and not their scholarship! Someone might learn!
This is not to say that "I hate myself" is categorically not destined for teaching--there is no litmus test. But after 35 years in this industry, I can't help but shout to the hills that the comment in #1 is exactly what is wrong with our educational system. If you love your subject enough, you'll be willing to teach? Makes anti-sense. If you loved your subject enough you'd be willing to mow lawns.
12. gstreete - October 27, 2009 at 09:52 am
We've all had those days, even professors (like me) who have been teaching for nearly three decades. There were and still are mornings that I come to work with dread in the pit of my stomach. One of my good friends (a philosopher, no less) came up with a mantra that I've found useful in order to keep from fretting about my teaching: "It's all about me." That is, when I go into a classroom, I concentrate on the way I feel best communicating my subject. If students are unresponsive, hung over, indifferent, or hostile, I shrug my shoulders in a faux Gallic way, and say, "Tant pis." Works every time.
13. amnirov - October 30, 2009 at 10:12 am
Ms Mentor and those like her are part of the problem in academia, the baby boomer tenure monsters who perpetuate the very worst excesses of the way things should not be done... If you say "so what" to student complaints regarding textbooks or assignments, you do not deserve to work in higher education. No one should teach a learning objective that is not assessed. No one should assess anything that isn't a formal learning objective. As for dismissing a student grading complaint with a so what... if you do not have a properly documented set of rubrics (not holistic nonsense), and if you cannot explain why a student has earned a given grade (in writing) you have no business in a classroom, and I shudder to think of how frequently you must lose grade appeals. Teaching is one third of the job. And it is a job. If people treat their jobs like vocations they are not going to go very far.
14. temasha - October 31, 2009 at 08:19 pm
Tangents:
I'm a recent PhD. I was exactly at the same point of sickliness for the same reasons, until the whole picture for me clicked undeniably in a specific way: 1) My class was going fine enough, and yet I was reacting just as badly. 2) I was someone else in the classroom (which could well be OK), but some notches down, not up, from my usual humorous and social self (that may not be everyone, but emphasis not so much on my usual self as what could become of it in class) 3) There was a world's difference between my "ideal" of what good preparation might be and the dynamics of the class(always covering needless things first in prep, because always prompted by how much I didn't know, how much the subject wasn't my thing, in how many ways the class could fail). These approaches can add up to the self-fulfilling prophesy of a bad class that wasn't even in the stars. I actually literally and forcefully changed my attitude. I realized that no 3 days can equal 3 hours of a teaching-oriented prep rather than a knowledge-oriented prep. 3 hours may not be enough, but no 3 days are without those 3 hours. I also realized that students must be slyly coerced to prepare for class: response papers, pop-up quizzes, whatever. I realized that relaxation in class (doing whatever is necessary for it: a pause, a small anecdote, a joke, a personal exchange), being in tune with the class psychology, and humor shared WITH the students (sometimes about myself) bring out the best in me no matter what the situation (even situations of the instructor's weakness). Perhaps we SHOULD be educated in acting, and/or hosting an event and thus taking care of both how we carry ourselves (through) to our audience and addressing their moods, making adjustments along the way. As in such events, a certain measure of enjoyment needs to be created collectively, whether in the form of a discovery, a mystery, a solution, or a group performance. I also realized the importance of changing gears, even loudly: Calling it off when something falls dead, switching to spontaneous team work or small group discussions, taking issue with someone provocatively and in role play (while hinting it's not personal). Saying "so what?" IS essential for someone who over-worries. The key is to say "so what?" to the right things (those things that truly are out of control) and be less scared to exert control on one's strategic thinking and feelings--trying to reverse panic and depressiveness to adventure and sociability. The decision and determination to be well and myself and enjoy my moment--in an admittedly performative way--changed everything for me. I have seen that it is possible: If I can bring it down, I can bring it up.
15. mrmentor - November 01, 2009 at 10:58 am
I agree with #13, and I will add that the attitude of "so what?" is not only typical of academic baby boomers (and I AM one, myself) but also a symptom of gang / mob ethics. By engaging in "epater les etudiants (our bourgeoisie)," we poor academics (the "geeks" or "artistes") can gossip about and/or express resentment toward the students ("spineless," "mainstream," "superficial"). And we at least have a common enemy. Plus, it is the academic departmental version of social loafing: "if they don't want to learn, why should I work hard (i.e., professionally)?!"
16. tlmatthews - December 01, 2009 at 12:11 pm
"Teaching has the qualities guaranteed to make a job stressful: high responsibility and low control." Really Ms. Mentor? I know that teaching is hard work and can be stressful, but come on, compared to pretty much any other type of work, university faculty members get lots of control over what they teach and the way they teach it. I'm terribly sorry that students (and their classroom behavior) are hard to "control" but I just can't buy this argument. Sorry.
I feel for you "Geneva" and I hope that you can lighten up on yourself a bit. This may sound trite, but it might be helpful for you to spend some time exploring what you think it is that a "teacher" is.
17. caster - December 25, 2009 at 03:38 pm
I have been a professor for almost two decades. I love teaching, and that is why I got into this profession in the first place. However, my teaching experience has been quite interesting. No matter how well I give my lectures (I usually have really good teaching evaluations if that means anything) there are always a good number of students who have no interest in what I am talking about. One thing I discovered is that these students have no interest in anything in life, except the things that satisfy their basic human needs. I am actually surprised that they are even in college. I believe the quality of education in this country has goned down hill not only because we lack good teachers (the low pay has made most brightest young people to go into other professions rather than teaching) but also the entire society no longer respects knowledge. Most students believe that attending colleage is to get degree. It is the degree they are after not the knowledge. A person only needs to know so little to live a normal life in this country. Knowing everything else is a waste of time. In many ways, this is part of the pragmatic philosophy that has existed for decades ever since John Dewey advocated his idea of education. Rather than seeing this country continue to decline, I hope some changes can be made in our education. Let's start with respecting knowledge rathern than money. To be frank, I am quite disappointed that I have spent my life time teaching those who don't want to be taught and have no interest whatsoever in anything.
18. jdraine - December 26, 2009 at 09:41 am
This is one of the best things I've read about college teaching (and I've read my fair share to help my own insecurities in this area). The advice is essentially to learn to turn attention away from one's own anxieties and towards the students. The 'shrug' then is not an abandonment of student concerns, but a willingness to address concerns in proper perspective. This ultimately serves both the student and the subject. Bravo, Ms Mentor!
19. manmalik - December 27, 2009 at 06:05 pm
Instead of worrying, engage with them, with all of them.
You need to reach each and every student in your class.
Real-time face to face lecturing does not allow for this to happen.
Online-asynchronous teaching allows this to happen.
Engage with their formal and informal learning and you will learn more about what they know and what they dont. You can then do Just in time teaching for the students you think are not up to the mark.
I run an exam revision site that does just that.
This I have called Examopedia, based on the famous site Wikipedia.
There is now a version of this site that i have launched that is free for all students anywhere in the world to use and prepare for their exams/study.
I have blogged about this site (http://sites.google.com/site/myexamopedia) on my blog found at http://edublend.blogspot.com/2009/12/examopedia-for-all-students.html
I was also awarded a National Teaching Award for my work.
20. post_functional - January 01, 2010 at 06:30 am
Good old amnirov and his all-or-nothing, one-size-fits-all thinking. Sort of like his "I'm going to force my son to hunt and fish whether he actually likes hunting and fishing or not."
I imagine the problem with Ms. Mentor is that she's just not masculine enough. Men are all about the unrelenting standards. Women muss it all up with their subjectivity and relativism.
21. malaysian_in_ajman - January 03, 2010 at 02:54 am
Great advice! It definitely helps me deal with new groups of students in a different culture with all sort of idiosyncrasies!
22. malaysian_in_ajman - January 03, 2010 at 03:03 am
Re: Caster of Dec. 25.
You are right! I share your observation. I think this "attending college to get degree" trend is fast becoming a "universal" thing, not just in the US (where I got my BS & MBA in the 80's). Here in UAE, I notice some students would be willing "to buy degrees" and get done with it rather than really learning... its a pity. I wonder what will happen to a rich country like UAE when all the thinking is outsourced to expats.? Maybe it'll work, maybe not. Should be interesting to see the results in the next ten years or so...