The other day I was talking to a friend who is in the process of finishing her dissertation. She was describing how she had to push through writing her final chapter. The ideas just weren’t coming—but she’s on a deadline and so she wrote anyway. And, after pages of jumbled and unconvincing argument, she began to understand what she was writing. The ideas came, the argument cohered. She just had to get words on paper until the ideas followed. My colleague’s experience reflects many of the ideas we’ve discussed before on ProfHacker—particularly Billie’s posts on writing, which always provide valuable tips for getting (writing) stuff done.
As my colleague related this story, however, I had another thought. “You need to share this story with your students,” I advised. My colleague teaches several writing intensive courses, and students in those courses (many of them first years) often struggle to develop good writing habits for college work. “They’d benefit from hearing that you sometimes struggle with writing,” I said, “and that you work through the same processes you recommend for them.” My hope was that, by seeing their professor as a fellow writer—and a fellow student—struggling undergraduate writers might begin to see writing as a life-long skill they must practice rather than a hurdle for this one writing-intensive class.
There are times when a professor can hack the classroom by giving students a small peek into their more personal lives. There are limits, of course, and we’ve all known teachers who share far too much personal information—whose classes are all about them, rather than about the students. But small moments of personal reflection can shift a class’ focus, and help students realize how what they’re learning might apply to their larger lives. In short, occasionally reminding students that professors are people, too, might help them realize that professors’ passions are passions they might share.
A few days after this exchange with my colleague, I heard the very sad news that one of my graduate school mentors had passed away quite suddenly. I was supposed to teach chapters from one of his books in both of my classes the next next day. I was a bit surprised how emotional I felt going into each of those classes—the book, after all, wasn’t him, and I teach it frequently. So I decided to own my emotions. I started my classes by sharing the news of my mentor’s passing, and relating briefly how much he had influenced my own professional and pedagogical development. I talked about his passion for writing. And when we discussed his book, my students responded with a passion of their own. Discussions in both classes were lively and productive.
I can’t say definitively that opening up about my emotions charged the classroom discussion. But I suspect that seeing their teacher as someone else’s student did help my students think about their classes in a new way—as nodes in a larger network of scholars. I hope that some of them realized that they will carry his ideas to new audiences.
How about you? When do you bring the personal into the classroom (or do you avoid doing so)? How does it change the tone or content of your classes? Tell us about it in the comments.
[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user pasukaru76.]
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