The number “7” is frequently associated with good luck or perfection. Christians believe that the world was created in six days, with the seventh being a day of rest. The seven-day week is a global standard. When asked to pick a number between one and ten, people disproportionately will pick seven (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11803762). The liberal arts, the basis for all modern education, was based upon the original seven disciplines: Grammar, rhetoric, logic, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy (https://employedhistorian.com/liberal-arts/7-liberal-arts/). We even see 7 show up in pop music (Duran Duran’s pop masterpiece “7 and the Ragged Tiger,” Prince’s metaphysical explorations in “7” and Fleetwood Mac’s catchy “Seven Wonders”) and films (“Seven,” “Seven Samurai,” and the “Seventh Seal,” to name a few).
Seven seems to be a very significant and noteworthy digit for sure; how coincidental that I’m finishing my seventh year as a full-time professor during national Teacher Appreciation Week! In some ways, my time before standing in front of the classroom seems like a distant memory, a past life in another dimension. The act of teaching, despite its challenges and perils, still feels more a privilege than a profession as I stare down the remaining years of my first decade.
At this time seven years ago, I was wrapping up my duties as a technology administrator, getting ready to enter into the uncertainty of three months of prep time. The summer of 2014 was, indeed, the first time I had ever found myself unemployed. Occupying every quiet corner of my house for hours on end, I read textbooks cover to cover in the company of our dog Bella (who, incidentally, became my friend because suddenly I was the gatekeeper to food and walks).
I stressed over whether I could relate to my students; if I would be able to connect with them and to actually provide lessons that would carry value over time. I agonized if my Power Point slides would be visually striking and stressed about how to engage young people in meaningful conversation. In short, I wanted to make sure the people in my intellectual “care” were being nurtured and shown a path forward. It seemed like the heaviest responsibility that had ever landed on my shoulders.
The memories of that first week of teaching are a blur, but I do recall how much of my self-worth I invested in each lecture or class activity. A good day might move the meter an inch to the right, incrementally convincing me that yes, I COULD do this. A bad day would send me crashing, wondering how I had jumped in, feet first, to a vocation that would drown me. Over the weeks, however, the good days outweighed the bad. I made a TON of mistakes, but listened to the advice of my mentors (people like the amazing Dr. Randy Frye and Dr. John Miko). Nearing the end of the first semester, I started to actually feel like I had a place at the front of the classroom.
In my previous career as a lead administrator for an IT department, I often had to counsel tech support staff, who were nervous about interrupting meetings to fix technology problems. My constant answer: Just act like you’re supposed to be there. Carrying one’s self with an air of confidence and purpose would generally convince the folks whose meeting was being “interrupted” that there was nothing to rear (or reprimand). Now I was giving myself that strong piece of advice.
At seven years in, I’m still a novice compared to many of my colleagues. Still, I have learned from my students that even the youngest or least experienced scholar can have powerful observations, often through a clearer lens. With that caveat, I offer the following seven lessons learned about teaching during the past decade:
Students are looking to be engaged, not encompassed.
During my first semester, I was really disappointed in myself. After all, I’d failed to cover the entire textbook. In a discussion with my associate dean, I put myself on report. He responded: “Did the students learn most of the basics of the material? Did you hit the key points you set out to cover? Were the students engaged?” I replied “yes” to all of these questions. His reply? “Good!”
I never forgot his point, namely that it was better to cover a large chunk of the class material in a way that students might use and apply it than to cover ALL of the content at the sake of conversation and interaction. Much of what we cover in class quickly leaves a student’s mind in a month; however, analogies, examples, and dialogue stick with them much longer. Anyone can read a Power Point slide to a room full of people; other than clear speech, that person is adding little value to the audience’s life or future. Someone who can get young people to internalize key concepts for their profession (or world view) is surely making better use of their time.
Improvisation is part of our discipline.
I always include opportunities for questions in every one of my classes. On really great days, someone’s curiosity might take us down a completely different line of inquiry. At that point, as an instructor, you can choose to steer the lecture back on course….or to ride the wave. Although there are times when you simply have to get back to the material, taking the off ramp to an improvisational conversation is often worth the time you lose in class. This simple action has taken your audience from passive recipients of content to co-creators of academic exploration. You have truly made the students an integrated part of the class. You may also discover an entirely new line of inquiry for the next time you teach the class.
The same spirit of “flying by the seat of your pants” makes us less beholden to our tools. When our projector dies or Microsoft decides that 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday is a stellar time for automated system updates, the ability to improvise helps us to use our “dead air” to spur on interaction and conversation.
Sometimes it IS them.
There are days when our charges have collectively hit a wall. The sponges are full and can soak up nothing more. Sometimes, entire classes develop a group mentality that has made a collective decision to NOT be engaged. In short, sometimes it really IS them.
For the last two and one half semesters, I’ve been teaching in the COVID era. Not counting summer courses, that means that approximately 18% of my teaching career has happened in our current taxing reality. From going online in March 2020 to learning how to teach in a mask (while learning the names of students whose faces I’ve never seen) to having to build in time to establish Zoom calls and clean classrooms, it’s been a strange and stressful experience.
The students have felt it too; sometimes, the teacher will end up as the target for all that’s wrong in their life. My season got cancelled, but I still have to sit in this room and listen to to this person talk. I’m stuck at home and I still have to dial in to a video call...and turn my camera on. Yep, like all of my colleagues, I’ve caught a lot of bad vibes that I didn’t deserve over the last 15 months. The best approach I’ve found is to commiserate with other teachers in the knowledge that we’re doing the best we can within the situation. Sometimes realizing how much we are struggling gives us back the empathy to pass onto the students as well.
Wasting five minutes isn’t really “wasting” five minutes.
The older I get, the more awake I tend to be earlier in the day! Such is NOT the case for most college students! I have learned that taking a few moments out of your class time to do something fun will pay back that investment (with interest) in the form of more alert and engaged students. It can be something as simple as a game or contest or as complicated as hand-drumming on desks (thanks to Jim Donovan for that killer idea). If you can find a way to fit the activity into your content, even better, but take the time! I’ve done everything from pushups (i.e. several athletes dared me to do 20...I did 30 to show them I mean business) to charades. What will the students remember? That they looked forward to your class (and maybe even retained a little more content).
Less perfection=more conversation.
The young minds sitting in front of us truly do look at us as role models. Even the ones who may not even LIKE us are watching how we behave. Do we seem to love our jobs? Are we showing up for a paycheck or do we have passion for what we do? Most importantly….how do we handle failure and mistakes?
Keep in mind that the average 18-22 year old has grown up in a world of social media, standardized tests, and data analytics. They have been clearly shown that their actions and performance will be quantified and judged. As a result, they are TERRIFIED of making a mistake. The quiet kid in the back of the room may not be “staring you down’; rather he or she might be scared to death that they will be called on and NOT know the answer. I make it a point of owning my mistakes to my students. Sometimes I state a point incorrectly. Other times I get tongue-tied and I’ve even run into a desk while pacing the room (and it HURT). Being able to laugh at one’s self in front of a room full of people accomplishes several things: It takes power away from anyone who would make fun of you….and it shows EVERYONE that it’s ok to not be perfect.
When I call on a student and their answer is “I don’t know,” my reply is “That’s ok; it’s ok not to know. That’s how we learn.” That approach to teaching is borrowed from the late Tom Terza, possibly the greatest teacher I have ever had. Inclusion makes for better classrooms than intimidation.
Learning Street in Teacherville is not one-way.
In keeping with the last point, I occasionally get asked questions in class...and don’t know the answers! My response: I don’t know, but I’ll find out. We can learn from our students….their life experiences, areas of expertise, and opinions. By giving them a chance to challenge US, we become better as well.
All classes are really about the same thing.
Human Resource Management, my key discipline, is really important to me. So is Project Management. And Batman. All of these are classes I teach almost every year. However, I know that most students who arrive in these sections will never be as passionate as I am about performance management or GANTT charts….and that’s ok. Although there are classes that truly do require vocational training and outcomes, especially those tied to student’s major, we are truly teaching all of these students the same two things: How to think and how to be better people.
When a student arrives in my Batman class, they assume they’ll learn the character’s history and read some comic books (both of which they do). At the same time, they learn about childhood trauma and the need for kindness and rehabilitation. The student in my HR class will hear about the struggles of people with disabilities, and the kid in a section of my E-commerce class will apply ethics to invasive marketing techniques.
In my novice opinion, good teaching is all about showing people how to critically explore content to make better decisions about the world around them. It’s not our job as teachers to advocate a political belief or ethical judgement, but to empower young people to gather information and make good choices for themselves.
Whether we make accountants, doctors, English teachers, or computer scientists, the lives of our students (and the world as a whole) will be improved if we focus on the person before the vocation. A nurse who knows the technical sides of patient care but has no love for the people he serves will never know joy (and neither will his patients). The financial analyst who has to make the choice between throwing her client’s cash into a risky investment or making a lower commission might just remember the discussion about ethics in a 9 a.m intro to business class.
At age 48 and beginning my 49th year on the planet (coincidentally, 7x7=49), I feel like I’ve got waaaaay more than seven years ahead of me. I’m blessed to have been welcomed into a profession that gives me purpose and a place where I see my results walk into the world as fantastic people. I’ll leave Mr. Twain to finish my thoughts for the day:
“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
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