Friday, June 29, 2012

How To Be A Teacher

This past semester, I had class with perhaps the most terrible teacher I have ever experienced.

I've talked about this privately to a few friends, but felt I had to keep it basically under wraps until the semester ended, in the very, very slim chance that the teacher in question would somehow find his way to this blog and my grade would be affected.

And even now, I'm going to attempt to maintain a certain amount of anonymity in terms of who I'm talking about, though it wouldn't be hard to figure it out if you really cared to. But my point in writing is less about one person's behavior and more about what I think is an essential quality for any kind of teacher. I teach yoga, and I teach anatomy. Both shove my faults in my face constantly:  my know-it-all tendencies, my impatience, and my desire to be liked by everyone. I know a teacher who at the end of yoga class often says "Thank you for teaching me." I used to think it was corny, but he makes my point for me:

As a  teacher, you have to listen to and learn from your students.

I have to - have to - pay attention to the room and what they need, and adjust myself accordingly. If I'm not doing a good enough job explaining a concept or a pose, it's not their fault. In addition, if I am coming up against resistance (in any form - frustration, boredom, attitude), again, it's not their problem, it's mine.

Here's what happened in school, with the terrible teacher (let's call him TT for short):

About halfway through the semester I was approached by another student in the class who wanted to bring a list of very specific complaints about TT to the Dean of the department. I readily agreed, because I had been privately harboring many of the same grievances, but up until then had taken a more passive, put-your-head-down-and-do-the-work-on-your-own approach. So a few of us wrote emails to the Dean listing our complaints - and lest you think these were frivolous, the list included things like "refuses to answer questions" "does not explain lab procedures" "makes one class rule then changes it the next session" "is not present in his office during office hours" "makes rude comments when confronted with these issues."

The next time we had class, TT set up his power point as usual, and the first slide began with the words, "THE FOLLOWING EMAILS WERE SENT ANONYMOUSLY."

It was followed by a cut and paste slide of the emails that we had sent to the Dean, who had forwarded them to TT without our names on them (perhaps not the wisest move, the Dean later agreed). TT clearly had decided that an aggressive offense was his best defense. He spent the next 15 minutes going through the points made in our emails (take a second to imagine - an email of complaint you sent in confidence about a teacher is now being read aloud, word for word, by said teacher, to the entire class) and then flashed a second slide, in which he had created a point-by-point rebuttal to each complaint. These rebuttals were variations on "This is an unfair statement" and "This is not true" (though my favorite, in response to the complaint about his rudeness, read "Gas station attendants are rude. Grocery store workers are rude. I am not rude.")

His final slide stated, "THOSE WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE TEACHER ARE USUALLY THE ONES THAT ARE FAILING THE CLASS AND WANT TO BLAME SOMEONE ELSE."

[Not to brag, but I got an A, and I'm pretty sure the other students who complained did well also.]

Then we had to pretend like nothing had happened and take a quiz.

This is obviously an extreme example of how not to deal with criticism of your teaching. However, it reinforced my desire to stay vigilant in my own teaching and not allow myself to become complacent, lazy or indifferent to my students' needs. It means adjusting my teaching plan to match their level of ability or comprehension of the material (no one learns anything when it's going completely over their heads). It means picking up good teaching techniques from other teachers (I have had several exemplary teachers at this same school whose clever tricks I steal and use constantly). And it means not taking it personally if a student looks bored, or doesn't engage with the material the way I want them to  (including in yoga class. Students doing asana with a 'bored' body is my personal bugaboo and I have to do everything in my power not to hover over them and try to perk them up in every pose).

Being a teacher has to be a constant learning experience, otherwise you have nothing to teach. So thank you for teaching me.


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