Do It Your Way

In this web log and in presentations I make I share my approach to teaching. My approach, however, may not be right for you. There are as many ways to teach as there are teachers. You need to assess the needs of your course, your students, and your style. What is the best way to achieve your course objectives? What are the learning styles of your students? What teaching methods fit your personality and values? At the same time, I suggest you stretch beyond your comfort zone. Experiment with new methodologies. Expose your students to different ways of learning. Discover new teaching capabilities. My sharing through this blog is meant to spark your own exploration of teaching. To be effective, your teaching needs to be an expression of who you are. To be a successful teacher, you need to do it your way.

Evocative Education

The spiritual writer Thomas Moore in one of his musings in Meditations considers study as a spiritual practice. He differentiates being educated from being informed or trained. He defines education as “a drawing out of one’s genius, nature, and heart. The manifestation of one’s essence, the unfolding of one’s capacities, the revelation of one’s heretofore hidden possibilities….”

I observe that education is typically thought of as a process of “putting in” rather than of “drawing out.” Students are to be filled with knowledge and skills that they do not yet possess. What Moore suggests is that education is to evoke the hidden wisdom and talents that may lie dormant within the learner.

How might we make education evocative? A key tool is questions. Rather than teach by telling, ask questions to help students discover what they already know about a subject. Help students connect the subject under study to their own experiences. Students know more than they realize. They simply need help making the connections between what is being learned and what they already know.

Students are also drawn out by the teacher’s enthusiasm for the subject. The teacher’s energy sparks the interest of the students. The instructor’s excitement for learning stirs the motivation of students to learn. The teacher also needs to be open to learning from students. This bolsters the self-confidence of students and helps them to realize that they have something worth contributing to the learning process.

The teacher’s attitude toward students is the defining factor. What you see is what you get. Are students seen as ignorant brains to be enlightened or as whole persons to be encouraged? Is the learner considered a passive recipient or an active participant in the learning process?

Moore points to education as being more than the acquisition of diplomas, degrees, and certifications. He perceives it as a soulful practice. The stirring of spirit and soul is the true value of an evocative education.

The Seed of Knowledge

We ask questions in order to know. There is something we do not know so we inquire so that through an answer we may come to some new knowledge. Yet the seed of our new knowledge is contained within our question. We need to know something of what we do not know in order to ask our question. If we knew absolutely nothing about the subject of our inquiry, we would not be able to ask our question. If I do not know what I do not know, then I am unaware that there is anything to ask. It is when I discover that I don’t know something that I ask a question so that I may know. I will explain in less convoluted reasoning.

Say there is a topic I don’t know exists. Obviously I can’t ask a question about that subject since I am unaware that there is such a subject. That topic is not a part of my universe. Then I become aware of the existence of the subject. I now know the subject exists but I have no knowledge of its particulars. This prompts me to ask questions so that I may become informed on the subject. But the seed of my subsequent knowledge is contained in the questions I ask. Those questions guide and focus my pursuit of new knowledge. I need to know enough, even if it is knowing what I do not know, to be able to ask for what I am missing.

So what is the point of these philosophical acrobatics? Our students may enter a course feeling stupid about the subject matter. They are reluctant to ask questions for fear of sounding dumb. However, the fact that they have questions is evidence that they already know enough about the subject to be able to inquire about it. They already know more than they think they do. Asking questions is not a sign of ignorance but evidence of intelligence. You are not stupid if you know enough to ask a question. By explaining this to our students we may be able to encourage their questions. Learning begins with questions. We will learn nothing if we have nothing to ask.

“Ask and you will receive, and so your joy will be complete.” John 16:24

Playing In The Fields

I recently attended a conference on integrated learning. One important aspect of integrated learning is to take a multidisciplinary approach to a subject. I enjoy applying different disciplines to my course subjects. This is not always easy to do. It requires the ability to make connections between subjects. Those connections are often not obvious. Synthesizing from various disciplines requires us to be familiar with different fields of study. We need to take time to explore subjects outside our area of expertise. We then need to play with those subjects to find how they may relate to our own specialty. This requires an attitude of experimentation. We must be secure enough in ourselves to admit what we don’t know. It is necessary to take on the role of the novice. We are to make new discoveries along with our students.

I experienced this last semester while teaching a course on leadership and teamwork. During one of the class meetings I held at the art museum on campus, I pointed out a piece of art that consisted of a black Plexiglas square mounted in the center of a larger white square. I asked the class what the piece communicated about leadership. Now, the artist did not create this work as a lesson about leadership. And I had no ready answer to my own question. Nonetheless, I received some insightful answers from the students. One student learned from the piece that answers to problems do not always need to be complex. Sometimes the most effective leader is the one who helps followers find the simple answer. Another student, as he studied the squares, was able to see his reflection in the center black square. That sparked the insight that leadership begins by looking within ourselves before taking outward action. The insights of my students helped me make new connections between art and leadership.

This takes me back to my previous post. We need to lighten up and at times take a playful approach to our subject. We then create a safe learning environment in which our students dare to play. Together we can discover that playing in academic fields can be great fun.

The Best Years

My parents said it to me. I hear parents today telling it to their children who are in college. “Enjoy college while you can. These are the best years of your life.”

What a depressing message! We are telling our young people that it is all downhill after school. Expect it to only get worse for the next sixty years or so. The lucky die young.

I enjoyed my college years but I never wanted to repeat them. There has always been too much to experience and learn at whatever stage of life I have been. I have always looked forward to what is next. There are people in their 80’s entering their next careers.

What fuels my enthusiasm for life is the joy of learning. Learning keeps me at my cutting edge, at the frontier of my identity. I keep learning that not only am I capable of more than I thought I was, I am more than who I thought I was. I keep discovering that the definition of who I am is dynamic and fluid. There will always be more of myself to discover as long as I keep looking.

The enthusiasm for lifelong learning is the message we need to be communicating to our students. The best way to communicate that message is by exhibiting our own joy for learning. I experience teaching as a gift. By teaching others I learn so much. There are times I break out in laughter in the middle of a lecture I am presenting. After I catch my breath, I explain to the confused class of students what new learning I have just grasped and how much fun I am having. No wonder I have a reputation for being crazy. But hey, I’m having the time of my life! And joy loves company. So I invite my students to lighten up and have fun learning, learning, learning!

We as teachers need to role model for our students. We need to lighten up and not take ourselves and our subjects so seriously. We need to allow our students to see by way of our actions the joys of learning, growing, and serving. Forget about youth being the best years of life. The best is yet to come!

Get Real!

I hear students regularly refer to life outside of and after college as “the real world.” That is a telling phrase. What it implies is that what occurs in college is separate from what really counts. Academia is somehow divorced from reality. Life really begins upon graduation and when one has secured a job. This perception does not reflect well upon higher education. It indicates students do not experience college as relevant to life.

I recently attended a conference on integrative learning. An important aspect of this approach to education is to connect academics to students’ experiences outside of the classroom. I find students hungry for this type of learning. Integrative learning theory can help us respond to what students are saying they need us to do: Get real!

Grade Obsession

As soon as I submit the final grades for each semester I receive emails from disappointed students. There are those who failed the course asking what they can do to pass the course now that it is over. I often hear from the “B+” students who are upset that they did not earn an “A.” What I have always counted on is not hearing from my “A” students. After all, what reason would they have to complain? Hence my surprise when the first two emails I received after the grades were posted for this semester came from “A” students inquiring why they did not get an “A+.” When I was a student I wouldn’t have dared to question a professor about an “A” grade. I would have feared the professor would have discovered that the “A” was given to me by mistake and that I had actually flunked the course. Not only did my two students question the lower “A,” but one student was not satisfied with my first explanation and continued to press his case—to no avail. Both students were genuinely interested in the course subject and committed to their own learning and growth. However, at the end they could not let go of their obsession with grades. It reinforces my belief that, within the educational system, grades are the primary obstacle to learning.

Entering Into Dialogue

In my last post I mentioned the need for faculty and administrators to clarify their institution’s mission, vision, values, and goals. But clarification is not enough. This needs to be followed with identifying how these statements are to inform action at both the individual and collective levels. To accomplish this a community needs to enter into dialogue.

In discussion different views are presented and defended. Ideas are analyzed. Discussion is meant to facilitate a decision. Dialogue is an exploration of issues. Different views are presented as a means to discovering new perspectives. While discussion is meant to lead to action, the purpose of dialogue is to cultivate a deeper understanding of issues. Each person’s contribution to the dialogue contributes to a more holistic understanding of an issue. Dialogue enlarges the pool of ideas from which we may draw. By entering into dialogue first, we can have more informed discussions about what actions to take.

Certain conditions must exist for dialogue to occur. First, all participants must suspend their assumptions. This does not mean suppressing our assumptions. Rather, we are to put forth our assumptions for examination. Second, participants must consider each other as colleagues. This requires an environment of mutual trust and respect. The third requirement is a facilitator who will keep the group in dialogue and prevent people from straying into discussion. Dialogue can help particpants grow into a true learning community.

What Are We Doing?

We don’t know what we are doing. “Who doesn’t?” you may ask defensively. Faculty, administrators, staff, students. Yes, most of us could describe our roles in higher education and what we are personally trying to accomplish in those roles. What I regularly hear from faculty at various colleges, though, is the lack of a common purpose. At many institutions there is not an explicit shared focus.

I have been regularly attending conferences and discussions about teaching methods. However, before we can assess the appropriateness of particular teaching methodologies, we need to know what we are striving to achieve. Are we preparing students for the workplace? Are we training citizens? Do we want to create critical thinkers? Before exploring teaching methods, faculty and administrators need to be clear about their institution’s mission, vision, values, and goals. And these statements need to be translated into explicit action. The mission, vision, and values define an institution’s identity. It is from this core that actions corporately and individually are to emerge. When the collective and individual purposes and values are aligned and all act congruent with those purposes and values, there is then integrity within the system. It will then become clear what it is we are to do.