by Greg Mitchell Ellison
Many teachers (including good ones), in my observation, express cynical views of their students, or of the various difficulties of teaching. It’s a perfectly natural reaction to the alienating modes of engagement necessitated by the state of modern higher education; increasing class sizes mean less personal interaction with students, online teaching modes reduce students to their name inside a square, and so on.
Over time instructors become alienated from their students and from the teaching process in general. And why wouldn’t they? Under such conditions it feels like a challenge to connect with one student, much less an entire lecture hall of them. It can feel like an absurd state of affairs.
In the face of such absurdity, what can one do but embrace it? The best professor I ever had brought a cat to class, told jokes before lectures, and returned graded work by archly throwing marked-up papers (which of course floated right to the ground) towards the rows of students. He was an absurd man, but his refusal to take himself seriously dissipated the stuffy, theorem-laden atmosphere present in typical math classes. His classes were great in part because he heightened his lectures to the level of the absurd, letting students in on the joke the whole time, and his classes were the classes where I learned the most.
It is absurd thing to spend hours grading homework or paper and giving detailed feedback that many students won’t read. One could allow oneself to become cynical about the whole idea, or, just make the students do it. Structure peer-review activities that give students the chance to hear feedback about their work and think critically about others’ work. It’s absurd to debate whether a response in a written assignment is worthy of five points of partial credit or six, so instead of agonizing over it come up with some other scheme where students’ can self-assess, or are graded on effort (in my own experience as a student, I am no less likely to work hard on an assignment when I know it will be graded this way). Recognizing the absurdities inherent to all teaching frees instructors from the strictures of traditional methods, opening room for more experimental or student-driven methods.
Recognizing the absurdities inherent to all teaching frees instructors from the strictures of traditional methods, opening room for more experimental or student-driven methods.
My recommendation is not to become a clown or to cease to take seriously the obligations of teaching, simply to recognize that whichever mode of teaching you employ, contradictions and absurdities will inevitably appear. Trying to resolve the contradictions could cause anyone to lapse into cynicism so just tell a joke and bring a cat to class.
Greg Mitchell Ellison is a 2021–22 WIP TA for statistics.