(Before I get started with today’s essay, I want to wish all the readers of my blog a Happy New Year!! I hope 2025 turns out to be the very best year ever for you, your family, and your students. Thanks for checking in on my blog now and then. This is my 337th essay on teaching and we have had more than 790,000 pageviews which is about 786,000 more than I expected when I first started writing this blog.
I genuinely hope it helps you move toward better teaching!)
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My classes for the spring semester start in about 10 days. For years now (I guess ever since email was first invented), I have spent this period of time marketing my class to my students. I want them to walk in on the first day already looking forward to an exciting challenge. I think a lot about how to make my class better than any other class they might have ever had.
Before he retired, I used to tell one of my marketing professor colleagues that marketing was the most important skill in the entire world – one that we should practice every day in every possible way. Not surprisingly, he readily agreed with me.
So, I woke up a few days ago and thought, “I need to begin working on my students’ attitudes for the spring semester.” I hopped up and wrote the email below and sent it to them. It was basically marketing. If I am the one professor who writes such things, I will catch their attention and push them to think about what I am trying to do.
Will it help get the semester off to a great start? Geez, I hope so, but we’ll see. You can ask me in a couple of weeks, and I’ll let you know whether it was a positive factor or not. But, it only took me about 20 minutes so I didn’t invest a fortune. I look around a lot for small teaching investments that can have big returns.
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(The following is a slightly edited version of the email that I sent to my students for Intermediate Accounting II. Clearly, I think that class is extremely important and I wanted to convey that opinion to them before I meet them on the first day of class.)
With about two weeks left until the start of the semester, I want you to know that the most important thing you bring into this class is NOT your grade in the previous class or how much material you already know. The most important thing you bring with you is your attitude toward our class in the spring of 2025.
So, here’s your assignment for today. In just three words, describe your attitude toward Accounting 302 as you approach the spring semester. Don’t just write down the first three words that come to your mind (scary, impossible, challenging, cruel, torturous, sadistic, overwhelming). Think about it for one solid day. This is your life. This is your education. This is your future. In three words, what is your attitude toward Accounting 302?
Before we meet on the first day, I want you to have defined YOUR ATTITUDE toward this course. I think that is very important self-awareness as you get ready to excel in my class.
Okay, so here are my three. I realize that I have a completely different perspective than you, but we are working together so we might as well understand each other.
NUMBER ONE – “ENJOY” – I have no interest in being miserable. I have no interest in dreading coming to class every day. I want to enjoy working with you this semester. In reading the course evaluations from last fall, I was interested in how many students seemed mystified when they wrote something like, “This course was actually a lot of fun. I am going to miss it.” They had expected to be miserable and they weren't. I have no reason to want you to be unhappy. I truly want you to find every single day of our exploration to be enjoyable.
NUMBER TWO – “LEARN” – I am always baffled by students who seem set on staying ignorant. Learning makes you a better person. Why wouldn’t you want to learn? I have long had a class saying, “The more you learn, the more the world opens up to you.” I want you to learn so much in the spring that your head will feel like it is going to explode. I talk a lot about the transformative nature of education. Your learning is the primary driver of that transformation. Heck, forget your grade – in the long run, who really cares about that? Focus on setting the world’s record for learning. That will get you somewhere.
NUMBER THREE – “USEFUL” – In truth, I majored in accounting (in 1967 – or about 1,000 years ago) at least in part because I loved the useful nature of the material. I could actually look at a set of financial statements and understand what they meant which just amazed me. Some of you might have used my financial accounting textbook in Accounting 201. In Chapter Two, I have a quote that I love because I think it is 100 percent true. It comes from the Wall Street Journal from about 25 years ago.
“When the intellectual achievements of the 20th century are tallied, GAAP should be on everyone’s Top 10 list. The idea of GAAP—so simple yet so radical—is that there should be a standard way of accounting for profit and loss in public businesses, allowing investors to see how a public company manages its money. This transparency is what allows investors to compare businesses as different as McDonald’s, IBM and Tupperware, and it makes U.S. markets the envy of the world.”
After you read those three sentences, who wouldn’t want to learn financial accounting because it is so darn useful?
I realize the semester hasn’t yet started so I’ll make this an optional assignment. Send me the three words in your brain that describe your attitude toward our upcoming class, but you must wait at least one day to let them percolate in your brain. Three are enough. This is not a "quantity" assignment.
Or, don’t do the assignment. You’re adult. It’s your education. It’s up to you.
You might start by figuring out your attitude toward the previous course last semester and then decide if you want to stick with those three words or evolve to some new ones.
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A couple of days later:
I have had quite a number of my students write to tell me their three words. Some wrote fairly extensive essays which indicated they had spent some serious time thinking about them. In every case, I wrote back with a quick comment or two about their choices. I wanted to bring down the wall that might be present between us as far as communications. I want to feel comfortable with my students.
Here is a sample of the attitude some of my students were bringing to our first class. I was fascinated by how many different words have been put forward. There are a wide range of good attitudes my students can bring with them to our first class. What would your students say?
Diligent, Enthusiastic, Challenged
Curious, Rewarding, Beneficial
Excited, Anxious, Determined
Opportunity, Critical Thinking, Choices
Eager, Open-Minded, Certain
Optimistic, Open-Minded, Hungry
Utility, Resilience, Excitement
Patience, Confidence, Growth
Determined, Cautious, Open-Minded
Perseverance, Open-Mindedness, Learning
Collaborate, Challenge, Enjoy
Discipline, Excel, Growth
Understand, Engage, Progress
Build, Better, Fearless
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In case you are interested, you can still watch my 12 minute TEDxYouth@RVA talk about transformative education at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s
And, my book on Transformative Education is available as a free download at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/
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