TWELVE THINGS I’VE LEARNED DURING MY FIRST 54 YEARS AS A COLLEGE TEACHER

(ESSAY 340)   In two weeks, I will finish my 54th year as a college teacher.  My 70 students have, so far this semester, done incredibly well.  I’m proud of their efforts and how much they want to learn.  I’m pleased by their ambition and their willingness to keep working on complex materials day after day.

After 54 years, I surely must have learned something about teaching.  Every few years, I try to figure out what I know now that I didn’t understand back in August of 1971 when I stepped into my first classroom and said, “Hello my name is Joe Hoyle and I’m here to help you learn.”

As I have said previously on this blog, I love lists.  So I created a countdown of the twelve most important things (in my own mind) that I have learned about college teaching during more than five decades on the job.  (The original list was supposed to be ten, but I couldn’t cut it down that far.)  If you ask me tomorrow, I might give you a different list, but these are the items that strike me as essential right now.

(12)—The way you test is the way your students will learn.  If you tell them you want to help them develop their critical thinking skills and then you test their memorization, you should not be surprised when they put all their focus on memorization.

(11)—Be willing to market your class to your students.  Here’s a good message, “This is important stuff, and it will be fun, and you can be successful.”  If you don’t believe that, you need to redesign your course.  Assuming you do believe it, you occasionally need to explain to your students the primary benefits of what they are learning.  During any semester, I will ask my students to do a considerable amount of hard work.  They will naturally be resistant unless I help them understand how the resulting knowledge is going to affect their lives in a positive way.  “Learn it because I said so,” is not likely to inspire the best from any college student.  They deserve to know why you think the assignments in your class are important.

(10)—Every class session should be important.  I believe college education must be transformative.  I want to create a significant piece of that transformation every day.  By the time they make it through middle school and high school and arrive at my class, many students have suffered through a lot of what I refer to as “trivial education,” education that has no joy and no apparent purpose.  I’m not paid to do that.  I want every student to walk out of every class thinking that their time has been well spent.

(9)—On the first day of every semester, I explain to my students that I define the grade of A as “excellent.”  I don’t believe teachers are doing students a favor by giving them an A for lesser work.  College students are not naïve.  They know the difference between excellent and good.  They might love getting an A without much effort, but the thrill of that success will be tainted.  

(8)—Procrastination is a mighty foe.  Students are human beings, and human beings are not always great at self-motivation.  As a student once told me, “I have a busy life.  If your assignment is not on fire, I have other things that need to be done.”  To help students achieve serious accomplishments, the teacher should provide a bit of urgency now and then as motivation so they can overcome their natural procrastination.  A teacher’s common announcement, “Pay attention because this will be on the test,” is nothing more than a trite method to create urgency in the heads of the students.  Surely, there are better ways to give them the push they need.  I add that urgency by using the Socratic Method and then cold calling on every student every day.  That style fits my personality.  Every teacher should consider how they can best bring a little urgency into their class to help students get beyond procrastination.  Find a method that works for you because your students are not robots.  They are human beings.

(7)—I work to know every student as a person and then make sure they understand that I know them.  Many students feel invisible sitting in a class and that has a detrimental effect on their interest in attaining a quality education.  I call on them every day by name and often email them when they are absent.  I try to instill in each person a confidence that success is possible no matter what their previous experiences have been.  “I know this is a complicated subject, but you are bright and if you work hard, you can do well even if you don’t make an A.  I’m here to help.  Let’s make something good happen.”

(6)—A great marriage and a great class are both based on open and clear communications.  Students cannot read the teacher’s mind.  You should think about what they need to consider to be successful and then convey that information very clearly.  Over the course of a semester, I probably email my students 100 times.  Most messages are short and all should be to the point.  I frequently start the correspondence with, “Here’s something you should think about as you get ready for tomorrow’s class” or “Here’s something you should have noted in this morning’s class.”  We all want our students to be successful.  If I can make the topic more interesting or if I can help the students avoid some type of educational pitfall, why not tell them?

(5)—Talk less.  I suspect that 100 percent of college teachers talk too much in class.  People don’t like silence and, if students are not inclined to speak, the teacher often gets anxious and starts filling in that silence.  And, students are usually glad to let the teacher do all the work.  There are many ways to push students to be active.  Find the strategy that works best for you.  I pose questions, sometimes odd or unique questions.  I try to say as little as possible.  I want the students to do the talking and thinking and work out the answer.  Occasionally, if a student responds to one of my questions with a question, my comment will be, “I’m paid enough to ask questions.  I’m not paid enough to provide answers.  Right or wrong, I expect you to provide the answers.”  For college students, I think that is appropriate.  The practice of working through a problem to arrive at their own answer is an excellent way for students to achieve understanding.

(4)—Having clear and reasonable goals is essential.  Whenever I talk with new teachers, the first and last questions I stress are:  What do you want your last class of the semester to look like and feel like?  What kind of transformation are you trying to create?  Identify the specifics of that vision and keep them in mind whenever you make decisions on what to cover or what to test or what to do in the next class or how to respond to a student plea.  Your vision for the final class of the semester is your guiding star.  Consider what the most efficient way is to achieve that goal.  Set clear goals and set them high.  Then work as hard as you can to get every student to achieve those goals.

(3)—Every class session works better if students spend an appropriate amount of time in preparation.  Nothing ever works well if students arrive without being prepared.  Students who are well prepared can create miracles in class.  Students who are not prepared become stenographers.  How do you encourage students to do the work necessary to be properly prepared when they walk into class every day?  If you can solve this challenge, you have the chance to become a truly outstanding teacher.  I provide complicated questions in advance and then tell them, “I’m going to call on you and I want legitimate answers so be prepared.”  Does it work?  For me, yes, some of the time.

(2)—I have long believed that the most underutilized time in a student’s education comes during the 24-48 hours after class.  Proper understanding does not occur until class coverage is organized and solidified and that needs to happen as soon as possible after the student leaves class.  After many, if not most, of my classes, I email my students a 15–30-minute practice assignment with the instructions, “This question covers what we did in class today but is probably 10 percent harder just to stretch your knowledge.  I have included the answer I think is best.  If you can’t get to my answer, bring your work and swing by my office and I’ll give you a push.”  If I had to provide one practical teaching recommendation, it would be some type of assignment immediately after class.  Once I started doing that on a regular basis, I felt that the quality of the learning went up dramatically.  (The second chapter of the wonderful book Make It Stick by Brown, Roediger III, and McDaniel is titled, “To Learn, Retrieve.”  These practice assignments come in part from that chapter.)

(1)—I did a TEDx talk back in November about the power of transformative education.  For me, the underlying theme was the importance of creating genuine trust between teacher and students.  The teacher asks the students to do a lot of work with only the mere possibility that this work will lead to a deeper understanding of the subject matter and, hopefully, to a good grade.  For this working relationship to be successful, the two parties must trust each other.  I firmly believe that the teacher must do everything possible to create the mutual respect that leads to a personal level of trust.  Without trust between teacher and student, the quality of the education is severely limited.

Those are 12 things I’ve learned over the past 54 years.

If you think there is something that I forgot to include, put it in the comments below.

In case you are interested in watching my 12 minute TEDxYouth@RVA talk about transformative education, here is the link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s

And, my book, Transformative Education, is available as a free download at:

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/

If all of that is not enough, you can also go to the following link and watch a video where I tell four stories about teaching in college.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT428yjJ0Ls

LETTING STUDENTS KNOW THEY ARE NOT INVISIBLE

(ESSAY 339)  I recently gave my first test of the semester.  My primary course (Intermediate Accounting II) is extremely complex so every test is a challenge for my students.  I have 71 students this semester so that was a lot of grading.  

My goal for this first test is usually that 50-60 percent of my students make an A or a B.  On this test, 70 percent made an A or a B so I was pleased.  The group had worked hard and seemed to have made excellent progress.

However, 15 percent of the students made a D and another 5 percent made a low C.  That’s a lot of poor work.  I always tell my students, “I will always take half of the credit if you do well, but I assume I deserve half of the blame if you do poorly.” 

Students who do poorly always seem to feel invisible.  “No one really knows or cares if I am struggling.”  I don’t want my students to feel that no one cares.  They still have 80 percent of their grades to be determined.  Nothing in my teaching is more pleasing than turning a D student into an A or B student.   (I probably take way too much credit for turning A students into A students.)

So, I wrote emails to each of the students who did poorly just to give them some advice and make sure they knew that I cared and that they were not invisible.  Each of the emails was somewhat different but below is one example of what I sent out.

The first two students I wrote, emailed me back almost immediately to thank me for touching base and for my recommendation.  It was almost as if they had been waiting for some encouragement.

**

To:  XX

From:  JH

As you know, you made a D on our first test in Accounting 302.  I do not know how you did in Accounting 301, and I do not know what your grade point average is so I'm not sure whether you just had a bad day or whether I should be worried about your grade in 302.  It is important to remember that Test One was only 20 percent of your overall grade, but it was 20 percent and should not be ignored.  You can do better, but we need to get started. 

I'd really like to see improvement over that 69.   I'm not sure but I don't think you've been to my office to ask any questions or seek any assistance this semester.  Always remember that is why I have office hours.  I'm more than happy to help.   You don’t need an appointment, just show up during my office hours.

In addition, I want to recommend that you contact Roger Mancastroppa (he is copied here) who is the Associate Director of our Academic Skills Center.  I suggest that you make an appointment with him to chat about ways that you can improve your learning skills and especially your testing skills.  This is not a requirement.  I just think it might be beneficial.  You seem to work hard, but we need better test results and that needs to happen on Test Two. 

I think one visit (or maybe more) might be a good investment as we look toward making a serious improvement in the remaining 80 percent of the course grade.

If you want to chat about my suggestion, come by and see me.

**

And as I have mentioned previously, in case you are interested, you can 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/

 

 

GETTING THE STUDENTS READY FOR THEIR FIRST TEST

(ESSAY 338)  I teach a course that is generally considered to be extremely difficult.  Our first test is next Friday.  Today’s students are always a bit nervous so the first test in a course that is viewed as tough can push their emotions up to high anxiety.  That is not productive.  I want to keep them emotionally involved, but I don’t want them to get scared and freeze up.  Fear is not the goal.  Learning and understanding are the goals.  If done right, testing can be a big help.  

I always stress to my students that the objective is to have a great semester so any individual day, even a test day, is just a small cog in that overall process.  Obviously, I want them to do great on Friday in order to build confidence, but I don’t want them to become devastated in case they have a bad day.  So, a few days ago, I conveyed the following message to them.  I wanted to provide guidance.  I wanted to provide support.  Most of all, regardless of the grade, I wanted this test to improve the odds that every student was going to have a great semester.  To me, that last sentence is a very important aspect of any course if the teacher really wants to move toward greatness. 

At least in my experience, I have found the psychology of working with a group (I have 71 students this semester) is one of the most beneficial and interesting parts of teaching in college.  What are the magic words, what are the key steps, that turn an average class into something that the students will remember for the rest of their lives.  

Here’s the message I sent (slightly edited).  

**

Our first test is in two weeks (2/14). It will count 20 percent of your overall grade for the semester so it is important, but it is not the end of the world if you do not do as well as you might like. 

As I told some of you who were in one of my earlier courses, I call the first test of the semester “spring training.” It’s a chance to see how you are doing so far. 

--Is your approach to the class working well? 

--Should you have spent more time? 

--Did you spend too much time? 

--What changes should you consider going forward? 

People need a chance to gauge whether their efforts are bringing the desired results.   As I often tell you in class, “perfection is never the goal.”   However, I do firmly believe that, “Evolution is a key goal.”  I always want you to be getting better.  Every single day.  

As I have said to you previously, the test will cover absolutely everything we cover in class (or in any emails that talk about accounting) through the end of class on 2/12. I have a good memory and I keep good notes. I know what we have covered.

I want you to know it or I wouldn’t have mentioned it.   

Here are some questions that you might consider. 

--How many hours should you devote to test preparation? (I’d vote for 10-15, but I’d keep a record just to see – that’s never a bad idea.) 

--When should you start? (I’d shoot for 7 days ahead.) 

--Should you schedule out specific times to prepare? (Yes, that’s a great idea. Set up a calendar with expected days and times and then stick with it.) 

--When should you write your two pages of “cheat sheets?” (I’d keep a rough draft as you study and then recopy it on the night before the test as a last minute reminder of everything.) 

--When should you try the questions on last fall’s test? (I’d probably read the test now just to get a feel for the type of questions.  Maybe more importantly, I’d read the answers especially carefully because they show how I would have worked through the questions. Spend some serious time following the process I used. I’ve never been sure that actually working the previous test is much help. It tends to scare students more than help them but I do like for you to read those answers.) 

--Should you study with other people? (That’s always a wise idea. I’d try to spend 30-50 percent of study time in groups.) 

--Should you look around and ask people to study with you if they don’t seem to have a group? (Yes, please, kindness is so important in life – even more important than accounting. Kindness begins with your opening your eyes and looking around for people who could use some help.)

And, finally, just because it is factual information, here are the first test grades of the students who made an A in this course last fall. As you can see by these numbers, a good grade is nice but it is not essential. 88. 96, 83, 97, 92, 85.   That’s two A’s, three B’s, and one C and all of those students wound up with an A for the semester.  I suspect there was some evolution in their study habits after the first test.  

This test is just spring training to help you get off to a good start and determine what changes you might want to make in how you study every day in this course.

**

And, as you probably can imagine, I follow the test up almost immediately with a another email on how to take what they discovered from the first test and then use it to have a much better semester going forward.  If I can, I will add that email to this blog in a week or two.

**

And as I have mentioned previously, in case you are interested, you can 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/

MARKETING YOUR CLASS TO YOUR STUDENTS

(ESSAY 337)   (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!)

**

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. 

 

**

(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.

**

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 

**

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/

COMMUNICATION!

 

On my previous blog entry from about a month ago, I talked about giving a TEDx talk here in Richmond, Virginia.  At least for part of that talk, I discussed the importance to teachers of having open communications with their students.

--You need to guide them.

--You need to encourage them.

--You need to give them hints.

--You need to explain your actions.

--You need to excite them about the possibilities for what they can get from the course you are offering. 

--You need to help them understand the importance of the material.

--You need to let them know that you care.

People hear that advice, but they don’t necessarily know what it means in practice so here is an example.

I have a holiday tradition where I send my students a quick Christmas morning message.  It doesn’t take long and it is usually based on how I am feeling at the moment.  Here is the one that I sent out this morning.  It is quite short.  What exactly did I intend to accomplish with this message?  I probably could easily list out 5-7 things that I was trying to do in these few words to get the students better ready for the start of the spring semester.  How many can you spot?

By the way, Accounting 302 is my primary course.  It is Intermediate Accounting II, and it is normally viewed as one of the most complex courses in any accounting program.   However, I don’t think that’s terribly relevant to the importance of this type of communication. 

**

12/25/2024

To:  Accounting 302 Students 

From:  JH

Good morning and I hope you will have a happy holiday on this Christmas morning.

I wanted to give you a present. 

This morning, I have been reading a fabulous book, James, by Percival Everett.  I would strongly recommend it.  I have seen more than one “expert” call it the best book of the year and I can easily see why.  It might well be the best book of the past several recent years.

I was reading along this morning and one of the characters said, “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning.”  I immediately recognized that those few words were a wonderful secret to success in Accounting 302 and I wanted to pass them along as my present to you.  

Too often students seek perfection in 302 and then get discouraged when I point out that they are wrong.  Once discouraged, they quit trying.   Trust me, you are never going to get much right at first in 302, it is just too darn complicated, so you need to be resilient.   If you work hard and then learn from your mistakes, you can become an A student. 

The key, though, in that this last sentence has not one but two requirements.  First, you have to work hard and, second, you have to learn from your mistakes.  It is as simple as that.  If you can do that and do it consistently, then there is nothing else I can tell you.  You hold the key to your success.   And, as far as I can see, there is no reason why you cannot do both of those requirements.

Have a happy holiday!!!

TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION

I recently had the great honor of being one of eight speakers at the annual TEDxYouth@RVA program at the Collegiate School here in Richmond, Virginia.  I was asked to discuss a topic I was passionate about so, naturally, I chose Transformative Education.  Many thanks go to Rhiannon Boyd and her team (including about 18 senior students at the Collegiate School) for all their help and for creating such a wonderful event.  I can hardly wait until next year so I can go back and sit in the audience and just listen.

(Since I originally published this blog essay, the actual video for the program has been published.  If you have 12 minutes and go to this URL, you can actually watch the entire presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s    )

Here is my speech.

**

I have a quick announcement.  Tomorrow is my birthday.  I will turn 77.  I suspect some of you might think turning 77 sounds old.   But, I’m here to tell you that, if you take care of yourself and if you are lucky, the late 70s can be a fabulous time to be alive.  For one thing, all those years give you a wonderfully unique perspective of life.

As a result of that longevity, I am currently in my 54^th year as a college professor.  54 years!   How could anyone have the same job, day in and day out, for more than half a century?  That’s an easy question for me to answer.

I am a true believer in the importance of education.  More precisely, I’m a strong advocate for education that is transformative.  Every semester, students come into my class over at the University of Richmond and we work together for14 weeks.  If I do my half of the work and the students do their half, the transformation is amazing.  The difference between those students on the first day of the semester and those students on the last day of the semester can be breathtaking.  I very much want them to obtain extensive knowledge about a wide array of topics, but it is more than that.  Just as importantly, I want every student to learn to think more deeply and more critically.  Guiding that transformation is a splendid way to spend a life.  If you have not yet chosen a career, I would urge you to consider becoming a teacher.  The world needs more excellent teachers.

For transformative education to work, it must start as soon as possible.  On the first day of every semester, I explain to my students that I want to work with them as a team to create the greatest educational experience of their lives.  However, I need to help them envision the type of teamwork I want.  So, I talk about dancing.  My wife and I love to dance.  We go to parties and weddings just to dance.  Although I teach accounting, I talk with my students about how two dancers can work together to create something that is spectacular.  If you are older, you might recall Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers.  If you are younger, you might think about John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in the movie, Grease.  Look those couples up on YouTube and you will see dancing that will blow you away.  The couples work together as a team and create a dance that is full of energy, life, enthusiasm, and joy.  In the same way, I want to work with my students as a team to create a class each day that is full of energy, life, enthusiasm, and joy.  Fred and Ginger couldn’t produce that magic by themselves.  They had to work together.  If my students and I work together, we can create that same type of magic.

Therefore, on that first day of class, I pledge to my students that I will do my half of the work, not just now and then or when I’m in the mood but every single day, but I expect them to do their half of the work as well, not just now and then or when they are in the mood but every single day.  If we both hold up our end of that partnership, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. 

I never lecture.  I give my students all the questions in advance and when they walk into the room I start asking them questions.  I ask one and then another because I want to create a dialogue.  In this way, we can avoid “memorizing solutions” or “taking notes on solutions.”  I want them to learn to “figure out the solution.”  That’s where the magic is.

Why is this important?  What should you even care?

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”  I very much want to be part of that change.  You should want to be part of that change.  Most importantly for me, I want my students to be part of that change, and I believe that is where transformative education becomes essential.

How do we create education that is transformative?  I have thought about that a long time, probably 54 years.  I believe it all starts with teamwork so you and the students need to establish a solid foundation on which you can build that transformative education.  However, it can’t float in midair.  It must have support.  To create that foundation, I believe you must have four building blocks.  Transformative education requires teamwork and teamwork requires a foundation and four building blocks.

The foundation for transformative education is one word:  “trust.”   I must trust that my students will do their half of the work by doing what I ask them to do.  At the same time, my students must trust me to do my half of the work—to guide them, to treat them fairly, and to inspire them.  With mutual trust, we can produce miracles.

You can’t create trust by telling students “trust me.”  You must work to earn it.   That leads to the four building blocks. 

The first building block is communication.  Students cannot read my mind.  I certainly cannot read the students’ minds.  If you have no good way to communicate, then you have no way to lead and inspire.  Before the semester begins and then virtually every day during the semester, I email my students to tell them what I want them to do, why it is important, why it is interesting, and how I will help them achieve success.  I want no uncertainty.  I want no confusion.  But communication goes both ways.  I urge my students to email me or come to my office to let me know their problems, their ideas, their future, their suggestions. 

The second building block is ambition.  I don’t think Fred and Ginger would ever have become great if they had not had a burning desire to be great.  It doesn’t work that way.  The best thing about ambition is that I want my students to be so ambitious that they will push me to be a great teacher.  And, that I will be so ambitious that I will push my students to be great learners.  If you are not willing to push your partner to be great, you’re not ambitious enough.

The third building block is the investment of time.  We live in a society that seems to believe that people can accomplish great things by using shortcuts, so they don’t have to spend too much time.  That is utter nonsense.  John and Olivia would never have created those fabulous dances in Grease if they hadn’t been willing to practice for hours and hours.  If the team is not willing to invest sufficient time, then nothing special is ever accomplished. 

The fourth building block is preparation.  When I walk into class every day, I must be totally prepared, or I cannot do my half of the work.  When the students walk into class every day, they must be totally prepared, or they cannot do their half of the work.  Wishing and hoping do not create transformative education.  The Boy Scouts have it right, “Be Prepared.” 

Changing the world is a complicated process.  Learning an exciting dance is a complicated process.  Creating transformative education is a complicated process.  They all require teamwork, and that teamwork requires a foundation built on trust.  To create that trust you need four building blocks:  communications, ambition, the investment of time, and preparation. 

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I turn 77.  I very much hope you will celebrate with me.  At some point tomorrow, grab a partner, turn on a rock and roll radio station and dance as if you are ready to change the world.    

What Does the Word “Teacher” Mean to You?

Yesterday was the 10-Month Anniversary of releasing my new teaching book (Transformative Education) as a free download.  I did not want to hoard my ideas.  Instead, I wanted to encourage every college teacher (including myself) to become better.  I had already provided copies to my friends (both near and far).  I was not sure anyone else would be interested, but I hoped to get a few hundred additional downloads if I was lucky. 

Much to my amazement, Transformative Education has been downloaded 2,865 times over the past 10 months (without the benefit of an advertising campaign).  Mathematically, that works out to a new download every 2 hours and 33 minutes around the clock for the past 10 months.  I can only assume I have benefited from an awful lot of word-of-mouth messaging.  If that was you, thanks a million for the help.  I am truly grateful. 

I am convinced that most college teachers want to get better.  You can do that.  It is not an impossible dream.  It starts with thinking and experimenting.  That is my central message.  Here is the URL for the free download.

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/

Below I have cut and pasted in the first 779 words of Transformative Education.  Those few paragraphs will take you about 4 minutes to read.  At the end, you will either say, “I’d like to read more and see what ideas this guy has,” or you will say “This is just not my style.”  If you want to read more, the link is waiting for you.  If these 779 words don’t intrigue you, go find something else to read (I recently finished East of Eden by John Steinbeck and would recommend that novel highly). 

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Teaching Is Personal.  Fair warning:  This book will be personal because teaching is such a personal experience.  Some books about teaching have a clinical structure like the description of a controlled laboratory experiment involving rats and mazes.  Those works can be quite beneficial, but my writings will sound different.  For me, improving the educational experience for every student is a personal goal, probably bordering on an obsession.  I want to encourage, guide, and assist college teachers in their quest to become better.  I never camouflage my mission. 

I do not want to overanalyze myself, but I suspect that my desire to improve as a teacher comes, in part, from my regret that I did not have better teachers in college.  A few were good.  Several were awful.  Most were average.  None were great.  I was frustrated that the bad ones did not try harder.  My parents paid a significant amount of their hard-earned money to a major university, but many of my teachers did not seem to care whether I learned one iota.  How could they settle for being mediocre at such a vitally important responsibility?  At 18, I did not understand their lackadaisical attitude.  I do not understand it any better now that I am well past 70.

I simply want every student to have a legitimate opportunity to earn an excellent education.  I have a great appreciation for teachers who work hard to help students think, learn, and understand.  Our schools can achieve better, more in-depth results if teachers are both willing and able to assist students in maximizing their potential.  I am always distressed when I read of educational inefficiencies.  “At some of the most prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years.”  (“Many Colleges Fail in Teaching How to Think,” Douglas Belkin, Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2017).  Such failure should be unacceptable to every person involved with college education but also to our society as a whole.  Such indictments should lead citizens to mass at the college gates with torches and pitchforks demanding better from us.

An Opening Reading.  I grew up in a tiny mountain town in North Carolina and attended the local Southern Baptist church.  Before every service, the pastor or a member of the congregation would stand before the assembled group and read a few verses, usually from the Bible.  These words often served as the basis for the comments that were to follow.  At other times, the selected reading provided inspiration or helped listeners get into the proper frame of mind to receive the speaker’s message.

In this book, I plan to examine the day-to-day activities of teaching.  How can you improve the learning process in your classes, not in a year or two, but right now?  How can you better educate your students, not a few of them, but 100 percent?  Just as importantly, why does it even matter? 

Given my background, I want to open this book with a reading.  I have selected a few lines from Pat Conroy’s novel The Prince of Tides.  It tells the story of Savannah and Tom Wingo, twins who grew up in a dysfunctional family in the low country near Charleston, South Carolina.  The epilogue to this book provides the following interaction.  Savannah speaks first and Tom replies. 

She took my hand and squeezed it.  “You sold yourself short.  You could’ve been more than a teacher and a coach.”

I returned the squeeze and said, “Listen to me, Savannah.  There’s no word in the language I revere more than teacher.  None.  My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher and it always has.  I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming one.”

Conroy died in 2016 after a prolific career.  I doubt he ever wrote other words that were better than these.  I am not here to judge, but if Tom’s response does not pull your heart into your throat, then reading my book is probably not a good use of your time.

Why are you reading this book?  What do you hope to gain?  When you read the above conversation in Pat Conroy’s novel, is it more than just mere words to you?  Is the message personal?  I will provide you with scores of ideas and suggestions that I believe can lead to improved education.  The goal is simple.  I want teachers everywhere to get excited about their careers, about the effect they have on so many college students.  I believe that you can become a better teacher and with work eventually a great teacher.  My advice is simple:  Go for it!

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Thanks for reading this far.  Now, it is up to you as to whether you read more.  That seems fair.

One additional message.  I have a podcast titled Transformative Teaching – Stories That Inspire.   It is available wherever podcasts are available.  I have two episodes already up with three more in process to be released soon.  I hope to do 5 or 10 more over the summer.  They are each about 10-15 minutes in length.  I hope you will tune in.