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.  

SIX STEPS FOR CREATING A BETTER LECTURE

Just a reminder that my new teaching book (Transformative Education – How Can You Become a Better College Teacher?) can be downloaded for free (for FREE) at the University of Richmond Scholarship Repository.  Since being issued a few months ago, it has been downloaded more than 2,600 times. 

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

And, if you want to read about the book, here is a story from Inside Higher Ed. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/academic-life/2023/08/30/why-one-professor-makes-time-take-classes-himself

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Summer is here!!  It is a time for resting, of course, but also an opportunity to reflect on how you can become a better teacher.  I want to present one thought today that might be worth pondering over the summer break as you plan for your classes in the fall. 

I am currently taking an online course on British literature.  This week, the professor was discussing Shakespeare and made the obvious observation that we all have trouble following the words that we hear in those plays.  The professor then explained (more than once) that until the last 100 years or so people were much more adept at listening for information than they are now.  Today, most information comes in through our eyes, but in Shakespeare’s day few people could read and even those had little material available to read.  A vast majority of information was conveyed orally.

Thus, over the centuries, people became well trained in listening and comprehending.  Storytelling, as in the works of Homer, served as a primary form of entertainment for thousands of years.  People sat around in the evening and listened to stories for hours.  A sermon in a Puritan church could last up to five hours.  In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, one candidate spoke for 60 minutes.  Then the other responded for 90 minutes before the first person used the final 30 minutes as a conclusion.  Could you imagine a debate today where the contestants talked for three solid hours?  The audience would be lost.

The professor’s point is that much of current humanity has lost the knack of careful listening.  Today, after a mere 15-minute sermon, an after-dinner talk, or a graduation speech, audience members often are unable to recall one memorable fact.  Many college teachers (although certainly not all) use lecturing at least some of the time.  How should we deal with our students’ inability to listen well?  They are not bad students.  Our society has simply moved away from an intense need for careful listening.

When I raise this question to faculty, they sometimes respond that they expect their students to take careful notes of what is being said.  I often refer to this as “learning through stenography.”  Students are not so much learning as they are transcribing (and then memorizing).  After middle school and high school, many have clearly become talented at the task.  Every semester, I have students who literally write down each word I say.  However, if I ask them a question, they are often unable to tell me a single thing I have said.  They are writing but not listening.

Teachers need to acknowledge the environment that they face.  A smart football team will play differently in the rain or snow than it does in sunny weather.  The coach helps them adapt.  Teachers need to recognize that keen listening is not a skill that many people under the age of 100 possess today.

I define lecturing as doing more than 50 percent of the talking because that indicates a majority of the information is coming directly from the teacher. 

If you are going to lecture, I believe it is essential to structure that process carefully to help your students listen and retain the information effectively.  Here are six suggestions that I think can help.

1—Start by letting your students know what you are planning to convey.  What is the end-message you want them to understand?   Without guidance, listening to a lecture can feel like walking through a forest path with no idea of where you are going.  Consequently, as the listener wanders along, it is hard to judge what is important.  For example, in one of my classes, I might start by informing my students, “I want to explain the three reasons a manufacturer who is a lessor would prefer a new lease contract to qualify as a financing lease.”  That one sentence provides several learning clues (manufacturer, lessor, prefers a financing lease) that the students can watch for as my story unfolds.

2—Include numbers as often as possible.  “Here are three examples.”   “Here are five rules.”  “Here are two exceptions.”  That clue provides each listener with an organizational structure.   Once again, the listener is being guided.  “Over the next few minutes, I will discuss debt instruments and there will be three primary types.”  You are enlightening the students as to what they should listen for as you lead them along the path of your topic.  (The next time you go to a graduation ceremony see if the speaker begins with, “I want to suggest three things you should achieve after graduation.”  If some type of guidance like that is not provided, you may be in for a rambling speech.)

3—Start each new section of the lecture (maybe every 5 or 10 minutes or so) by posing a question.  Then, carefully work your way to the answer.  When I give teaching presentations, I often create a short PowerPoint presentation that is no more than five or six slides, each containing a single question.  I pose the first question to my audience (hopefully to get them intrigued).  Then, I spend the next few minutes explaining my response to that question.  Who should care about this question?  What are the key elements we should investigate?  How do we begin our quest for an answer?  A good introductory question sounds like a mystery, and everyone loves a mystery.  (“Why in the world would a company even care whether interest expense was judged to be an operating cash flow or a financing cash flow?”)   With a starter question, both the teacher and the audience automatically know the purpose of the next part of the lecture.

4—When you write and then repeat something, it seems like wasted words.  When you write and then repeat something, it seems like wasted words.  The first sentence continues to be visible so why would you need the second?  In an oral presentation, however, the words vanish as soon as they are spoken.  If a student is distracted for even a second or fails to hear a word, the logical framework being constructed is damaged.  A gap appears in the student’s understanding.  Consequently, redundancy is never a bad idea.  Obviously, no one wants to hear the same words repeated verbatim.  However, going over a concept and then providing a quick summary is never a bad idea.  Giving an example and then explaining how it relates to what you have just said should help your listeners keep up with the flow of the message.  Always keep the idea of “vanishing words” in your mind and you are less likely to rush through a topic.

5—Be very careful with the sequencing of your message.  Because the student might be struggling to follow along, you want to make sure you make the presentation as logical as possible.  If a speaker talks about the knee bone and then jump to the neck bone and then drop back to the ankle bone, the structure is not readily obvious to anyone but the speaker.  Thus, as you prepare for class, think carefully about the sequencing.  Which concept should be discussed first and what is the most logical aspect of the topic that should come second?  In my own preparation, I’m always amazed by how much time I spend on sequencing.

6—Provide the students in advance with a barebones outline of the upcoming lecture.  Although they are popular with students, I am against providing extensive PowerPoint notes for three reasons.  First, it is just a different version of conveying information for them to memorize.  You are merely doing the transcribing for them.  Second, I don’t want to spend my time typing up those notes.  I have better things to do than be a typist for my students.  Third, once typed, the notes have a tendency to become frozen over time.  I like for my classes to evolve each semester as my thoughts about various topics change.  Typed notes have a way of becoming permanent notes.  Instead, a quick outline just to show (visually) the structure of the coverage and how you are moving from one step to the next can be helpful and not take that much of your time.

I hope this helps.  Simply recognizing how difficult it is in 2024 for students to listen and comprehend a 50-75 minute lecture will make you more aware of the need to help them.  Remember this is not 1606 when Shakespeare wrote MacBeth.  Students at that time were probably better prepared to listen to a lecture and understand it without prompts or assistance.  Times have, indeed, changed and it is important to acknowledge that. 

WHAT DO COLLEGE STUDENTS REALLY WANT FROM THEIR TEACHERS?

Just a reminder that my new teaching book (Transformative Education – How Can You Become a Better College Teacher?) can be downloaded for free at the University of Richmond Scholarship Repository.  The book has been downloaded (on the average) every 2 hours and 47 minutes since being made available on August 23, 2023.

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

In addition, I have started a podcast that you can listen to wherever you go for your podcasts.  It is titled, Transformative Teaching—Stories That Inspire.

***

As I travel around speaking with college teachers, I often hear a lot of cynicism.  “Students don’t want to work.”  “Students don’t want to be pushed.”   “Students don’t want to think.”  “Students are only interested in grades especially if they don’t require effort.”

Last week, I decided to see if those assertions were true.  Do my students prefer an easy experience?  To find out, I assigned them to write a paragraph describing their best college teacher so far in their educational journey.   I asked them to tell me who had been their best (not favorite, but best) teacher and why they made that choice.

The only rule was that they could not choose me.  At 76, I hope I am not in need of obsequious flattery.

The assignment was not graded.  The students received no credit.  (I will explain the rationale for the assignment at the end of this post.)   I just asked them to write a paragraph.  In response, most of them wrote several paragraphs if not pages about one teacher or another and why that student found the teacher so inspiring.  

Here are several very typical examples of the descriptions that I received.  IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A BETTER TEACHER, LOOK FOR THE WORDS AND SENTIMENTS THAT GET MENTIONED MOST FREQUENTLY.   You'll be surprised by how much this tells you about what students want.  

Try this with your own students.  They will literally tell you what they prefer in a teacher.   They will provide you with excellent guidance.  Because of confidentiality, I have disguised the identity of the professors and their courses.

“(Professor X) turned what could have been a boring class into a class I will never forget.  …  Not only did (Professor X) make these classes more fun and interactive, but she also gave really good feedback on every single little assignment I turned it.  I could tell she was passionate about the material she was teaching, and she was also passionate about her students learning and improving.”

“(Professor X) has had a great impact on my academic journey and career goals.  He teaches in a way that ignites a sense of enthusiasm for (the subject matter), transforming what could have been mere coursework into a genuine passion.  He organizes and presents complex information in a digestible manner.  He is dedicated to facilitating comprehension while simultaneously fostering an environment of active learning.”

“I loved every moment of her class.  I attribute this to how interactive she made every single class.  …  Additionally, she cared for every student.” 

“(Professor X) held review sessions every Sunday before our weekly quizzes and refused to leave until every student was confident in their ability to get an A the following day.  Each day that I walked into his class I was excited to learn something new about (the subject matter) and apply it to the real world.”

“His enthusiasm ignited a newfound interest in exploring (the subject matter) from unconventional angles, sparking my own interpretations and theories.  Over time, I eagerly contributed to class discussions and developed the ability to articulate my thoughts effectively.  …  Remarkably, what began as a compulsory course evolved into a transformative experience, reshaping my attitude toward (the subject matter).”

“The assignments in the class are fun to complete and have helped me to retain the concepts far better than if I had just read them on a powerpoint.  It is also apparent that she loves what she teaches and as a student it is obvious when a professor does not love the subject they teach and it reflects in their teaching.”

“Rather than just lecture and have us do readings about what it is like to be of a certain demographic in the United States, she sent us out into the greater Richmond area to witness it ourselves.  …  She taught us how to expand our view on the human condition and to use our time wisely.”

“(Professor X’s) never-give-up attitude turned what could have a stressful class into a fun learning experience.  Instead of spoon-feeding us, he’d give us just enough info in his notes to figure things out on our own.  Under his guidance, I not only nailed (the subject matter) but also learned a ton about bouncing back from setbacks.”

“He fostered an environment where students actually learned.  Many college classes have become rote memorization and regurgitation.   As a student who does not enjoy writing, (Professor X) found a way for me to grow as a writer and enjoy doing it.” 

“This class truly challenged me to think differently.  It allowed me to understand what the true reason for coming to college is.  I was challenged not just to take basic notes in class, but to question the readings we did to succeed.  …  (Professor X) was an important figure in my college career as he pushed me to understand what a college education should really look like.”

I could include many more excerpts but I suspect you get the point.  What descriptors do you notice being used by these students:  caring, enthusiastic, exciting, passionate, interactive, transformative.  Students certainly do know when a teacher is having a positive effect on their lives and appreciate what they are getting. 

Want to be better teacher?  Here's an idea.  Pick one of these characteristics that appeals to you and work to be better at it.  Make it a constant focus.  Don’t try to be all things to all students.  Pick one positive characteristic this semester and spend some time thinking how you can be better at it.  Your students will appreciate the effort.

**

One final thing.  How did I justify this assignment to my students?   I asked the students to spend their time picking their best teacher and writing the paragraph.  I did not want to waste their time.  Because I did not want to influence their selections, I told them that I would explain my reasoning after the assignments had been turned in.  I felt they deserved to know.  Here is what I wrote to them.

“In a couple of years, you will be out of college and, more than likely, in an adult job.  It is not a long time.  I would love for you to be just as successful in your career as you want to be.  I truly want you to succeed or I wouldn’t waste my time pushing you so hard in this course.

 "You will need to know (the subject matter) in order to succeed in the world after college no matter what you eventually do.  You don’t have to be an A+ student, but you do need to know a good amount of (subject matter) knowledge.  However, I am convinced that each of you will leave this class with, at least, a decent understanding of (the subject matter).   No one this semester seems intent on not learning.

"But, you need more than a knowledge of (subject matter) to succeed.  You need to know how to be a leader, because before you know it, you will have 1-4 people reporting to you and then 10 and then more and more.  Success goes beyond mere knowledge.  It is also about leadership.   In fact, the ability to be a good leader might be the key ingredient in success.

"You have had many teachers over the years.  In my mind, teaching is about leadership.  The teacher takes a group of students who might not actually want to learn and marches them to a goal of actual learning.  I gave this assignment because I wanted you to think about how those teachers manage to do this.  How do those teachers lead a class into doing what works best for them?  If you can figure out their magic, it will show you a type of leadership that works and, maybe more importantly, shows you a type of leadership that appeals to you.  Most people become a type of leader that resembles what they themselves like. 

"I want you to think about (the subject matter) and come to understand it all.  Trust me on that.  But, I also feel that developing leadership skills will be important if your career is going to be what you want it to be.  So, think about the paragraph you wrote and what you can learn from it about leadership – literally from your own words."

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In case you want to hear more of my thoughts, I recently appeared in the 514th episode of the fabulous podcast, Teaching in Higher Ed.   Here is the URL:

https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/transformative-education-lessons-from-more-than-50-years-of-teaching/