A PLEASURABLE RUSH

Several weeks ago I was honored to lead a 2-hour teaching program for the Tennessee Society of Accounting Educators in Nashville.  I had spoken to the group a few years back and they were kind enough to invite me to return.  I tried my best not to repudiate everything I had said in my previous visit.  When you talk and write a lot, you worry that you’ll start contradicting yourself.

Whenever I give any teaching presentation, I like to include a thought or suggestion that I discover during the preceding few days.  For me, adding a new idea at the very last moment has become almost a superstition.  I enjoy doing this because it forces me to keep my eyes open for words or actions that are interesting and inspirational—something that will make me a better teacher, something that I can share with the group.  I am aware that it is easy for me to see obvious pieces of wisdom and still miss their significance.   (When the Wright Brothers were first learning to fly their new airplane in an open field near Dayton, they were pretty much ignored by the local newspapers because no one could grasp that their results might have some importance.  It is easy, I think, for all of us to have that kind of blurred vision.)

Before I left for Nashville, I was reading Why Don’t Students Like School? by Daniel T. Willingham, an interesting book that a good friend of mine (Laura Webb) had given me.  Professor Webb is a wonderfully insightful teacher in our law school here at Richmond.  I was sure that any book she recommended would be full of good advice.

Not surprisingly, I found my last-minute idea for the Tennessee conference almost immediately in that book.  I do not know if these words had any influence on the members of my audience but they certainly touched me and have influenced my teaching this semester.  When you are in your 46^th year in the classroom, it is easy to believe that nothing ever needs to change.  In fact, at my age you want to put the whole process on auto-pilot.  (“I’ve done this for so long there is no reason to even consider doing something new.  Good enough is good enough.”)   But, that’s pure and total nonsense.  Improvement is a daily battle that never ends.  Every teacher can (and should) work to get better.  Consequently, I have made a number of changes in my class this semester and the quote from Why Don’t Students Like School? has been the impetus for several of them.

Okay, what the heck did I read that caught my attention and influenced my semester?

   “People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking.  

   “The implications of this principle is that teachers should reconsider how they encourage their students to think, in order to maximize the likelihood that students will get the pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.” 

It was the last few words that hit home for me:  “students will get the pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.”   Wow, that is such a wonderful description of how education should work and feel.  

--It is NOT about memorization.  

--It IS about thinking.  

--It is NOT about the pain of tolerating a boring class. 

--It IS about the pleasure of learning.  

--It is NOT about some grade on a test. 

--It IS about a personal epiphany. 

--It is NOT about conveying information.

--It IS about figuring out logical solutions.

How did those few words affect my thinking and teaching?  That is easy:   I have been working on how I can help my students “get the pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.”  Not 30 percent of my students or 50 percent of my students but all of them--100 percent.

There is no way that students can be successful every day.  Regardless of the subject, students have to learn to work their way through complex material to arrive at true understanding.  Failure is a natural part of that process.  A wrong assumption is made or a step is taken without logical support.  Education is just full of failure.  We all know that.  But, at some point, there has to be success or students become discouraged and intimidated.  “I am too dumb to learn this material” is certainly not the outcome anyone wants.  If things always seem to be sliding downhill, students will fall back on what I refer to as “high school habits” – note taking, cramming, and memorization.  I don’t want that.  That leads to neither understanding nor a pleasurable rush.  

My goal is not to prove to my students that my classes are so challenging that no one can possibly learn the material.  Gosh, what good would that do them or me?  My goal is to help my students work their way through the swamp of complexity so that they can ultimately figure out the path for themselves.  I like that goal (no, actually, I love that goal).  I want 100 percent of my students to get to that point.  Making a good grade on a test is great but there needs to be a better reward than that.  Learning should not be solely a quest for grades.  There needs to be that pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.  I have come back to those words over and over during the past few weeks.  That pleasurable rush can be additive.  It can turn a mediocre student into a fabulous student.  It can make students want to try harder, want to think more deeply.   Nothing succeeds like success.  However, you have to help make sure that true success happens—at least occasionally.

If there is so much failure in the learning process, how can a teacher introduce that pleasurable rush into class?  That’s a legitimate question for any teacher to consider.  If you have suggestions, please let me know.  I am always on a quest for more and better ideas.  

Here are a few things that I have been trying this semester.

1 – Openly acknowledge when a student makes a mental leap.  That’s when the critical thinking is happening.   “See – you took what we discussed in our previous class and you adapted it to solve this new problem.  That’s excellent.  Good job.”  You don’t need to make such comments every day but now and then can be a real boost for a student’s morale.  And, you cannot just deliver that message to the top 10 percent of the class.  Anyone can teach those people.  They are already familiar with the pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.   Figure out how to say something positive to every student as often as possible.

2 – When you see a student outside of class, mention something they have done well.  Be as specific as possible.  “Good work” just sounds like you are being a cheerleader.  “Your answer on that third question today was excellent.  I loved how you methodically walked your way through the facts and the assumptions to come up with a great answer.  That shows what you are capable of.” 

3 – If a student stumbles on a test, they immediately face a crisis of confidence.  Before they lose faith in themselves, send them an email “Listen, I know you could not possibly be happy with that grade.  Believe me, you are capable of doing much better work in this class.  Come by and see me ASAP and let’s talk about how you can perform better in my class.  There are things that you can do that will help.  I think some adjustments will lead to better results on the next test.”  Successful thought has to be a viable outcome or no student is ever going to work very hard.

4 – Rethink how you are discussing material in class.  If you are simply presenting material so that it is copied and regurgitated, there is never going to be a pleasurable rush from that.  That is education at its dullest.  Over the years on this blog, I have repeated one quote several times from What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain because I think it is relevant to better teaching.  “One teacher explained it this way:  ‘It’s sort of Socratic  . . .  You begin with a puzzle—you get somebody puzzled, and tied in knots, and mixed up.’  Those puzzles and knots generate questions for students, he went on to say, and then you begin to help them untie the knots.”

“And then you begin to help them untie the knots.”

I never read those words that I don’t say to myself “Yep, that’s exactly why I am here teaching these students.  To puzzle them and then help them untie the knots.”

Could there be a better way to introduce your students to “the pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.” 

ADVICE FROM KEN BAIN

Now and then, I come across some thoughts on teaching that I think are worth sharing.   That happened yesterday here at the Robins School of Business.   My email to our faculty and staff is below.   No matter what the individual jobs are here at Richmond, we are all in the education business.  This place exists, at least in large part, to maximize the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of our students.   Passing information like this along to others can help keep teaching (and the thinking about teaching) alive as an important part of our culture.  

You can do the same thing in your building.   Whenever you learn something about teaching that you feel might also help others who face similar challenges, then pass it along.   Don't be timid.   Don't be shy.   

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Email Note:

A friend of mine here at the University of Richmond passed along the following URL of a recent NPR discussion with Ken Bain.   Everything Dr. Bain says about teaching seems worth a few moments of consideration so I thought I would pass it along to everyone. 

As some of you might remember, Dr. Bain spoke on campus to the Richmond faculty about 8-10 years ago.   Several of us had the great pleasure of taking Dr. Bain and his wife out to dinner that evening (at the old Peking Restaurant) before his talk to the faculty.

As a true southerner, I try to have one story about everything.   Here is my one story about Ken Bain (which I have repeated countless times).   That evening, he spoke to about 50-70 faculty members.   About halfway through his talk, someone in the back asked:   “How can a person become a great teacher?”   Bain stopped immediately and responded:   “Oh, is that what you want to know?   Well, that is an easy question to answer.   I can tell anyone how to become a great teacher in just one sentence.   All you have to do is get your students to care about what you are trying to teach them.”   I continue to believe that is one of the most fabulous pieces of teaching advice that I have ever heard. 

Here is what he had to say recently on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/08/404960905/what-the-best-college-teachers-do

 

As is often the case on the Internet, the comments after the article are random, amusing, and—at time—insightful.   

My Favorite Quotes about Teaching – Number Five

This blog went over 45,000 page views (since its inception) this past Monday. As I wish I could do every day, I want to thank everyone who passes along a word to friends and colleagues about the blog. Obviously, there would be no page views at all without you folks. I firmly believe that we need more conversation about teaching, learning, and education if we are going to solve the problems of our world. I appreciate your helping my blog to be a part of that conversation.
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Here are my previous four favorite quotes about teaching:
“The process of learning is asking sharper and sharper questions."
“The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.”
“Figure it out.”
“If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you have a boss.”

I think those four quotes are very insightful and have led me to think more deeply about my own classes.

However, the quote for today goes beyond that – it is one that has had a genuine impact on my own teaching. I didn’t merely think about this quote; it has changed my way of teaching. Almost nothing else that I have ever read has impacted my teaching more.

I fuss all the time that our educational system is based on a “copy and memorize” philosophy rather than a “learn to think” philosophy. In class, we speak while the students try to stay awake and write down what we say. Superficially, the process is helped if we are amusing or especially dynamic but it is still “copy and memorize.” Then, the night before each test, students try to cram all that written data into their heads.

Usually when I describe traditional education in this way, people quickly nod in agreement. Unfortunately, knowing what we don’t want is not the same as knowing what we do want. If we don’t come up with a viable alternative to a copy and memorize structure, it quickly becomes the fall back position.

My quote for today comes from my favorite book about teaching, the wonderful “What the Best College Teachers Do” by Ken Bain. Bain studies several outstanding classroom teachers in the US in hopes of identifying what they did in their classes and why it worked so well. Here (from page 40 of my edition) is one short discussion.

“One professor explained it this way: ‘It’s sort of Socratic . . . You begin with a puzzle—you get somebody puzzled, and tied in knots, and mixed up.’ Those puzzles and knots generate questions for students, he went on to say, and then you begin to help them untie the knots.”

I cannot think of a more beautiful description of the education process “and then you begin to help them untie the knots.” I couldn’t ask for better words to describe what I want to do in my teaching. After I read those few lines, there has not been a day in my teaching when I didn’t want to puzzle my students and then help them untie those knots.

Yesterday in class, I asked my students to explain the difference in redeeming a gift card from iTunes and a gift card for a massage. They were puzzled. Is this even relevant to accounting? And, then slowly, we worked together to untie the knot.

Last week in class, I asked “if you order 4,000 cakes from a bakery on Monday to be delivered to a large wedding on Saturday, under what condition would you report some liability on Wednesday?” They were puzzled (really puzzled) but slowly we worked together to untie the knot.

Two weeks ago I asked “if you sell a CD player in Year One that has an $8 coupon off the purchase of a CD in Year Two, why can you possibly report this one event in three entirely different ways?” They were puzzled but slowly we worked together to untie the knot.

It is being puzzled enough to want to untie the knots that leads students to do the thinking that is necessary to achieve understanding. The quote from Bain’s book helped me to realize that.