WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT THIS SUMMER?

 

One of my favorite quotes was sent to me rather anonymously many years ago from England.  “Great teaching does not come from years of doing it.  Great teaching comes from years of thinking about it.” 

Unfortunately, during the school year, we are often so busy with students, writing, research, lesson plans, committee assignments, advising, and the like that we never have the time to sit and think deeply about our teaching.

Now, though, it is summer, a time for serious reflection.  I measure my summer from around May 1 (around the end of the spring semester) to September 1 (around the beginning of the fall semester).  With that calendar, July 1 (today, as I write) means that summer is half over.  Time is slipping away.  So, how much thinking have you done about your teaching?  The summer is half over.  As I tell my students endlessly, procrastination is always everyone’s biggest enemy.

When I go out (prior to the pandemic) and talk with faculty around the country, I describe summertime thinking to them.  Interestingly, there is often a mystery as to, “What exactly do I think about?”  That is a reasonable question.  Let me provide you with a little thinking assignment.  Maybe it will push your thinking forward for the rest of the summer.

Last week, I was exercising (at my age, I need a lot of exercise) and my wife came running in exclaiming, “You are going to love the quote that I found in the book I am reading.”  And, she (as always) was 100 percent correct.

The author is Ann Patchett and the book contains a group of essays titled (interestingly enough) This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.   Here are the words that caught my wife’s attention.  And, notice, they are from the student’s perspective rather than from that of the teacher.

“There are two kinds of educational experience you can have in college.  One is passive and one is active.  In the first, you are a little bird in the nest with your beak stretched open wide, and the professor gathers up all the information you need and drops it down your gullet.  You may feel good about this—after all, you are passionately waiting for this information—but your only role is to accept what you are given.  To memorize facts and later repeat them for a test might get you a good grade, but it’s not the same thing as having intellectual curiosity.  In the second kind, you are taught to learn how to find the information, and how to think about it, for yourself.  You learn how to question and to engage.  You realize that one answer is not enough and that you have to look at as many sources as are available to you so that you can piece together a larger picture.”

I am on sabbatical in the fall so I will not be teaching.  If I were, I would immediately email this paragraph to all of my fall students with a challenge, “I hope you want the second kind of educational experience because I want that for you.  It will take work on your part and work on my part but if we both try, this can be the greatest educational experience of your life.  I promise you that.” 

          I want my students to know that I am shooting for something well beyond passive learning.  I want them to come to class on the first day with the expectation that I am going to offer them more than treating them like a bunch of baby birds, too weak to feed themselves. 

And, yes, before you ask, I do have students who immediately drop out of my class in fear that I will expect them to think and that is just incredibly scary to them.   They’ll go looking for a momma bird where they can memorize and get that beloved A. 

Okay, to push your thinking, let me pose some questions for you to ponder.  I will include some of my own thoughts where I have them. 

(1) – Do you agree with her general description of the college educational experience? 

          I suspect most teachers are okay with this description.  We can certainly spend time dividing these two experiences into more subdivisions, but I am not sure that adds any benefit to our thinking.

(2) – For the author, what are the key words in this paragraph? 

          I would bet that if you ask Ann Patchett she would say that the key words are “intellectual curiosity.”  She never says explicitly but I think she obviously prefers the second kind of experience based on the development of the student’s intellectual curiosity.  That seems to be what she thinks students should want.

(3) – If you gave your students a secret ballot, which of these two experiences would they sign up for in their college classes?

          I teach at what I believe is an excellent university, but I am surprised by how many students come in from middle school and high school having been trained (almost religiously) in the “down your gullet” form of education.  People prefer experiences that are familiar.  Most, but certainly not all students, have an affection for this “conveyance of information” model.  Many students (possibly including myself at 18) would sign up for nothing but “down the gullet” classes even if they knew (a) they would be bored to death and (b) learn little.  I think it is a role of colleges to protect students from themselves.  Students should not live in fear of having their thinking challenged.  They should demand that.

(4) – If you were designing a perfect course structure for yourself (not your colleagues but you), how much of your class time would be “down your gullet” information conveyance and how much would be pushing students toward intellectual curiosity?

          In a perfect class, whatever that means, I would never convey information directly.  I would just prod the students to figure the stuff out for themselves.  We do not live in a perfect world but it is fun to dream.

(5) – If you surveyed your students, how much of your class time would they say was “down your gullet” teaching? 

Teachers are not always the most unbiased evaluators of their own teaching.  I think that holds us all back.  We see ourselves through our own hopes and doubts.   Thus, I am interested in what students believe they are seeing.  Would your students say you convey information 40 percent of the time and push intellectual curiosity 60 percent of the time or what?  That is something to think about.

(6) – Take your answer from (5) and assume it is reasonably accurate.  How would you like to see those percentages change over the next academic year?  Now is the time to do the thinking to make that happen.

Remember that in (4), you have indicated a perfect course division.   That should be a guideline.  Are you satisfied with how your class is divided between information conveyance and intellectual curiosity?

(7) – Okay, here is the question that is really at the heart of this essay.  Let’s assume that you want to have less of a “down your gullet” style of class and more intellectual curiosity.  I think that is a reasonable summer goal.  As you think about teaching during the remainder of the summer, what might you do to help make this change in your class structure during the 2021-22 academic year?

          Everyone must answer this question in his or her own particular way.  Teaching Shakespeare and teaching biology have things in common but there are quite a number of obvious differences.  Nevertheless, my answer to this question has become a type of personal litany:  (1) stress preparation prior to the class experience and (2) ask more questions, especially questions that really do not have easy answers. 

I am convinced that I can make any class at any university appreciably better simply by convincing the students to work harder before they show up for class.  What kind of logical and interesting assignments can you develop that will encourage students to do the work necessary prior to entering into the class discussion?  You can approach class preparation with a whip or with a carrot.  What kind of carrot can you provide that will entice the students to overcome their natural procrastination and do the work.  Just making an assignment is not enough.  You have to convince the students to do it.

And, as Socrates must have figured out, asking questions can be the driving force behind developing intellectual curiosity.  What is happening here?  Is it a moral action or not?  What would you do in this situation?  If you spend time thinking, every grain of sand can prompt an infinite number of fascinating questions.

 **

The summer is half over.  I hope you make great use of the first half.  Now, go out and make even better use of the second.  When the fall semester begins, you want to be ready for your greatest semester ever.

SOMETHING I WANT TO TRY IN THE FALL

I just checked the statistics for this teaching blog.   Sometime over the next day or so, it will likely reach a total of 200,000 page views.   I am always amazed and pleased that so many teachers read these essays.   Since there is no publicity, the word only spreads because readers like you pass along the URL.   Thanks for doing that!!  Whenever you read an idea that you like, I hope you will share it with your colleagues, friends, neighbors, and even your enemies.   I love it when people send me teaching ideas.  Likewise, I appreciate your sharing my thoughts with others.  Teaching ideas should be shared and not hoarded.

**

If you have read this blog for long, you know that I am always thinking of possible ways that I can improve my teaching.   I am a big believer that the more ideas you have then the more ideas you will have.  If you have one idea, a second idea may be difficult to produce.   But if you already have 10 or 20 ideas, the next bunch is likely to flow out of your brain at record speed.   Okay, some of those ideas might not be feasible but I guarantee that 10 ideas will produce more good ideas than one idea will.   I really believe that producing innovative ideas is a habit that teachers can stimulate within themselves.

I know that there are a lot of people who have just read the previous paragraph and are already shaking their heads and muttering, “No, Joe, you are wrong.  I never have any ideas.  I am always trying to borrow ideas from others.  If I don’t do that, I will continue to teach the way I have always taught.  I don’t have faith that my ideas are any good.”   Well, that is certainly a self-fulfilling prophesy if I have ever heard one.   Don’t be so down on yourself.   Don’t be so timid.   Break out of the rut a little bit.  

Here’s an experiment that you ought to try.   For the next 30 days, write down one teaching idea every day that you might be able to use during the upcoming fall semester.   Don’t try to judge whether any of the ideas are good or bad – just get them down on paper.   One idea a day for 30 days.

I think you will discover that two things will happen:

--First, as you eventually look back over your 30 ideas, you will realize that at least 2-5 of them are really good.   They are worth trying.   They can make your fall semester go better.   A lot of time it takes 30 ideas in order to produce 2-5 good ones.   So, you’ve got to get in the practice of producing those 30 ideas.  No one has 30 great ideas but everyone should be able to hit 10 to 20 percent batting average.

--Second, I think you will find that your ideas become easier to generate after the first couple of weeks.   Yes, for the initial 10-14 days, ideas will be difficult but you will get into the swing of it.   The brain cells begin to loosen up.   Eventually, your mind will simply be looking for more ideas throughout the day even when you are not trying.   It is like physical exercise.   It becomes easier with practice.

Try it – what do you have to lose?   30 ideas in 30 days.

So, what is my idea for today?   Here is one that I was pondering this afternoon.   In every class, it seems to me that students spend time doing two things.   One is thinking – trying to figure out how things work or why things work as they do.   They are trying to develop an understanding that will help them in solving future problems.   The rest of the time they are doing something other than thinking.   They are copying notes that they will later memorize.   Or, they are daydreaming or contemplating something that is not class related.  

No one can think about subject matter 100 percent of them time but I wonder how close students can get.

Next fall, as I leave each class, I am going to try to estimate what percentage of class time was spent in actual thinking.   Obviously, it will be a guess but I am betting that I can figure out which activities lead to thinking and which activities lead to note taking or some other type of nonthinking.  If I say, for example, that Boston is the capital of Massachusetts, then that is note taking.   No matter how interesting that might be, no thinking is required.  On the other hand, if I ask a student why Boston became the capital of Massachusetts, then—assuming they have some way of figuring out the answer—that should lead to thinking.   It is not thinking if the answer is a known fact.   It is thinking if the student must, in some way, try to figure out the answer based on the information they have.

I have never done this kind of measurement exercise before.   Can I get to 50 percent of class as thinking time or maybe even 75 percent of time?   That might well be a legitimate goal.   Or, will I be stuck at 10 percent?   That is certainly possible.    Just to make things more interesting, perhaps I could explain my definitions to the students and occasionally ask them to judge:   In class today, what percentage of our time was thinking time and what percentage of our time was something else?

Maybe I am wrong (I’ve not read any research on this) but I would suspect that the more time during class that is spent thinking, the better the learning results are for the students.   If that is true, then I should be able to improve the education level of my students by forcing/encouraging them to think more during class.   Not necessarily thinking deeper, merely thinking more.  That strikes me as an interesting possibility.  Maybe we worry about thinking deeper when we should be worrying about thinking more.

That’s my idea for today and one that I do plan to try out in the fall.

What’s your idea for today?

A Good Suggestion

Before I get started today, I want to mention that this blog went over 83,000 page views a few days ago.  I truly am thrilled by that level of traffic and wanted (as always) to thank everyone who passes along the URL to someone else.  I believe that we teachers CAN improve teaching in this country and in this world but only by being willing to share ideas and resources.   We need to think and talk more about teaching, learning, and education.   There should be genuine joy and excitement in the exchange of teaching/learning thoughts.   I hope the blog encourages those activities.

**

Two nights ago, my wife and I went to see the play “Red” here in Richmond about the artist Mark Rothko and his paintings.  It was an excellent play and I enjoyed it all.  But there was one very short section that I have thought about 1,000 times over the last 48 hours.   In the play, Rothko is talking about how he learned to become an artist and develop his unique style.   At a critical point in his development, he saw a painting by Henri Matisse at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City that really intrigued him.   The work was so interesting to him that he went back day after day and stood there for hours on end just trying to figure out how Matisse had done it.   He stared at each part of the art work until he was able to unravel the mystery.

He didn’t check out a book about Matisse and read it.

He didn’t take a class on Matisse and have someone explain the work to him.

He didn't read about Matisse in Wikipedia.

He didn’t call up Matisse on the telephone and ask for a tip.

He went back day after day, hour after hour, and stared at the work to figure out how it was done.

I can’t even begin to tell you fascinating I found those two or three sentences.

**
I had a genuinely wonderful teaching experience this past semester.   As I discussed in a blog posting on January 1, 2013, I helped set up a class in Victorian Literature for 10 second semester senior accounting majors.   We read and discussed Great Expectations, North & South, and The Mill on the Floss.  

I served as the teaching assistant for this class.   In truth, this meant that I read each book and sat in on the class and participated in the discussions.  

The best part, though, was that I got to watch an excellent teacher at work each day.   The class was taught by Dr. Elisabeth Rose Gruner of the English Department here at the University of Richmond.   For 75 minutes each week, I got to observe a master teacher at work.   What a great experience.  What a great opportunity.

Dr. Gruner and I teach using very different styles.   My goal, though, was not to become her.   Rothko certainly didn’t want to become Matisse.   He wanted to understand how Matisse managed to create art.    I wanted to see how Dr. Rose taught.   I wanted to see how she managed to create learning.   Mainly, I wanted to see how she could get 10 senior accounting majors to learn, appreciate, and enjoy the writings of Charles Dickens and George Eliot.   That sounds absolutely impossible but she did it.   And, she did it well.  

Each day in class, we would start with some seemingly casual conversation about one of the novels and the author.   Some days we would actually read passages aloud together so we could hear the sound of the words.   Often, Dr. Gruner would pose a question about the reading for that day and we would spend 10 minutes or so writing out our thoughts.   We would then talk about what we had written.  It was a fabulous class.  All 10 students were deeply engaged every day.

I was interested in many “how did she do that??” questions.

--How did she get the 10 accounting majors to actually talk in class about literature without having them feel threatened?

--How did she get students who were incredibly busy to actually read long Victorian novels?
--How did she get the students to appreciate a writer like Charles Dickens who seems 500 years removed from the style of a current author?  (Great Expectations is certainly not Harry Potter.)

What did I learn?   I’m not sure I can tell you.   I know that Dr. Rose listened to the students wonderfully well, much better than I ever do.    I know that she was able to convey her genuine love of those books while still showing her frustration with some aspects of each work.   I know that she was not obsessed with getting to a predetermined answer in such a hurry which often inhibits interesting student ideas.    I know that she was great at asking questions to make the students think.   I will always remember those 10 accounting majors having an animated conversation on the last day of the semester when Dr. Rose asked:   “Well, if you don’t like the way George Eliot ended The Mill on the Floss, how would you have ended it differently?”  

I’m 100 percent convinced that I am a better teacher for watching her teach.   This wasn't my goal but I'm still delighted.

**

Would you like to be a great teacher?   Don’t read a book.   In truth, I’m not even sure that reading this blog is much help.   Don't ask for tips or clues.

Here’s my main advice, especially for new teachers.

Go find the very best teacher at your school even if that person teaches something like Victorian Literature.   Don’t find the most popular teacher or the funniest teacher.   Find the teacher who is genuinely the best.   If you talk with students, you'll quickly hear descriptions of a few, truly great, teachers.  

Ask that teacher if you can sit in on class for three solid weeks.   I don’t think one day is really enough to catch on to what is really going on.   Rothko didn't look at the Matisse once.   He came back day after day.

Before you start your class visits, write down several “how is the teacher doing this?” questions that you want to answer over these three weeks.

--How is the teacher getting the students to participate rather than sit on their hands?

--How is the teacher getting the students to prepare before they come to class?
--How is the teacher getting the students to think more deeply?
--How is the teacher getting all of the students involved and not just the ones who like to talk?

Then, during every class for 3 weeks watch what happens.   Try to look behind the superficial to see what is really going on in the class.

You don’t want to become that teacher.   That’s never the goal.   You want to understand how that teacher is creating the magic that we refer to as learning.   That will make you a better teacher.