Thoughts on Teaching

Making the transition from student to teacher is not something one hears a lot about. Indeed, it is one of the many silences upon which academia thrives. One obvious reason is that most professors at top research universities do not care about teaching. The other is the notion that teaching skills develop with experience, so there's not a great deal that can be shared or taught to those teaching in their early years. To top it off, we often hear that it's all a matter of style and taste anyway. 

At Yale, much like at other universities, all three reasons justify the deafening silence over teaching. It is true that mandatory workshops facilitate conversations among teaching assistants of varying levels of seniority. But in these workshops and outside, a revealing dynamic of "us" versus "them" becomes most apparent. Ph.D students frequently speak of undergraduates as if they are an inferior species, a protected one though. Mostly, the problem here is jealousy. Why do they get so much attention here? How can they, unlike us, have so much fun? And when it's not jealousy, it's sheer pedantry. How could they not know about that article that my adviser asked me to read last week? Why am I teaching kids who don't know Derrida by heart? For these reasons, most graduate student conversations about teaching are, to my mind, damningly unhelpful. 

At a recent workshop organized by the Graduate Writing Center, I repeatedly heard about the need to "manage one's relationship with undergraduate students." A curious phrase, I wondered. Do the speakers "manage" all of their relationships? What would such a social world look like? Pretty dismal, I imagine. That's because all relationships, I think, rest on a two-way street on which trust and empathy ply. In the typical student-teacher relationship, there's something beyond a contractual bond (or a fellowship requirement). It is far easier to engage ideas and hone critical intellectual skills in an atmosphere of friendliness, trust, and empathy than in a stultified professional one.  Minimally, such an atmosphere goes beyond the classroom. It means getting to know students as individuals with distinct likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses that reveal themselves in class and on assignments. It also means getting them to know your likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. You cannot just "manage" your way through teaching as if you were a professional zombie. 

But there is more. Students value teachers who are in total command over the course material and can communicate it in the simplest manner possible. It is, after all, a hierarchical relationship, not one between equals. At the very least, students expect someone who demonstrates thorough knowledge over the teaching material. I cannot see this as an unfair expectation. If I paid 40,000 dollars per year to go to college, each course costs me roughly 5,000 dollars. Besides this solid economic reason, there's also the small matter of college being a place of learning. And students want to not just try out new ideas, subjects, and skills, but want to be free to make mistakes along the way. Learning is an interactive process. We can all remember our favorite teachers who made it worth going to class every time. Why don't we try to emulate what they did right then? 

The answer, I'd like to suggest, has to do almost entirely with the professionalizing tendencies in academic life today. By professionalization, I mean a form of commodification of academic labor, which can be ranked hierarchically according to where one's Ph.D granting institution, place of work, citation index ranking, and number of publications. As graduate students are groomed to take their place in professional academia, they naturally imbibe the bad habits of their professors. At least one professor in my department has been known to say that it pays to be a bad teacher. This is careerism, that classic bourgeois malaise we once assumed lay outside the groves of academia. 

For graduate students, the obvious implication of careerism is to "know the relevant literature" than know about a particular subject. Jargon-free communication of one's ideas and insights is besides the point. It's hardly surprising that, anyone buying into the dominant ideology of graduate school today is a pretty miserable human being. The poor graduate student, walled up in the ivory tower, lacks any meaningful sense what's going on outside. A needless cynicism takes root and is the necessary companion of the professional-in-the-making. 

I once assumed anthropologists were among the few academics who ventured out of campus sufficiently often to acquire a deeper understanding of the world we live in. Alas, now I find that they are prone to bouts of messianism, in which old prophets such as Foucault and Deleuze are replaced by the likes of Agamben and Zizek. Immersion in lifeworlds other than one's own is unfashionable. One can "explain" anecdotes collected from the "field" with one's favorite theorist in hand. This is divination, the misguided idea that a prophet or his teachings can show us the true way. Faced with such humbug, the joy of learning dies an unnatural death. What can one teach others if one's own learning is restricted to imbibing the ideas of the latest prophet on the block? 

The graduate student thus emerges as a beleaguered being, alienated from the world of which the undergraduate is very much a part. Teaching is no more than a chore. One can never approach it enthusiastically. Or engage with students without "managing" one's relationship with them. Undergraduates are there to be looked down upon contemptuously. This entire attitude, I think, short-circuits the college education process. Furthermore, it impoverishes graduate student life even further. 

Instead of ending on a dire note, let me do so with an email sent by a student of mine at the end of the fall semester. It encapsulates all the points I've made thus far. And more crucially, it gives us every reason to take teaching seriously:

On 14 December 2010 02:07, (name and email address omitted) wrote:

Uday,

As I began to express to you as I was leaving the exam today, there is no way for me to accurately articulate my gratitude to you for your devotion and patience with me this semester. I read over my first and last papers after the test, and I have to say, the missing link between the two is the endless help and guidance that you have given me throughout the semester. From the beginning of the semester when I got that first paper back, I told myself that Political Philosophy was going to be the class that I spend the most time on, because writing has historically been my weakness. Having now achieved this goal, I can say confidently that you were the best teacher that I could had had to help me with my aspiration. You challenged me to participate in class, make thoughtful comments, and ultimately translate those thoughts onto paper. For me, what separated this class from all the others is that when I would get a paper assignment, I wouldn’t bemoan the task ahead of me, but rather I would get excited at the notion of having another opportunity to have my writing critiqued, edited and improved.

The single-handed most impressive and important part of my working with you this semester was that you were seemingly just as committed as I was to improving me as a writer. In the past, when I have met with my teachers with writers block or other problems, they would take five to ten minutes and try to point me in a direction that they thought would be helpful. However, when I wouldn’t understand something, the response that I commonly received was, “That’s for you to figure out,” leaving me somewhat unsatisfied with our time spent. With you, however, our meetings lasted sometimes an hour a half. You struck the balance of making me understand exactly what I needed to do to be successful, but at the same time leaving enough room for me to be creative with my thinking. This method was instrumental to my truly enjoying writing. For the first time in my academic career, I really felt that I was able to master the analytical and writing skills that are required for writing a paper.

Regardless of my grade on the final or in the class, I know that I am walking away from this class a better writer, thinking, and analyst. Whereas most classes hope to provide you with some knowledge to take with you into the future, I have gained not only the knowledge of political philosophy, but also the understanding a confidence to write and analyze.

Like I said, there is absolutely no way for me to do justice to express my gratitude to you, so I figured that a letter would be the best alternative.

Have a safe flight and a good break, and hopefully see you next semester.

(Name omitted to ensure confidentiality)