I'm putting on my "game face," getting into the groove, going deep
inside myself,
pondering, reflecting, feeling, thinking, rethinking, picturing, rehearsing. I
feel the
gates of my adrenal glands are slowly opening. I always get this way before I
present at
a conference or do an on-campus workshop. In this case, I'm am getting
mentally and
emotionally ready for an all day pre-conference workshop on forging classroom
community
and a conference session with my good friend, Todd Zakrajsek, on "How Who We
Are Impacts
On How We Teach" at the Lilly Conference on collegiate teaching in very
"brrrrrrrr"
Oxford, Ohio, for which I leave tomorrow.
One of "props" I'll have at my fingertips for these presentations, if
the occasion
arises, is the result of an informal survey I had made over the past couple of
weeks.
After talking with my good friend, Don Fraser, I had walked the halls and
randomly asked
89 students one question, "How can we professors do a better job of teaching?"
In one way
or another, all their answers fell into one of five revealing categories. The
first, as
one student put it, "Stop boring us. The second, as another student said,
"Care about us
as people." The third, as still another student answered, "Tell us why we have
to take a
course; give it some importance to our lives." The fourth, as even still
another student
put it, "Stop threatening us so that we're afraid to do anything." And
finally, a student
pleaded, "Stop controlling us like some dictator."
Interesting isn't it. It should give us pause. If education is
enveloped in an
aura of excitement, caring, support, encouragement, fearlessness, relevance, and
ownership, it is a dynamic process. It is newness. It is nurturing new
attitudes,
information, performance, and achievement. It's an invitation to a new life.
It's the
appearance of new possibility. It is a hint of a new self. It is growth. It
is change.
It is personal development. It is transformation. It is loss and acquisition.
It is
demolition and construction. It's letting go of the familiar and venturing out
into the
unknown. It's self-confrontation. It is unlearning. It's "creative
destruction." All
this makes getting an education challenging enough. But, students will have
far more
trouble and hesitation of picking up that gauntlet, of converting that
challenge from
barrier into opportunity, if education is pitted by the corrosive acids of
deadening
boredom, uninviting disconnection, uninteresting irrelevance, and arresting
fear.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of
History http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\
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//\/\/ /\
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mountains,\ /\
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hills" -
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