Back to my conversation with this professor at Lilly-North about my "Teacher's Oath."
"I've found that professors become so easily jaded, resigned, annoyed, angered almost in proportion to the extent the classroom to them isn't the most important, meaningful academic place to be and teaching isn't the most crucial academic thing to do. It's also like something you said." "What was that?" "'I don't have tenure.' Getting tenure, getting promoted, getting that grant, research, publishing, job guarantee, and quest for renown too often, far too often, get in the way of teaching. Think about it. Academics just love, demand, 'peer review' when it comes to publications, but talk about 'peer observation' when it comes to classroom teaching and all resistant hell breaks out." "Is that wrong? After all, we have to put food on the table, pay our bills, put clothes on our kids, pay the mortgage." "At the expense of sacrificing students? Yes!" I explained that it's always the students' learning we sacrifice,, especially in those first year courses, those super and super-duper courses, with those inexperienced adjuncts and TAs; it's not our scholarship that we're willing to sacrifice. For eons, administrators and professors have argued that the sole purpose of academia is scholarship—the more the better. In the classroom, they explain, the purpose is to transmit information and credential. Those conveniently narrow images, deeply embedded in the Ivory Tower, mould the attitudes and actions on most campuses, lip service to teaching not withstanding, constraining professors to focus on resumes and GPAs. Their decisions are expressed in terms of tenure and promotion, and the nature of assessment. I say convenient because they can black out the fact that whatever they do shapes the lives of the students. They can ignore the fact that they are players in a classroom game of learning they don't understand. Without a purpose other than getting a salary or merely transmitting information, the classroom is so often a breeding ground for 'ah me' self-pity and 'they're letting anyone in' misery. The classroom sours because it doesn't really work in favor of all that sweet tasting tenure and scholarly stuff. As we talked, I told her that the Oath makes you aware of the responsibility of building people. It uses human values, not scholarship or the quest for tenure, as decision-making criteria. The Oath helps you sweeten teaching, filling moments with wondrous life and passion and purpose, even when its challenging and tough. And it is tough, but teaching, while you have to work hard at it, doesn't have to be hard work. Following the Oath helps create a powerful momentum of purpose. And, purpose gives you a reason to get going each day and strengthens your determination to persist when the going gets tough. Purpose pushes you firmly forward when circumstances want to push you backward. And, I would argue that the only real failure is to hold back and be inauthentic. No, the Oath is a guide, a moral and ethical guide, a code of conduct, a check-list of commitments, if you wish. Having a purpose in life is a lot of work. It is also an absolute necessity. For me, the Oath is a map to keep on the purposeful road and not get lost. Purpose makes all the difference in being able to live a deeply reflected and articulated vision. The crucial factor in any undertaking is not what you must do, but why you are doing it in the first place. You know the real secret, essence, and nature of teaching, I told her, is about learning, growing, changing, caring, daring, overcoming, giving, serving, and loving. And, as you do that you get adventure, challenge, beauty, joy, significance. It's a challenge for those who want to be better teachers. It helps you walk through the minefield in the direction of effective teaching of being too hard and too easy on ourselves, between feeling hopeless and complacent, and between self-satisfaction and self-rightousness. It's a key to giving it our all at any given time with any given student to care about that student while consciously devoting ourselves to continuous self-improvement. Taste the beauty, feel the possibilities and touch the purpose, hear the dream. Purpose makes all the difference. Make it a good day -Louis- Louis Schmier http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org Department of History http://www.therandomthoughts.com Valdosta State University Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ (O) 229-333-5947 /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__ / \ / \ (C) 229-630-0821 / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ / \ /\ \ //\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/ \_/__\ \ /\"If you want to climb mountains,\ /\ _ / \ don't practice on mole hills" - / \_ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=13983 or send a blank email to leave-13983-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
