Although it is something to which they devote more time than perhaps anything else, college or university teachers seldom talk, either formally or informally, about teaching. This is all the more true at the start of one's career, the so-called green years, when the need for discourse of this sort is never greater. By green I mean to summon images both of relative inexperience and of vigor, for these qualities are mutually inclusive. Part of the excitement of teaching for the first time stems from the fact that it is a new experience and the novelty of the experience tends to be contagious. What a new teacher lacks in experience and knowledge, in other words, is often supplanted by energy and personal commitment. The goal of good teaching, it seems to me, as one progresses in one's career, should be to gain experience, but not at the expense of excitement, for, to paraphrase Robert Frost, if, in the classroom, there is no surprise for the teacher, then there can be no surprise for the student. This essay, then, is about being a new teacher and also about the ways in which the excitement of this new experience can be sustained. At its conclusion I hope to suggest some ways in which a balance can be struck between these two qualities, as novelty gives way to habit and one's time becomes increasingly constricted.
A green teacher must take stock of the environment in which he or she performs. This environment will be new and sometimes strange; in any case, in order to proceed effectively, a green teacher will need to make the effort to understand the situation in which he or she functions from various perspectives, for change, which will inevitably be required, will be neither effective nor, in some cases, possible, without a clear (albeit imperfect) sense of one's place, function, and role.
In this regard, three components of teaching are fundamental: what is taught, who is taught, and who teaches, or, put more simply, subject matter, student, and teacher. Not every facet of these components will be open to change, of course, and the changes that can be ventured will, in any case, be contingent upon the sort of institution to which one is attached. A large state university, for example, will present a different set of assumptions and goals in teaching than will a small, liberal arts college. The demands made and expected of a green teacher in each of these environments will be different, as will the specific qualities brought to bear on what sort of classroom style to assume, how to divide and to manage one's time, and how best to guide students.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the subject matter that one is called upon to teach. While many initial appointments will be made with an eye to bringing to a faculty a specialized knowledge and expertise in a set area of study, green teachers will routinely feel the pull between what might be called "assigned" and "designed" courses. The former designates those courses that are parcelled out from term to term (service courses, elementary and intermediate language courses, survey courses, etc.); the latter represents courses designed by a teacher in an area in which his or her knowledge is specialized (seminars, for example, on relatively specific problems of texts). No matter the size and aims of the institution involved, however, service courses form an important hurdle for green teachers.
This is true for several reasons. First, the students enrolled in service courses may possess only the slightest interest in the course in the first place. Most institutions have certain so-called "core" requirements in place; service courses will be a student's avenue to completing a requirement for graduation (a requirement, it is important to remember, that they might not otherwise feel compelled to meet). The attitude of such students is in the best of circumstances going to be less than enthusiastic. It will be necessary, therefore, for a green teacher to defend his discipline, to justify its importance and, in the final analysis, to persuade students that their investment of time and effort is worthwhile--beyond the mere accrual of credits for graduation.
For teachers of language, this aim will be particularly acute. Many institutions of higher learning now require evidence of a knowledge of a foreign language at the intermediate level. This has resulted in, among other things, larger classes at this level of instruction at just the stage of study when individualized attention is most important.(1) Juggling the demands of a large class and varied preparation in the context of individual needs is always a demanding task, and all the more so at the start of one's career. So, too, will the subjects one teaches be controlled to a large extent by who is being taught. Most green teachers, fresh off their graduate school experience (i.e., teaching bright students in some of the best research institutions in the country) will encounter, perhaps for the first time, a large body of students who were not at the top of their classes in high school, who perhaps lack certain basic skills, and who, though eager, present pedagogical challenges not yet encountered by green teachers.
A green teacher, therefore, will most likely confront a different sort of student at the start, and that confrontation will be bruited in the context of courses whose aims vary and whose demands may be at times oppressive. Under the best of circumstances, the situation will be difficult and the only recourse of a green teacher will be to change, to be flexible, and to be honest about the desirability for change and flexibility with his or her students. This difficult alembic, of course, will be made more difficult by a series of external pressures that will be felt simultaneously. The most important and perhaps sinister of these pressures (unknown in its true magnitude by even the most assiduous of graduate-student teachers) will be the time required to prepare for one's (new) classes. In addition to balancing student needs and pedagogical aims, a green teacher will feel for the first time the responsibility of teaching, the urge to master the material being presented in its minutest detail, the necessity of considering the material from every angle and anticipating every possible objection, question, or observation that might arise from one's presentation of material.
Green teachers will teach, on average, 5 or 6 courses a year. They can count on spending, for every hour in class, three hours in preparation. This figure is, of course, a subjective estimate. Yet, even if it is a liberal estimate, the fact cannot be gainsaid that the total number of hours required for preparation will be high. If language instruction is involved, the preparation time (at least initially) will be even higher when one considers the work involved in composing and marking weekly quizzes and in attending to the many details demanded of this sort of instruction in the context of individualized attention.
There will be, of course, other work to pursue outside of the classroom. Service to one's department and to one's institution will be required or, at the least, expected. Departmental committee work will form a large part of this activity, and, if one teaches at a state-supported school, there will be other sorts of mandates to fulfill (in-services for high school teachers, language fairs for secondary schools, etc.). Research time will have to be factored in also, as will time to meet with and sustain one's students. Green teachers often find themselves in the role of advising students, a role that presents special constraints on time and energy also. There will be, in short, precious little time to pursue interests or activities outside of the academic sphere. What private life remains to a green teacher will be spent attending to the basic chores of life--and in sleep.(2)
Green teachers facing all of this for the first time will undoubtedly experience at various times exhaustion, panic, fear, perhaps even anger. They will also feel exhilaration at the prospect of doing what they have always wanted to do and doing it well under difficult and trying circumstances. Most teachers think about teaching and choose teaching as a career long before they become teachers. Yet, at the college level, little, if any, preparation is involved in the assumption of the title of "Assistant Professor." In the rush to adjust to a new life, with attendant changes in social, economic, and physical surroundings, there will be little time to think about how one might most effectively teach. No one will be much willing to talk about teaching in practical terms unless pressed, and the green teacher will have precious little time to press the matter anyway.
One must turn, in the end, to the activity of teaching as a vocation, relying on instinct and trial and error. There is no quicker a learner, it seems to me, than a green teacher. The passion one feels for a body of knowledge and the excitement that arises from the shared experience of disseminating and receiving that knowledge may not be enough to squash all doubts, fears, or anxieties. But if the green teacher holds through thick and thin to the idea of teaching and its glorious possibilities, then, eventually, progress will occur. Centering attention, therefore, onto the student first, and then to the subject matter at hand, will assist the green teacher enormously in the accomplishment of teaching in the most effective way. And the level of effectiveness attained will bear a direct correlation to the ways in which a green teacher adjusts to his or her new environment and to the green teacher's ability to control the varied components of academic life at the start of his or her career.
The details of teaching are almost as important as the subject matter being presented. When the green teacher comes to a course for the first time, he or she will be faced with the collision of an abstract idea (the course itself) and a human reality (the group of students waiting to learn). The problem is to make abstract and real meet on some common ground; to concretize the subject at hand but, at the same time, to entice the student to leave his or her world with its preconceptions and assumptions. To bring about this result, several tasks are important, all of which center on the idea of comfort (physical, emotional, social, intellectual). First, physical comfort is an absolute necessity. Pay attention to seating; make sure everyone is able to take notes, for example, if they so wish; make sure seats are not cramped and that they are arranged in the best order for your needs and for the needs of the students. Then take the time to get to know the names of students. One way to do this is to have students fill out an index card, listing their name, phone number and intellectual interests. One can then use the cards to begin the process of associating names with faces--a simple but, it seems to me, a crucial task if students are to feel welcome and comfortable in your classroom.
It is also important to spell out the aims, methods, and requirements of one's class. In this regard a syllabus is essential and, although there are hundreds of models from which to choose, a good syllabus ought to include enough information about the course to answer any basic question about it that might arise in the student's mind.(3) The syllabus is one tangible way that one can suggest to students that they matter to you as people. Another strategy is to suggest up front that their progress, not the quantitative accomplishment of a set block of material, is most important to you. Or, put another way, comfort obtains if students understand that you are constructing the course with them in mind, and that you are devoted in the first instance to them, and only then to the topic or topics set for scrutiny.
There are other ways to engender comfort. The choice of textbooks speaks in silent but profound ways about one's aims and approaches. A booklist that contains many expensive books suggests that content matters over cost, and this is no small issue in an age when costs continue to inflate. The books one chooses, even if they are inexpensive, imply attitudes on the part of a teacher also. Do the books have glossaries, indices, maps, introductions? And, of course, once the books begin to be used, your own treatment of the book tells students a lot about what matters in the course and about where they fit into it. There can be nothing more stimulating and instructive, than to watch a teacher work through a text, handling it, marking it up, relying on it, and even rejecting it at times. There is as much to learn in the observation of that process as there is to learn from the information contained in the text itself.(4)
Comfort arises from familiarity and trust. In the drive to concretize the abstraction of a course and to rouse students from the realities of their own lives, much will hinge on one's ability to forge personal relationships. Green teachers are in many ways students themselves--or, at least, remember vividly the feelings, needs, desires, wants, of being a student. That shared context can be used to good end, in the ways one relates to and accommodates students' needs, or in the ways one allows students to think on their own terms, ask their own questions, and work toward their own answers, in spite of any answers the teacher might offer. Learning to trust the responses and queries of one's students is as important as (and goes a long way toward) creating in students the trust that will allow them to rely on your presumably more authoritative answers.
Listening is an important quality in good teaching, and green teachers will do a lot of it and will never be more receptive to doing it than at the start of their careers--before they have set notions about the issues with which they are dealing. Listening bears an analogous relationship to one's approach to written assignments. Green teachers will enjoy the prospect of reading their students' work, because that prospect, like so much else, will be new. But comfort and trust again are intimately linked to one's willingness to read carefully and to comment extensively on what has been written. Not all students will work hard on their assignments, though most will. Take the time to read what they write and give them tangible proof that you have read what they have written and have taken their views seriously.
Much of this essay has addressed the difficulties of being green, and I hope it is clear that my comments are not offered as complaints but simply as observations on one aspect of a teaching based on personal experience and observation. There are inherent strengths that green teachers possess by virtue of their status. They are, for example, in a unique position to understand the reality behind the idea that abstraction is always a stumbling block to effective teaching, that disconnection, not complexity, defines difficulty.(5) This will be true not only because they will be fresh from their own student days, but also because they will be confronting formally in their preparations for class the best ways to approach and to disseminate material, answering the question "how best can I get across this material." Where experience may lead one to focus on a careful analysis of the topic at hand in abstract terms, the green teacher will instinctively reach for the connectedness of the material to everyday life. Connectedness, in fact, is a crucial quality of effective teaching and in this regard, too, green teachers will be at a natural advantage, being, presumably, much closer in age and, therefore, in perspective, to their students.
I am not arguing, of course, for a reduction of material by analogy, nor am I suggesting that more experienced teachers regularly disregard the connectedness of material to their students' experience. Approaches vary from teacher to teacher. My point is simply that green teachers will almost by instinct turn to this approach, and it is an instinct and an approach that ought to be nurtured and retained. The intimate connection between material and life, while it helps to narrow the gap between abstraction and experience, also helps to remove the barrier of passivity that often envelops a classroom. We are all active by nature and we learn by performance because, as Aristotle said, imitation is instinctive, pleasurable, and, ultimately, instructive. The best setting for learning, therefore, will involve the student in the process of learning. A crucial component of this setting, of course, is a teacher willing to listen, willing to work through a problem without necessarily having a predetermined goal in mind, willing to learn from his or her students. Green teachers will by default be more inclined to this approach, because the issues they hope to raise will not have benefited from years of scrutiny and fine-tuning. They will, in other words, be brave out of necessity; they will, like it or not, have to suffer public correction or challenge, or worse, utter the dreaded words "I don't know." But these inevitable early experiences, viewed with trepidation or perhaps embarrassed irritation on the part of the teacher, harbor important intellectual lessons for the student. Such experiences demonstrate that the power and authority in a classroom can be wrong, and can be challenged or corrected. Perhaps more importantly, they demonstrate that humanistic inquiry proceeds not through preordained channels to some self-evident end, but through pure hard work One is open to correction or challenge and, in the best of circumstances, one is left feeling vulnerable.
The vulnerability that all green teachers face and feel can be, or ought to be, put to good use. It demonstrates to students the human factor involved in the life of the mind, it shows students in an exemplary way that being vulnerable is an important method and strategy in attempting to solve problems. And it suggests to students that learning is important enough for it never to stop, that ideas are worthy of scrutiny both on the abstract and on the concrete levels, that they, the students, are an integral part of an old process involving the dissemination of knowledge, and that, in the final analysis, they, not the subject they study, will determine the extent to which the best ideas endure in a world that has taught them to doubt much and to be certain of little. If they can come away from your class, green as it may be, with a firmer notion of humanistic inquiry, its importance and its aims, then they will have learned under your care something very important. In this regard at last green teachers and green teaching have much to offer their students despite inherent limitations. To retain what is useful in this experience, to cultivate it and draw from it later lessons for later use, is one of the chief merits and one of the chief challenges of those of us who no longer consider ourselves green.
1. While schools vary, my experience at a large state institution was probably not untypical: 50 to 60 students in intermediate level language instruction was the norm. There was no support in the form of graduate student assistants, nor, for budgetary reasons, was sectioning of these classes possible.
2. Under the best of circumstances, a 60 hour work week accrues from these activities. See appendix 1.
3. I.e., pertinent information about you as the teacher (title, phone number, office hours) as well as information about the course (formal title and number of course, required and recommended books, aims, goals, requirements for the course, grading procedures and, if possible, a full schedule of assignments). At one institution at which I taught, the syllabus had binding force. In any case, I consider it a sort of informal "contract" between myself and my students. See appendix 2.
4. In courses in which students present differing levels of preparation, one ought to take into account that variety. Do something with the more advanced students as a group apart from the rest of the class, particularly if they are graduate students; the undergraduates will feel less pressure, and the graduates will not be bored. Both, in the event, will gain more.
5. I owe this and several of the following observations to Barrett Hazeltine, Professor of Engineering and Associate Dean of the College, one of Brown's outstanding teachers.
[Average 12 week semester or 10 week quarter]
1. 3 courses 9 hours
2. 2 preparations (@ 3 hrs. per class) 18 hours
3. Grading (1 grammar class) 4 hours
4. Meetings/Dept. Work 3 hours
5. Service 2 hours
6. Research 15 hours
7. Office Hours 3 hours
8. Advising 3 hours
9. Lectures/Social 3 hours
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60 hours