I’m preparing my classes for the fall. I made a promise to myself, ten years ago that guides my teaching: “I will work as hard as you do in this class.”
“If you wrote the paper in 20 minutes before class, I will spend no more than 20 minutes grading it.”
“If you want an A, we will work together until you get an A. If you don’t want to work that hard, we can settle, together, on a B or C.”
Some students are used to “easy As” in communication and humanities classes. They get frustrated in my classes because an A isn’t difficult, but it is work.
For the students who want it, though, I will move the moon.
If you want to use your writing in my class as a grad school sample, I am in.
If you want to read the other 200 pages of that book I assigned ten pages from, I am in.
If you want me to read the chapbook you are working on, I will -- so long as you finish the regular assignments I need you to do.
This is why I win advising awards but never teaching awards. “I will work as hard as you do in this class.”
...
I made this promise as a correction. Teachers get evaluated on bubble sheets. Raises, and our job security, depend on these evaluations. If a student fills in the oval circles on the eval that says that they didn’t learn, the institution wants me to believe that I am responsible for that failure.
But I’m not, at least not solely. Your learning is not within my boundaries. I can’t make you learn.
But I can create the environment and the support system in which you flourish toward the learning you commit to.
It’s like I was teaching for ten years before I learned that Adrienne Rich’s assertion (that students need to claim their education) also had implications for my responsibilities in the classroom.
(On Rich, digestible form: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/05/21/claiming-an-education-adrienne-rich-1977-commencement/). (On Rich, full text: http://www.yorku.ca/cvandaal/files/ClaimingAnEducation.pdf)
If a student claims their education, I will work as hard as they do.
