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February 20, 2006
"Don't play favorites..."
I have subtly changed names and details of stories here to protect the innocent. If you're afraid that I'm talking about you in particular here, rest assured that yours is not the only experience of that sort that I've had...hopefully fingers point nowhere more forcefully than they point at myself...
I've built a large portion of my teaching career around the idea that, because teaching is a human exercise, where it's important to be able to work with the student and understand what that student's needs are and meet the point of every student's need, it is absolutely necessary to treat all students equitably. There should be no "most important student" in a classroom, nor should there be a "least important student." The biggest reason to avoid playing favorites is because that poisons the learning environment; it makes certain students feel like they're less important than others, and it keeps those students from learning at their peak.
This is what has bothered me the most in the past when I've been accused of having favorites - the idea that somehow, whether of done so consciously or subconsciously, what I've done is convinced a student or a group of students that they were of secondary importance. I don't want to go there. I want everybody to feel like they're equally important. I want to go the extra mile - an extra several miles, in fact - to reach out to the students who feel alienated. It's their right, I rationalize to myself. It's what they've paid for.
So I reach out, I try to go that extra mile. And two things happen in the process.
(1) I rapidly find that certain students are easier to reach out to than others. For some, it is simply a matter of taking that one step, and the barrier crumbles completely.
I remember one guy at The Other Place who was frustrating me more than a bit in learning the calculus-based mechanics, and he had stood me up multiple times when he'd arranged to come by and get help. After the fourth time of being stood up (and promising him I was going to do this in advance), I went marching to his dorm to find his room and read him the Riot Act.
Where I found him in a jam session with his mates. (Caleb could play serious guitar, see.)
"Pearson, hey man, how are you?"
"Hey Caleb, are we talking physics tonight?"
"Yea...oh, crap, what time is it?"
"6:15. You were coming by fifteen minutes ago."
"Damn, man, I'm sorry. Gimme five more, I'll be over there."
The guy was so lost in his playing (and, I found, he routinely got so lost in his playing) that he just lost track of time.
But I did wake him up, so to speak, and he did come by. We went on for an hour and a half that night, two guys and a whiteboard and conservation of energy problems. And he was very free from that point forward with making the effort. He didn't get the grade I wanted him to get out of PHYS 2211, but he got a grade and he understood stuff on the way. And he and I still talk from time to time, and I think we connected in a geniune way.
I'd say, in my experience, I break through like that with a guy (or girl, although I make it policy not to knock on girl's dorm room doors, which is an inequity right there) about 20% of the time. Which in baseball isn't even a good batting average. More often, it's not the barrier crumbling, but me taking a chip at the barrier at a time, and more often finding that getting the barrier down is more than a semester or two semesters' worth of work.
It's getting tired with him not coming to class despite multiple attempts at olive branches, getting tired of her standing up appointments time and again without a hint of apology, getting tired of his mountain of emotional problems getting in the way of getting stuff done and yet a lack of serious effort to deal with those problems. It makes me tired, it makes me frustrated, it makes me seriously wonder if it's worth it.
And then I get the two-by-four full of clue.
(2) I find that I screw up. Multiple times. In multiple ways. And, in my arrogance, I believe that I'm doing everything exactly the way that it needs be done - all the while, I'm making a student feel two inches small and missing it entirely.
I have this group of students. There is one young lady in particular who has been in and out for the past few weeks, because of a multitude of issues on her plate, more than anyone should have to bear really. She is there this evening, and I'm glad to see her.
We go into a group exercise, and I break the students up into small groups. I place one group here, one group there, rattling off names off the back of my head, the exercise is set up beautifully, I have the groups balanced exactly the way I want them. I move to start the exercise...and Lauren is standing there, in the corner, with a forlorn look in her eye.
When our eyes meet, the words her eyes say are absolutely unmistakable.
You forgot about me.
I hurriedly try to rectify the mistake, to reorganize, but the damage is done. I've lost Lauren for the rest of the night. She's there, but she's going through the motions, and she's getting nothing out of the group work. I try to say something encouraging as she leaves, to make amends, but she gives me a look that says "yeah, right" and she just leaves.
Way to go, Pearson. You suck at life.
And then here comes the tragedy of this teaching stuff I try to do: If I noticed my screwup that time, how many more times do I completely blow it without even having a clue that I've blown it? How many of the barriers that I'm trying to tear down are barriers that I've erected in the first place?
Most of you who read this thing are students. I thank you for paying attention to my emo ramblings. And I hope you hear my big point:
Your teachers, your professors, are trying to communicate with you, the best way - the only way - they know how. We are all different, we all have different languages, we all have different biases we build into the way we teach. But we are doing the absolute best we can.
Sometimes it's brilliance. Sometimes it's eh. And sometimes we just blow it.
But, more often than it isn't, what we're doing is honest.
Be patient with us. And, when we're not putting you on the same level as the others in the room, help us a bit. Figure out what it is we want of you - ask sometimes, even, we usually don't bite - and give us what we ask for, even when you think it's a bit stupid and pointless. We have our reasons, and they're usually pretty good ones, especially in retrospect.
And - here I do not presume to speak for my colleagues and comrades, only for myself - when you've tried all that with me and I'm still being an idiot, you are permitted to bring a laboratory notebook by the office...
..and HIT ME UPSIDE THE HEAD WITH IT.
Posted by Chuck at February 20, 2006 10:42 PM
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Comments
you are a good person, dr. pearson...professors gain respect by position-you earn it strictly by character. :) night
Posted by: k at February 20, 2006 11:22 PM
You care too much .... but that's what everyone loves about you. And yes, you are a good person.
Posted by: Heather at February 21, 2006 09:41 AM
I'll agree with the noters before me. You care a lot more than most profs let on. You are a good person, good prof, etc. and while i might not always remember what you taught in class, i'll always remember what a good time i had in your class and at "that other place" because you were there. heck, my senior "supperlative" was the "Let's go bug Pearson" award, so you're doing fine. Everyone makes mistakes, all you can do is learn from them.
Posted by: Nancy at February 21, 2006 06:43 PM
Pearson...the fact that you would be this concerned and write something like this says more to the message of it than the actual words. I've never had a class of yours, but just knowing your person...of course you want to do good things. And I think that you've totally encapsulated the point of communication. Just know that caring this much is the point.
It is things like this that make teachers my heros. These are the names you remember in five years...in ten...the one's that show up in the b****in' memoirs.
You have knocked the cynicsm right out of me and landed on one of the only things I find good and pure: the pure-blood, idealism, work, and faith of those who decide to teach.
Posted by: Mack F. at February 22, 2006 08:58 PM