There is an elusive win-win in teaching in which both teachers and students truly enjoy a class together. The teachers find pleasure and satisfaction in educating students, and the students are fully engaged in learning concepts they find interesting and meaningful. Unfortunately, some teachers and students never experience such moments. Faculty who see teaching as a chore probably doubt such moments could exist, so they never try to create them. Students who are focused more on passing a course than learning anything probably also doubt such an experience could happen in a class. Both teachers and students can approach a course with an embittered, cynical attitude. When they do, however, I argue that there can be another kind of win-win in which both teachers and students get what they want but neither benefits from the experience. Before I describe it though, I want to explore what jaded teachers and students each want out of a class.
One Response
I believe your fears concerning the pervasiveness of MSM are real. And unfortunately it is at every level. I am a classroom teacher more than a researcher. I daily “leave it all out there on the field” trying to motivate and inspire. I have come to realize in 30 years of teaching that you cannot “save” them all. I am always elated when I see a good student striving, and winning, at whatever pace.
You have made it more noble than I have seen. I do not think teachers are necessarily more interested in scholarship than teaching. I think there is much interest in a paycheck, holidays and summer break.
The covid fiasco has taken a large toll on the profession of education. It is an interest to me the online courses now available and the push for more of them. To me, this is MSM at its best.
Prior to covid I spoke with a couple that immigrated from Kenya, curious to know how their children compared their education in Kenya to what they were now receiving in the U.S.. The answer was sad. The Kenyan children quite frankly compared American education to a “joke”.
I continue to teach because what I share is valuable. I appreciate my colleagues who share this sentiment. Yet it is my contention that technology has taken the grit and perseverance necessary for gaining wisdom and not just knowledge out of much of the American educational system and out of many Americans.