Reflections on Teaching

Insights from My Mentors

When I started teaching, I had phenomenal mentors. I could ring up Paul, an English prof, and inquire about handling a student’s lie, and he’d help me identify the options. I could share my student evals with Jerry, a chemist, and he’d help me

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The Student We Carry in Our Heads

Years ago, I got to work late and had to grab the last parking spot, right in front of the university print shop. Technically, this was legal, but it was frowned upon; the person who ran the shop had a habit of hanging signs

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Lectures to Nana and Pop: A Teaching Origin Story

“How did you become interested in teaching and training?” the eager applicant for a training position asked. I paused, thinking about my mentor, the articles I read, as well as the lectures and workshops I attended. After searching for an answer filled with gravitas and

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A Reflection on Teaching and Social Change

I recently viewed a professional development video on the STARLINK website (established by the State of Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which offers programming to participating colleges across the country) that begins with a poignant quote: “Teaching is the choicest of professions because everybody who

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Teachable Moments about Teaching

Like many college faculty, my first teaching experience was in graduate school. I was woefully unprepared to teach but blissfully ignorant of that fact. I had sat through three informal meetings on how to teach given by fellow graduate students who had taught a few

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The Teacher as Lensmaker

When as a college sophomore I first encountered Benedict de Spinoza, I was fascinated by both his philosophy, which emphasizes intellectual freedom and pursuit of virtue, and the fact that by trade or profession he was a grinder of lenses.

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