Finding Common Ground: 5 Rules that are Invaluable to Me as an Instructor

     Whenever I’m asked what I do for a living my pat answer is always, “I’m part English professor and part stand-up comedian.”  I say it for two reasons: the first is because it always gets a laugh; the second is because it’s the truth.  My students are paying to sit in my class the least I can do is try to entertain them.  Granted, I can’t always be funny, but I do what I can with the lessons I have to teach.  I work at a local community college, a local private college and an online school.  These tips are for face-to-face classes only.  It’s hard to be funny online without coming off as sarcastic, so I keep my tone professional and use emoticons where appropriate.  

For those instructors who teach face-to-face classes, here are some rules that you may find useful:

Rule 1: Align with the student – instructors must understand the world their students are coming from or at least try to.  What is an iPad?  What do they mean by Wii?  What the hell is a Snooki?  

I don’t watch a lot of TV and what I do watch is usually not what my students are interested in.  So, I check out news stories on Yahoo! to keep myself current.  I don’t necessarily find them interesting.  Truthfully, I often find Yahoo! News to be a bit silly, but it’s what my students are familiar with.   Doing this allows me to never be at a loss for something to talk about in class. 

This tactic also makes me better able to focus their writing.  It shows them what is going on around them is relevant and can be the subject of a paper.  Students have an odd idea that nothing in the real world applies to the classroom.  This is why instructors will often hear the “I don’t have anything to write about” excuse.  I don’t hear that in my classes.  Well, I hardly hear that in my classes.  There is always that one stubborn student.  A post-class tutorial will usually pull something from said student that he/she can write about.

Rule 2: Be approachable, but stern – As their instructor, you can’t always be their friend; it’s actually more important that you’re not.  But this also brings me back to aligning with the student.  Instructors become more approachable when students feel instructors are living in the same world (and decade) as they are.  Once an instructor shows an interest in their students’ interests, the instructor stands a better chance of the students being interested in what is being taught.

Re-read that last sentence …  If you have no interest in the things that catch your students’ attention, you can expect that you will never have their full attention.  If they even get the smallest vibe from you that you see their interests as trivial, you will lose them by attrition, or they’ll be texting in class, or napping, or doodling (ever the classic).  One thing they won’t be doing is paying attention to the curmudgeon in front of them.

What is going on in the world today is no less important than what was going on in the world in your day.  And if you’re a young instructor, just because you think it’s silly and meaningless, doesn’t mean it actually is.  

For instance, I hate country music.  I don’t understand why anyone would waste good listening time on it.  However, I do understand that music can be very important to people and I can respect those who are passionate for a certain genre, even if it is country.  I don’t like it.  I don’t understand it.  But I would never dismiss another’s interest in it as being trivial, just as I wouldn’t want them to dismiss my musical taste in that way.  And I would never dismiss anything a student sees as important as being trivial.  Besides, the more familiar they are with their topic, the better written the essay will be.

Rule 3: Get hip to the lingo – you must speak their language, meaning you need to know what text-speak is and how other words have changed meaning (read -- how students are misunderstanding certain words and using them incorrectly).  This will also help you understand why the first writing assignment will come back with something like this in it -- “When i first met my bff she totally understanded me and I was like omg!  I could of died! lol  Sense then we been so close.”  (Those last two sentences—minus the lol—are correct according to MS Word.)

You may notice that students are writing how they speak.  It seems to me, they’ve been allowed to do it for a long time, making me question what they are learning in high school English.  Many use “sense” for “since” and “of” for “have”.  They leave out “meaningless” words like “that”, “to”, “for”, and so on, because these are words not used when texting.  They can’t distinguish between “there, their and they’re” or “than and then”.   They don’t understand what I mean when I say their writing has no flow.  They could care less that missing words, and words used incorrectly, jar and confuse the reader.   “As long as you get what I’m saying, what difference does it make?’’ asks the reluctant writer.

Most of my students are not readers (though I treasure the few who are).  When faced with having to read for an assignment, most will skim or look for summaries online (worst case, they will plagiarize those summaries).  And this is why they don’t know what flow is, and why they don’t understand why all words—even the little ones—are important.  And it is also why I feel reading is an important part of a writing class.  If nothing else, students get to see an example of the assignment you want them to write.  It’s always good to give your students a model to follow.

Rule 4: Everyone brings something to class – the days of pedagogy are dead, even for K-12.  Today’s kindergarteners know more about technology than their teachers.  Everyone comes to class with some kind of background knowledge.  There is no such thing as a blank slate … I would argue that there never was.  And it is really important for college professors to understand this.  I repeat, really important!  

Students are coming to class so grossly underprepared for the challenges my syllabus holds that they begin to feel like they are a blank slate.  You cannot, as a caring instructor, allow this to happen.  A LOT of handholding needs to be done in the first semesters of college in these days of post “No Child Left Behind” syndrome. 

NCLB has created a mass “learn and dump” mentality in today’s students.  They learn it (whatever it may be), take the test, and forget it.  This doesn’t only apply to classroom learning.  I asked my Freshman Composition students to tell me who has the right of way at a 4-way stop sign when two cars get there at the same time, and only my adult students got the answer correct.  The eighteen-year-olds, who just took the test, had no idea.  You see; they no longer need to know it because they’ll never have to take the test again.  

Even though most have dumped just about everything they’ve ever learned academically, they are still not blank slates.  They all have life experience they can draw from, even if it’s just the realization that they have little knowledge retained from school.  Most students are passionate about something, whether it’s playing X-box, finding the perfect pair of shoes, having the latest technology, loving a sports team, or a particular sport.  My job as a teacher of writing is to pull their passion out of them and help them get it on the page.  Preferably, in a grammatically correct way.

Rule 5: Be funny – and if you can’t be funny at least be interesting.  As a student, I can tell you there is nothing worse than a boring instructor … except maybe a boring instructor teaching a boring subject.  You must be aware that your subject may not seem as interesting to everyone else as it does to you.  You need to be able to put it in the context of their world.  How does Gilgamesh feature in the world of college students today?  Does it?  Is it relevant?  How?

If you can’t answer those questions, you probably shouldn’t teach a Classical Literature class.  Generally, if you are passionate about something, you’ll teach it well.  Sort of.  You also need to be enthusiastic about it.  You need to be the cheerleader for whatever it is you are teaching.  You need to explain it in a context that students can relate to, or better, a context that students can get excited about.  In the case of Gilgamesh, you can show your students the beginning of the bromance and how homosexuality did not have the stigma it does today.  

With all that’s been going on lately in the young homosexual community, Gilgamesh is very relevant.  It shows a time in history where homosexuality was not only accepted, but almost expected from the warriors and aristocrats.  Gilgamesh may be the oldest story ever written down, but it is as timely now as it was then, if you are paying attention to what is currently going on.

     Now I know some of you reading this are thinking, “I’m not funny, so forget it.”  We can’t all be hilarious, but we can all be human.  If I make a mistake on the board, I don’t cover it up; I point it out and let them laugh at me.  It lets the student know that, though I want them to strive for it, perfection is not the be-all and end-all.  The attempts at it are.  Although I prefer it when they point out my mistakes; it means something I’m teaching is getting through.  

To sum up: align, be approachable, get hip, pull background knowledge, and be human.  Remember that you are not above them; you are with them.  You have to be with them or you’ll never be able to see when they need a helping hand.  Their success equals a job well done for you.  Of course, you will occasionally have students who are determined to fail and there is nothing you can do about them.  If they choose to not show up and not do the work, there’s no helping them.  But for those who show up and try, I believe there’s nothing they can’t learn.