Teaching isn’t for Rock Stars
Students are the focus.
I teach in a digital classroom. It doesn’t make me feel as good as when I taught in front of a big room of students. But my discomfort is a feature, not a bug. The move online has improved my teaching by forcing me off the stage.
When I wrote about running a digital classroom, I described three basic classroom norms that most classes adopt without thinking:
There is a teacher — This person is “in charge” and responsible for both providing learning content and leadership in ambiguous situations.
We learn in class — Everyone gathers at a set time and location to learn, with some modest preparation between gatherings.
We express what we know and receive feedback — Class is an opportunity for everyone to receive an evaluation of their class performance.
None of these norms is conducive to learning. Students should be in charge of their own learning with teachers as guides. Learning should be possible everywhere not just in classrooms. Classrooms aren’t stages— they’re a space to be vulnerable and practice what you’ve yet to master.
Do these norms match your teaching goals, personality, and politics? Do you want to establish a hierarchy with the teacher on top? Do you want to students to learn outside of your designated space? Do you want to students to think that intellectual life is competitive?
These norms don’t come from a teaching tradition. They’re at odds with most teaching traditions. Since Socrates and Confucius, the best teachers have prioritized pedagogy that encourages students to think, question, and control their own learning. The basic classroom norms are actively toxic to learning: discouraging growth, disrupting community, and contributing to student anxiety.
If these norms undermine learning — why do they exist?
There is lively literature on this question that every teacher should read. I think it is nearly impossible to form a meaningful pedagogy without at reading hooks, Friere, and Foucault. These works discuss the structural forces that encourage us to apply the “classroom” norms. They argue that these aren’t the organic norms of a community of learners; they’re the norms of a rock musician in front of a crowd. They aren’t intended to facilitate learning, they’re meant to establish power.
Power and adulation are tempting. Everyone wants to be a rock star. Everyone wants to be looked at and admired. As Orwell said of writers, “it is humbug to pretend that sheer egotism is not a motive.” But these internalized norms are subtle. When I’m in class I don’t think “I’m pretending to be a British headmaster training colonial bureaucrats by rote-memorization to enforce a class system.” I just struggle with pride and anxiety.
Pride can make me a tyrant. I enjoy attention. There is nothing more addictive than having the eyes and ears of a class of bright young people. I wish to be seen as brilliant and as a leader in my discipline. I look over my classroom and feel that this, all of this, is for me. It is about me. I receive these good feelings only if my students are looking at me and listening to me. I am on stage! I am a rock star! They’re hanging on my every word! I do not feel this way when the students are quietly working on their projects in breakout groups. Or when they are studying at home.
Anxiety can make us into cops. When students are not attending to us, anxiety creeps in. What if one of my students knows more than me? What if I appear silly or weak? What if I lose my authority? My career would be over. I must reinforce the differences between me and my students! Perhaps I should belittle, gaslight, and dominate my class? I could use trick questions or gotchas to remind them that I hold the power. I could set up competitions between them or a disciplinary system where they can turn each other in for favors.
It’s ironic to me that that liberal arts professors are so vulnerable to the classic dynamic of force. We warn of these dangers and immediately grasp for them to “control” our classes.
Rock star teaching is absurd. There’s no argument in learning research nor the humanities for giving teachers power over students. There’s no benefit to instructors speaking more often (the opposite is true). There’s no benefit to punitive discipline (again, the opposite is true). School is not about teachers. The goal of a teacher is to become obsolete. To help students develop the critical thinking skills necessary to learn and act independently.
Leave your ego in the physical classroom
One of the unsung benefits of teaching over video-conferencing software is that instead of feeling like a rock star when you dominate the discussion, you feel like the most boring human being in the world — the webinar leader. This is one of the salutary effects of online teaching.
Video conferencing software is useful for gathering students in a common digital place. Gathering is a powerful social motivator. It gives students a sense of community and common purpose. Learning is a social activity and being able to see and hear each other is core to the experience. The addictive nature of attention is double-edged. I don’t want to give a dominating performance. If I never give the stage to young people, they will internalize that they are not valued — permanent audience members, useful only as witnesses.
Moving online changed and improved my teaching. I speak less and facilitate more. I create alternative channels (like Slack) for students to speak directly with each other as well. I’ve changed the way I do grading and assignment feedback to encourage students to share examples of incomplete work rather than polished drafts.
All of these things are harder to do in physical spaces.
Moving your teaching online gives you control over time and space in your classroom. The classroom was a rival good, there was only enough space on stage for one. Online there is as much space as you like. Every student can have a platform.
This gives you tremendous power to specify the class norms — you can put a camera in every bedroom! But with this power comes great responsibility. If your students are afraid to speak—you cannot blame the format, you chose the format. If your class is dead — your fault. If students lose interest — your fault. If students plagiarize or turn in garbage — your fault.
You are free from millennia of historical classroom context. It is wonderful because you no longer have to spread toxic bullshit. It is terrible because you will have to set down your vision of standing in front of a crowd. My life as an online professor is a quieter, humbler one than it would be at a more traditional University.
Be kind, be brave. Your class is for students to feel connected to each other.
You are a coach. They are the team. They play and you watch.
You are a lifeguard. They are the surfers. You save lives, they catch waves.
You are a roadie. They are the band. Put them on stage.
Patrick Watson teaches Neuroscience and AI at Minerva. He’s helped robots cheat on middle school science tests, compared amnesia to the cultural revolution, and writes on love and epilepsy. He’s currently developing a role-playing game about business wizards.
