A Difficult Conversation with a Student Made Me a Better Teacher
This was my Mr. Holland moment
I recall a difficult conversation with a student that made me rethink my work in the classroom.
That conversation took place 15 years ago.
My first class was 44 6th graders in 1972. I wrote about that gang here.
My last class was 35 Life Long Learners in 2022.
That’s me in the middle of those perennial students. I’m answering a question and about to ask another one.
No lectern, no Powerpoint.
My next class, another Life Long Learning seminar, will be in the fall of 2023.
If I had written this story 15 years ago, I would have focused on the content of the subjects I taught.
My 6th graders were stuck with me all day, even in math.
The Life Long Learning seminar was an exploration of race in America.
Today, I habitually begin with the audience and not the topic.
It wasn’t always that way.
Teaching is a craft.
No one is a natural at their work.
“She’s a natural-born teacher.”
No more than Michael Jordan was a natural-born basketball player.
Jordan practiced his way to excellence.
I taught Politics at Luther College for thirty-three years.
For most of those years, my practice involved learning more about the topics I taught. For Michael, it was 100s of jump shots every day during the off-season. For me, 10s of books during summer.
I saw my craft as learning better content.
Until Jenna knocked on my office door in 2008.
Jenna was a psychology major taking my course on poverty and inequality.
She enrolled out of interest.
I developed this course soon after I arrived at Luther. It attracted majors from around campus and usually enrolled 30.
I was proud of keeping the course fresh, at least for me, by using different books every year. Books I had read the previous summer. Jordan was shooting. I was reading.
By the time Jenna took the course, I had replaced overhead transparencies with PowerPoint.
Slides.
Full of words summarizing the main ideas from the day’s reading assignment.
High-tech transparencies.
I sent an email to Jenna asking her to stop by. She had earned an A on the first exam but was missing classes. That was an unusual combination. Usually, students who missed didn’t do well.
I asked her why she was missing class.
“I’m bored in class. I don’t need to go. All you do is summarize the material.”
And then she added this kicker.
“You faculty are hiding behind Powerpoints.”
I felt my face turn red.
There was no smile from Jenna to soften the blows.
In response, I made comments about the value of in-class conversations. And about how I didn’t just summarize the reading but added insights from other authors and my ideas.
I didn’t change right away.
I fumed.
And told stories: I was a good teacher; Jenna was an arrogant student.
True stories.
But Jenna’s words wouldn’t go away.
I always prepared my classes in the early morning. Two hours into one morning’s work, I realized all my energy had gone into how to organize the perfect Powerpoint slide show.
And not what my students needed to understand that day’s assignment.
Two weeks after Jenna’s observations, I stopped using Powerpoint.
Cold turkey.
My favorite scene in Mr. Holland’s Opus, about a high school music teacher played by Richard Dryfus, was after most of his students did poorly on a test. Those test results were a Jenna moment. He had to find another way.
In the next scene, he uses a piano to show his students how a Bach minuet formed the background of a pop song. You can watch this scene here.
I love this scene because Dryfus’ Glenn Holland sits on the piano stool and talks to his students. And asks them questions about what kind of music they like.
Barriers down. He was still the teacher. But he had now joined the class.
It took me a year to revamp my pedagogy.
Experimentation.
Finally, I developed an in-class template.
I broke our sixty or ninety-minute classes into 15-minute segments. Each was organized around a theme or question about the day’s assignment. I rearranged the classroom so that we were all facing each other. Sometimes I would be in the middle. I was part of the circle, prodding, questioning, and summarizing.
I relaxed in the classroom.
And started to arrive 10 minutes before the students filed in.
So I could smile and greet each one.
Salsam asked other retired teachers to share memories. Check out her poignant story below.
