Daniel H. Fernald |
By Daniel H. Fernald
Contributing Writer
As a graduate student, I was very fortunate to have as a mentor a man who was both a brilliant scholar and an accomplished classroom instructor. Every now and then a visitor to the campus, having heard of his talent as a pedagogue, would sit down with him in his office to ask, "How do you do it?"
His typical response was always something along the lines of the following: "Well, I have a class in just a little while. Walk there with me, and I'll show you."
Confused by the unexpected response, most would ask, "Well, can't you just explain it to me?"
"No, I can't. I have to show you," he would reply.
His point was that there is little theory behind good teaching. One stands before a class, makes a fool of oneself for a month or so, and then either gets the hang of it or doesn't. Just as some people can't sing, there are others who can't teach.
There is no comprehensive theory for horsemanship, either. One cannot learn how to ride a bike simply by reading a book. The best way to do any of these things is to find someone who already knows how, watch the person, and then try it oneself. One learns these skills properly and completely only by performing them, and in no other way.
There is an increasingly common view in higher education that teaching is more or less like laying bricks, tallying a spreadsheet, or building a computer. Anyone who possesses the relevant skill set and follows the instructions for completing the task will be successful. It's like baking cookies, or changing a tire. My professor's visiting admirers believed this.
Another example of this misguided approach to education was provided during a professional development seminar titled "Becoming an Expert Teacher." My colleagues and I were informed that it takes 10,000 hours of experience to become an "expert" teacher. Some of us asked, "What about office hours? What about attending conferences? What about attending professional development seminars like this one?"
It turned out that we could count about half of the time we spent engaged in such education-related pursuits toward our "expertise" goal of 10,000 hours.
Some of us then tried to add up how long it would take to go from "neophyte" to "expert."
"If a new teacher is in the classroom for 12 hours per week over a period of 10 years, and takes part in four seminars yearly at which he attends an average of six sessions of two hours each . . ." It was ridiculous, but at least we got a laugh out of it.
We also wondered: "Will every school need some kind of panel or committee to oversee the calculation of 'expertise'? Who will certify teachers as 'experts'? How will the certifiers be certified?"
Finally, when a few people pointed out that as students they had lousy teachers who'd been doing the job for decades, but who would therefore qualify as "experts" under the rubric in question, the facilitator got frustrated and gave up.
Anyone can learn to cook bacon and eggs, but not everyone can graduate from the Cordon Bleu. Such is life. It's about more than numbers.
Back to the case at hand, some of the same people who think that one can become an expert teacher by tallying one's hours in an Excel spreadsheet are also confused about the true nature of the student-teacher relationship.
About five years ago at my former university in the United States, there was a "Customer Service Initiative" that was intended to teach us all to treat students as "customers." This was the brainchild of the new chancellor of our state system, who had a business background.
I questioned the logic of the change. I asked those who were pushing this initiative to think it through. If students are customers, then universities are businesses. Businesses have no duty of loyalty to customers; although they are obliged to honor contracts and refrain from cheating their customers, businesses are under no obligation whatsoever to provide the best possible service. A business' loyalty and duty are to the shareholders, not the customers.
If a business can earn more money by providing a less valuable product or service for the same or greater price, it owes it to the stockholders to do so. Businesses have been sued by their shareholders for failing to honor this obligation. This is not a criticism. As the saying goes, "Fish gotta swim." It's simply the nature of the beast, and the reality of commerce.
Through the misguided "customer service" model, professors become employees, and are thus relieved of the need to put their students' intellectual development first and foremost, or to seek to become mentors to their young charges. Their job becomes one of "customer satisfaction." If the customer-students are happy, and say so on their evaluation forms, then the professor-employees have done their jobs.
Has anything actually been learned though? Have the students become well-rounded, worldly, inquisitive adults at the end of it all? Who knows? Why even ask the question? After all, if students are only customers, then we should aim to please. To put it another way, if they are paying for a degree, why shouldn't they get one? The customer service approach to education sets the bar too low, and serves students poorly.
What I have always viewed as the sacred, unique relationship between teacher and student is entirely at odds with the ideas that teaching is just a skill, that students are "educational consumers," and that universities are businesses. Students deserve to be taught, guided, and mentored by those who understand that teaching is a calling, not a job, and that a true university must aim at something far higher than the bottom line.
The writer is an Associate Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He may be reached at professordhf@hotmail.com.
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