The blame goes both ways

In the hour long conversation between William Deresiewicz from Yale and Mark Edmundson from University of Virginia, several points arise on the topic of teaching in relation to the learning and growth potential of students.

The first point which questions "is it part of a professor's job to be un-cool?" discusses the influence of an "un-cool" versus a "cool" professor. Deresiewicz mentions that teachers are encouraged to resist the temptation to be cool so as to not model the conventional behavior of students; rather they are taught to behave as themselves even if it means presenting themselves as dull. On the other hand, being un-cool can potentially hurt a professor in evaluations with the possibility of losing one's job as in the case of Anna Bean.

My opinion on the matter is that teachers should try to find a medium between keeping a high level of professionalism and still keeping the class somewhat entertaining and interesting by finding ways to relate to the students. In relating to the students I do not mean turning to student behavior, but rather relating to the human aspect of each individual. Teachers should remember that they are teaching to other human beings with feelings and emotions, and learning a list of facts without understanding ways of being able to relate and make sense of this data, can be rather dull and uninteresting. I feel the most effect teaching is a the type of teacher that takes it upon him or herself to apply the information learned to the students lives and to give examples of how he or she as a teacher feels in relation to the material.

This relates to another point that is brought up in the discussion: "is there still room for big questions in college?" Deresiewicz explains how the heart of his teaching is encompassed in his one on one moments with his students where students discuss what is really important to them. According to him, this is however very time consuming and the universities do not make it easy for every teacher to find time to do this. As a result, many students graduate from college without ever having thought about and discussed the big questions of what is truly important to them in life.

Deresiewicz makes a very good point and I believe this should be thoroughly analyzed and taken into account by colleges. College does seem to leave very little room for these big questions in the classroom; however one might argue that it is often up to the students to teach themselves in this area through their own learning and introspection. The universities can only offer so much and there is really no concrete way of assuring that students will have fully understood and thought out what is of value and importance to them by the time they graduate.

I believe teachers could possibly adhere to this by incorporating these big questions into the actual subject matter of what is being taught. As I mentioned earlier, it is important to have the students be able to relate in some form to the teacher or subject matter in order to find the subject interesting and of importance to them.

Another point relating to this is the idea of whether universities should be blamed for bad teaching. Deresiewicz argues that often teachers are hired on their scholarship not on their teaching ability. Furthermore, universities do not encourage the kind of inspiring teaching that leads students to debate the "big questions" and they make it challenging for teachers to go through what they really want to do.

I feel "bad teaching" should be partly blamed on the institution. This is not necessarily because they are not thoroughly encouraging teachers to teach at such a high and intriguing level, but rather because they are not being selective enough in the process of choosing great teachers. The idea of choosing teachers based solely on their scholarship is what makes it tough for new lesser known teachers to come into colleges that could be potentially very inspiring and influential to the student population.

On the other hand, I also feel that a majority of the blame for bad teaching should be on the teacher rather than the institution. The teachers are the ones behind the actual delivery of the material and it should not have to require the school to flat out inform them that they should be delivering high quality, thought provoking material. This is something that teachers should know themselves and put a significant amount of effort into delivering without being told to do so.

Finally, "computers, drugs, and modern student culture" has a significant impact on the education of students and the effectiveness of teachers. Edmundson makes a good observation that students today are becoming increasingly impatient and difficult to adhere to because they are simply not being present; they consistently talk on their cell phones or use technology as a means of being elsewhere and have allowed multitasking to become a regular routine in their lives. This can make it rather challenging for professors to grab the full attention of students and help them relate to or understand topics. A teacher can only do so much to get a student to comprehend a topic; the blame lies entirely on the student in this area. One can only hope that students will become present enough every now and then to realize the importance of giving one's full attention to educational matters.

Overall, the teaching profession is undoubtedly complex and difficult, and an institution that has been able to give a thorough and real education to its students should be highly praised and recognized. As we move into becoming more and more aware of the importance of student-teacher relationships, we will hopefully see the world progress more into a place of well educated and analytical beings.