No "Geeks" Allowed

There is a difference between lighting a fire and filling the bucket, and as a professor, lighting a fire in your students mind does not come from being a geek in your subject.  This quote from a paper argues that this is how a teacher should get a class to pay attention: “My English teacher in High School…he’d pretend to slide a piece of chalk into his ear and pull it out his mouth.” Sure, acting like a clown in front of your class, doing tricks with chalk may get the bored student to pay attention temporarily, but what about when the magic trick is over?  I definitely agree that a teacher must be enthusiastic about the stuff he is teaching.  However, being a geek all the time is not the right way to show enthusiasm.  The most effective teachers maintain a sense of coolness while showing enthusiasm about the material.  In order to light a fire, to truly get the student interested in the material, a teacher must be someone the student sees as being cool, not someone who acts like a geek.

Acting like a geek and being knowledgeable on the subject are not necessarily one in the same.  Often times, when you think of a geek you think of a smart person, but this is not the definition of a geek I am referring to.  I am talking about intentionally trying to be un-cool by acting like a geek in front of your class.   As a student, I know this tactic of acting silly definitely would not earn the respect of the students and get them interested in the material.  In fact, it would actually lower the respect for the teacher a notch or two.  A better alternative would be a knowledgeable teacher who makes the class interesting because of his or her ability to teach the class “coolly”, without acting ridiculously.

 Lets be clear, I am not saying that professors should try to be cool in the sense that they try to be best friends with the students and use the latest terminology.  Most of the teachers that I have considered “cool” are cool because they have their own unique and interesting style of teaching.  Much of this style of teaching has to do with the professor’s personality.  If a teacher is boring to listen to, there is a good chance he or she is just a boring person, and if this is the case then there is not much that can be done to make the class more interesting.  If your class is so boring that you need to resort to doing chalk tricks in front of the class to get them interested in what you are doing, it is probably time to change up your style, because the students are obviously not interested.  Here is a great example of how to really get your classes attention.

Obviously that is just a more extreme version of the chalk trick in front of the class, but, similarly, it is a temporary solution to get students to pay attention.  It is like watching a clown, you may watch what he’s doing because its funny, but you have no desire to learn what he is doing.  Acting like a geek does nothing to contribute to the actual learning going on in the class.

There is no specific formula that must be met in order to be a “cool” teacher.  In fact, those teachers who are worried about fitting the mold of a “cool” teacher probably do not have what it takes to be a cool teacher.  Also, Students can easily tell when a teacher is trying to be anything but his or her self, and when students sense this, it is basically over for the teacher.  If the teacher is not being himself, he will not have authority over the students because they will not respect him due to his lack of confidence.  Any lack of confidence is especially detrimental to your cause as a professor, because you are the one who is supposed to be an expert in your field, so you must be confident in the material you are presenting.

So, if you are a professor don’t try to be cool, just be yourself, whatever that may be, because that is the most crucial aspect of teaching with a sense of cool.  The students will respect you more for being yourself, and if the teacher has the respect of the class, learning becomes much easier because of the better learning environment.  Most students are at school to learn, so a cool teacher also makes learning and getting through class go as smoothly as possible. They understand how it is to be a student and strive to help their students achieve their goals, which is what is most important.