A few weeks ago (on a now-defunct blog called College Misery) I noted a comment by a seasoned professor who was talking about new professors on his faculty.
“Fresh-faced kids have no idea how to teach so I cut them some slack. They talk about caring and helping students fulfill their potential and sh*t like that. It's the equivalent of a new husband telling his lovely wife, ‘Sure dear, I'll split the house work with you.’ You only say stuff like that because you don't know any better.”
I think this comment is appalling.
Not only is it demeaning to new faculty, it is discouraging and it is insulting. Obviously new young faculty need to steer clear of these burned out veterans, but that’s not always as easy as it sounds.
It is this seasoned professor who obviously has gotten discouraged, disgruntled and dispirited. He looks at students as young people who have no desire to learn, no interest in school, no desire to fulfill their potential, and do not care. And he encourages new faculty to look at students the same way.
But new faculty need to do the opposite.
New profs need encouragement. They need nurturing. They need mentoring. They need professional development opportunities that are centered around pedagogy, presentation, interaction with students, and every other aspect of classroom management and control. Those things are undeniably necessary.
Too often colleges and universities do fail to provide enough guidance about teaching to new professors. Although with the proliferation of teaching centers that guidance is getting much better.
But there still are many teachers out there who are struggling and challenged in their classrooms. They have never learned to teach. When they were hired they gave a “sample” teaching presentation, which was practiced, polished and the best of their best. Then they were put into a classroom and told, “TEACH!”
But without substantial guidance by, among others, seasoned professors the classroom situations of these new teachers never get better. And then these new teachers simply get frustrated and fall into that bottomless abyss called average.
And then eventually, those new “fresh-faced” profs soon (too soon) become the ones who utter the comment at the beginning of this post.
And higher education institutions suffer.
And education itself suffers.
And learning suffers.
And, in the end, society suffers.
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