Michael C. Loui
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Associate Dean of the Graduate College
As a teaching assistant, what is your worst nightmare? Because you forget to set the alarm clock, you rush to the classroom and arrive just as the bell rings. You return papers that you had stayed up late to grade; unfortunately, the students did poorly, and they look sullen. You start the class period with an easy question: "What were the key points of the reading for today?" You pause. No response. Breaking the awkward silence, you explain why the topic is meaningful to you by telling a personal anecdote. One student asks, "Will this story be on the exam?"
You scan the room. One student is poring over the newspaper. Another student is nodding off. Two students are engaged in a furtive conversation but can't conceal their giggling. You divide the class into small groups and set a task for each group. As you circulate, you find students talking about the basketball team instead of the assigned task. Suddenly, a student asks you an insightful question. Taken aback, you realize that you don't know the answer.
Jane Tompkins, an English professor at Duke University, expressed how teachers sometimes feel:
I'm amazed that my fellow Ph.D.'s and I were let loose in the classroom with virtually no preparation for what we would encounter in a human sense. If nothing else, I wish I had been warned about what an ego-battering enterprise teaching can be. [Tompkins, 1996, page 90]Parker Palmer, a leading philosopher of education and senior associate at the American Association for Higher Education, wrote,
After thirty years of teaching, my own fear remains close at hand. It is there when I enter a classroom and feel the undertow into which I have jumped. It is there when I ask a question--and my students keep a silence as stony as if I had asked them to betray their friends. It is there whenever it feels as if I have lost control: a mind-boggling question is asked, an irrational conflict emerges, or students get lost in my lecture because I myself am lost. [Palmer, 1998, page 36]In order to teach, we need courage to overcome our fears. Courage to teach an unfamiliar topic and risk embarrassment when we can't answer a student's question. Courage to yield control to students by using active learning techniques such as group projects and role playing and oral presentations. Yet it is only by teaching new topics and using new techniques that we grow as teachers.
We teachers are not the only ones who need courage in the classroom. In order to learn, students also need courage to overcome their fears. Courage to engage in a discussion that challenges their deepest convictions about racial bias or global warming or technological progress or architectural aesthetics. Courage to ask questions that may reveal their ignorance. Courage to prepare for a final examination with problems they do not know in advance, on subjects they do not understand completely. Courage to take risks to learn new concepts and skills. Yet it is only by taking reasonable risks that students learn and grow.
In a study of master's degree programs, education professors Jennifer Grant Haworth of Loyola University Chicago and Clifton Conrad of Wisconsin wrote,
Students who took risks within the context of a supportive learning environment ... graduated as more competent ... self-assured ... imaginative and resourceful professionals... [A] theater student elaborated, "One of the school's philosophies ... is 'only by attempting the absurd can we achieve the impossible.' And students are encouraged to do ... that around here.... I've tried risky things and I've failed, but it was in failing that I discovered my own voice and the impact I can have on an audience." [Haworth and Conrad, 1997, pages 81-82]Similarly, Charles F. Kettering, the automotive engineer who invented the electric starter, wrote, "The educated person must be taught that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure to find its cause. He must learn to fail intelligently. For failing is one of the greatest arts in the world." [Campbell, 1970, page 673]
How can we teachers provide a supportive environment that encourages risk-taking? How can we reduce the fear of failing?
First, we can serve as role models in taking moderate risks ourselves. For example, in review sessions before examinations, I play a game called "Stump the Professor" in which I invite questions on anything.
Second, we can acknowledge our own mistakes. In my office is a sign that says, "Mistakes Made While You Wait." We can award silly prizes for the best wrong answers. When a student improperly chooses speed over clarity in ECE 291, I bestow upon the student the honorific title "Keeper of the Nanosecond." We can echo the words of the nation's most distinguished science teacher, Valerie Frizzle, heroine of The Magic School Bus show on television: "Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy!"
Third, we can structure grading policies that forgive mistakes. For example, we can give full credit for a homework assignment even if there are a few minor errors. We can allow students to revise and correct their papers. We can drop the lowest grade on papers or examinations in determining the course grade.
Fourth, we can tell stories about mistakes that turned into successes. Many important inventions, such as arc welding, matches, rayon, and stainless steel were discovered by mistake [Jones, 1996].
In these four ways--taking risks ourselves, acknowledging mistakes, structuring grading policies, and telling stories--we can help students develop courage to take risks and to learn from mistakes and failures. And when students become discouraged, we can encourage them by highlighting the positive and praising their effort.
The root of the word "courage" is the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart." The English word "core" comes from the same Latin root. So at its core, teaching is about developing courage. Or, as put by Louis Schmier, a history professor at Valdosta State University, "The heart of education is an education of the heart." [Schmier, 1997, page 73]
Much of our teaching is devoted not to the heart but to the mind and the hand. We educate the mind, developing the intellect to analyze an epic poem, or to classify fixed and variable costs, or to solve a differential equation. We educate the hand, developing the skill to use a microscope, or to play legato on the clarinet, or to interview children in a qualitative study. We should complement this emphasis on the mind and the hand, on intellect and skill, by also educating the heart, developing in students the courage to propose a new explanation for the women's suffrage movement, or the courage to specify a new composite material in the design of an aircraft wing, or the courage to stage an ancient Greek play in modern costumes. After graduation, our students would then have the self-confidence to face the unpleasant and the unknown. They would have the courage to champion a new theory of mutagenesis, or the courage to march for social justice in Selma, Alabama, or the courage to oppose the launch of the Challenger space shuttle on an icy morning in February.
In summary, in our classrooms, we need the courage to teach and the courage to learn. Both teachers and students need the courage to fail, for to know success, we must first know failure. As we encourage students to "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy," we educate not only the mind and the hand, but also the heart. For at the heart of teaching is the teaching of the heart. Thank you.
References
J. A. Campbell, Chemical Systems, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1970.
Jennifer Grant Haworth and Clifton F. Conrad, Emblems of Quality in Higher Education, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1997.
Charlotte Foltz Jones, Accidents May Happen: Fifty Inventions Discovered by Mistake, Delacorte Press, New York, 1996.
Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1998.
Louis Schmier, Random Thoughts II: Teaching from the Heart, Magna Publications, Madison, Wisc., 1997.
Jane Tompkins, A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1996.