I like your expression – “professional mean guy” hahaha. I think that is a really difficult task to be mean. I heard many stories about students who came to the TA crying or being angry because of their grades. I didn’t have those experiences yet, but I have no idea how I should react to that kinds of situations if it happens to me. Specifically, if a student says he or she will lose the scholarship because of 1 point in my class, that would be a hard situation to conclude.

You can always borrow mine Qualla!

Faith, I love reading your writing. You have such a clear voice and manage to make sophisticated concepts and nuanced personal experience relatable.

As a fellow humanities instructor, your note on preferring concepts over ideas rings a bell. I think a lot of people feel comfortable with details, rote information, moreso than concepts. But theories and relationships between surface phenomena always seem more interesting to me. The challenge is getting quantia- and details-oriented students on board with that.

What you say about names is interesting to me, too. My students call me “Emma,” just because that feels right to me. But I wonder if I wouldn’t benefit from being called “Ms. Stamm.” I like the idea of pedagogy that breaks down the inequality between student and teacher, but even Paulo Freire knows that you have to draw lines somewhere. Figuring out where to draw those lines is still a challenge for me — and maybe why, unlike you, I get nervous in the classroom…

*nuggets* – that’s for sure : )

*See rant above* tehe.

Vulnerability always comes up in all of my “teaching” books. I think the moment you say “Ok, I’m going to allow some barriers to come down” rather than resisting, you’re doing yourself and everyone else a favor. Easier said than done right? It definitely helps to have very open and authentic conversations with classmates though. It sets the tone that we all aren’t perfect and we’re all here to help one another rather than to judge one another.

Jason – I couldn’t agree with you more. My mother was previously a preschool and kindergarten teacher, also working part-time for elementary-high school at times. The amount of work that goes into teaching below the collegiate level is just unreal. I actually have many friends around my age that are in their first few years of teaching and just their social media posts exhaust me. These are the people we leave our children with and expect them to love them. They are helping to foster the minds of the next generation of engineers, scientists, teachers, etc. What a privilege! And then we treat them like dirt. I feel confident in saying that, as I am a North Carolina native, one of the lowest paying states when it comes to teachers in the United States. I’ve also witnessed a new era where instead of keeping good teachers around, schools tend to be more interested in hiring the young ones right out of school to 1. Pay them less and 2. To “mold” them. Maybe I’m just ranting at this point. Anywhooo I’ve had multiple teachers, even in my own department who were just given a class like “here you go.” Now go do something with it. After already spending a year and a half learning about pedagogical practices, I just can’t get over it all.

“Back to Papert though. If the megachange needs to occur in the mindset of educators and the basic philosophies of the education system. The focus of the parable shouldn’t be on technological tools. Because that’s all they are… tools.”

I completely agree with this. We’ve done so much reading on the importance of technology and embracing the new in the classroom. The lack of deep analysis or scrutiny of what technology is, the forces behind its development and adoption in the classroom, and whether we can theorize new mindsets about education beyond the framework of technology and the digital is a little bit alarming. Papert also implies a lot of false binaries, such as that between schoolers and yearners, that probably do moe harm than good.

Thank you for sharing your stories. Thinking about teaching, I feel like learning more about myself at the same time. It is my pleasure to explore your thoughts made during your teaching experiences because I don’t have teaching experiences yet.

I am really, really bad at being the mean guy. It seems to me like this is much more difficult than being the nice guy for almost everybody. I think age and year actually make a difference here — I teach mostly freshmen and sophomores, most of whom are still getting used to college. A little bit of hand holding with them strikes me as more appropriate than for a graduating senior. I’ll echo Kaisen here — whether you’re “nice” or “mean,” making your expectations clear in advance is the most important part. You need to be transparent and follow through on what you say you’ll do if you expect students to do this, too.

“last week we played twister to illustrate how nutrients attach themselves to soil particles”

What?!?! I need to hear about how you did this cause I absolutely love this idea! I love this post. Such good stuff about evolving how we teach as we gain experience. Everyone else had such good comments that I don’t have much to add but I am disappointed that I missed your mom talking about grades last week. I read your blog and loved your take on it.