Reflections on First-Year Teaching in the College Classroom
Elizabeth Haller
PhD Candidate and Teaching Fellow
Kent State University and Editor-in-Chief
Academic Exchange Extra
E-mail: editoraee@hotmail.com
Granted, with only five years of college teaching experience, I haven’t been in the field for that long. But I have, apparently, been teaching long enough for colleagues to feel comfortable enough to approach me with questions about ways to improve their own teaching techniques. I am speaking of one instance in particular. One of my office mates, a first-year instructor, recently asked me about my first year teaching in the college classroom and how I handled certain situations such as “calming teaching nerves” and assigning group work. During my first two years of teaching, I kept a weekly teaching journal in which I would write out some of my fears and frustrations regarding the classroom. The purpose being that perhaps I could learn from my own mistakes and/or successes. I let my office mate read two journal entries I wrote during this time, hoping they would provide her with some ideas as well as shed some light for her on how she is not alone in her fears. One of those short entries is included here. The next will appear in the June/July issue of Academic Exchange Extra.
September 15, 2003
I set out this semester making a conscious effort to just “be myself” with my class. Not come across as what I feel a teacher should be, but rather as what I feel I should be. It was at this time that I had a discussion with another teacher about “teaching by the seat of your pants.” It was in putting “be myself” together with “teaching by the seat of your pants” that I sat down to write this entry.
Don’t get me wrong, in no way do I think I am even close to being able to teach by the seat effectively, but I do have a few ideas on the subject. Last year, during my first two semesters of teaching, I taught the same subject: Freshman Composition. Though the subject was obviously not new to me from semester to semester, I still came to class prepared with outlines for discussion. I was very organized—to a fault, I think. My notes were neatly typed, with areas of importance underlined and/or highlighted. I printed a new copy each semester, because I did change a few minor details here and there to accommodate the changing needs of my classes, whatever they may be. For instance, instead of using a Gauguin painting as the focal point for an in class journal activity on observational detail, I switched to the painting “American Gothic.” The switch mostly came from the fact that I left the Gauguin overhead in my office (located in a different building from the one I taught in) one class period, but I had the “American Gothic” painting handy and used it instead. I discovered that the class had more active debate with this painting than with the Gauguin painting I had previously used.
I particularly enjoyed the group of students who, not yet made aware of the year of the “American Gothic” painting, responded to the question, “How are they dressed in relation to their surroundings?” with the oh-so-insightful: “Well, that’s how people dressed in the olden days. Ya know, the 1970s.” Since when did the 1970s become the “olden days”? What was even better was the affirmative head shaking of the rest of the class. Classic.
Back to my original thought. My organization to a fault idea stems from my conclusion that I was not confident enough in myself and my abilities to think that I could teach the same paper I had already been teaching to six previous classes without heavily relying on my notes. I was afraid I would leave something out, something pertinent to the paper that my students desperately needed to know to do well on the assignment. My notes became a crutch, and they made my discussion stale, in my opinion, and probably in the opinion of my students as well. I didn’t dare walk into class with the mindset that “today I will not rely on my notes,” for fear of leaving something out. Even moreso, I wouldn’t dare walk into class without any notes at all. Not come prepared, are you kidding me!
Then, a strange thing happened. Well, not so strange, maybe even illegal in some states. A friend/colleague of mine, who was not a stranger to teaching without reliance on notes and also taught extremely informally, sat in on one of my classes and told me I should loosen up a bit with my organizational skills and try “flying by the seat of my pants” once in awhile. Of course he would say this. I explained that perhaps we just had different teaching styles and should leave it at that. He said, “Look, you know this stuff. Don’t be afraid to admit it. You can teach these assignments blindfolded. Try leaving your notes in your binder and forgetting about them for just one class period.” I couldn’t fathom doing this, and I was terrified to even try. He knew this, which, I now realize, is exactly why he did what he did—he “misplaced” my notes. Yes, during a nice visit with him in my office just prior to class, I left to get a soda and came back to see my friend with a huge grin on his face. He was a little strange anyway, so I thought nothing of it at the time. I got to class a minute or two early, opened my binder, and quickly realized the reason my friend was grinning. All my notes were gone. I was too upset to freak out. I walked out of the room, breathed a few times, gathered myself together and said, “You can do this.”
I stumbled on my words a little at first, worried that I was leaving something out, then it occurred to me: I CAN do this. I took a deep breath, letting out my fears, and I talked—just talked—to my class about the assignment at hand. I had an active discussion with them, and it was, quite possibly, the best class I ever had up to that point. Yes, I mentioned things that I knew were in my notes, but I mentioned things that were not there as well—reacting from the active discussion rather than from my prepared discussion. We spoke to each other, and we had what I like to refer to as a conversation rather than a class. I felt they learned more in that one class setting than they had the first quarter of the semester—I know I did. I learned that my confidence in what I am discussing leads to my students’ confidence in what I am asking them to do. My willingness to “fly by the seat of my pants” leads to my students’ willingness to try something new.
While I could have throttled my friend initially for taking my notes, I ended up thanking him (after I was able to track him down) for giving me confidence in my teaching and for showing me that teaching isn’t about restricting students to learn what I want them to learn, it’s about allowing students the opportunity to realize their potential in taking a subject in new directions, even (and perhaps especially) in directions I hadn’t thought of.
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