How can I teach in a way that reaches every student without burning out and while being true to who I am?
How can we create new models of education that are fun and cultivate a better world while working within traditional education systems that make this work challenging?
Teaching is as much about the teacher as it is the students
I came to deeply appreciate this after reading The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. My Substack essay Who is the teacher that teaches? explores some crucial aspects of my identity that have shaped how I approached teaching in the past and how I want to approach it in the future.
One of the scariest questions to ask in a room full of teachers is “What are we even doing?” Is what we’re doing in the classroom making the impact that we want?
What impacts do I want?
It feels like I’m supposed to say that I want my students to gain an appreciation for statistics.
I’m not going to contradict that. That is something that I would be happy about. But is that it?
In the Afterword to The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer raises a provocative proposal for what we might wish for our students:
I have five immodest proposals regarding the education of a new professional:
- We must help our students debunk the myth that institutions possess autonomous, even ultimate, power over our lives.
- We must validate the importance of our students’ emotions as well as their intellect.
- We must teach our students how to “mine” their emotions for knowledge.
- We must teach them how to cultivate community for the sake of both knowing and doing.
- We must teach—and model for—our students what it means to be on the journey toward “an undivided life.”
What strikes me about these proposals is how they are so obviously not just about domain content. Having a goal for my time with students that is not solely about domain content captivates me. I do want my students to have an understanding of statistical tools, but if I were forced to choose between some domain knowledge and growing as a human, I would choose the latter.
In reality, I probably will never have to choose between the two in an all-or-nothing way. I have recently focused on trying to marry the two by encouraging my students to pursue project topics that are meaningful to them. I’ve tried out asking students to write down their 12 favorite problems on the first day of my data science courses. I can tell that some students love this exercise. I’m not sure how it resonates with everyone though. I’d like to try the following prompting question for projects…
What is something lacking in the world, and how can we make it better?
I like the potential for this question to spark meaningful project ideas. For one, it can encourage students to think about what they care about and long for. For students who do end up picking a topic that is personally relevant to them but who are nervous about sharing their connection to it, the framing of this question (how it’s not “What is something that you are lacking in the world”) allows them to center the topic but stay at a safer emotional distance from the topic, with room to get more comfortable showing connection with the topic as time goes on.
The “make it better” part invites action. Taking action is the best antidote for a fear of failure when starting something meaningful and uncertain. This part also very naturally nurtures a connection with data.
Essays
Since starting at Macalester:
- 12 Favorite Problems: The key to classroom community
- Coach, don’t just teach
- Grading doesn’t have to suck
Older (from when I was a graduate student):
- Fight every battle everywhere: this is science
- Teaching real math with computers
- Motivating the question
- Perspectives on the Interactive Mathematics Program
Notes
- A beautiful syllabus: A place to capture ideas on inspirational course design and structure
- Principles for giving feedback
- Grading
- Alternative colleges