On Teaching and Failing (a sorta rant)

I’m not a great teacher. Or a bad one. Neither the inspiring type you’d see in the movies—no one’s standing on their desk for me—nor the guy sleeping in his chair while his students take cookie-cutter exams. I assign papers— rarely, if ever, tests. My teaching life has been dominated by reading essays (mostly written by college freshman) and trying to find ways to make the students writer “better,” whatever that means. To get them to do this, I assign readings that I think will generate interesting discussions followed by informed essays. Not always the case. Is there a universally interesting topic?

 

In my decade + of standing in front of a room of excited, anxious, bored, eager to impress, combative, tech distracted, or not-quite-sure students (and almost eight months of trying to teach over Zoom), I’ve made some observations, as well as serious adjustments to my plan. Much like the Cubs fans whose mantra “Next year” has carried them through many a sad autumn and winter, no semester is finished before I proclaim, “I know what to do differently next time.” But here’s the thing: I really don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing.

 

This is not something I’m eager to admit. While I am self-aware enough to know that, yeah, no one’s reading this, and if they are they’re probably not in the position to offer me a sweet gig teaching creative writing, I’m nevertheless hesitant to type those words. Years of faking it until I make it (should be any day now) have conditioned me to never admit the truth: I’m flying half blind.

 

*

 

My first semester teaching college composition was brutal. Thankfully, I had sample syllabi to guide me, some support from my department director, and my own history of taking comp classes to draw on. I remembered the assignments I had to endure: describe baseball to a Martian. Pretend you were burglarized and write a police report about the goods stolen from your room. That sort of thing. The comp teachers were interested in detail, description, precise language, and explanatory sentences. They were not interested in validating our lived experience or personhood or any other trendy grad school phrases I might employ. They wanted us to write well.

 

We students, naturally, assumed there was a way to write well, and that we did not possess the skill to do so. Or maybe some did, because writing well was an inherent talent, and one either had it or didn’t.

 

I didn’t. I was a remedial kid all through high school who went directly to a junior college because my guidance counselor didn’t think it was worth my time to apply anywhere else. And while that school (Moraine Valley Community College, god bless it) remains the best of all the colleges I’ve attended (and I have an MA from Northwestern, thank you very much), it does not share the reputation of the so-called “real” universities. I was a lousy student in high school made well aware that I did not belong in a real college. I knew who I was and what I wasn’t, and I was not an academic, much less a good writer. Go ahead and try to teach that kid.

 

Pecking away at the clunky keyboards of 1989’s computer labs, I approached my assignments like the chores that they were. As much as I hated tests, I would have welcomed them instead. At least a test ends before long. I knew I had the hour to do my best, make guesses, pray for a C. Then it’s over and time to forget it, go grab a smoke with the gang in the student center before the next class. But an essay. . . There’s a due date, sure, but writing it means making time. It means ignoring the radio and the TV and the nice weather and sitting in front of a computer (not an everyday thing in the late 80s-early 90s). It meant going to a computer lab, never fun. I was freaked out by the amount of time I had to write. Of course, I spaced out until I had no chose but to admit defeat, say fuck it, I can do this tomorrow, the assignment hanging over me. There’s always tomorrow until there isn’t.

 

But here’s the thing: for as much as I hated writing, I liked reading. Mostly horror novels, then some “literary” stuff, Anthony Burgess and George Orwell at first, their books being sensational enough to capture my interest. And then I found Kurt Vonnegut in the library and his books were all I wanted to read.

 

None of this was on the syllabus. Most of it was dismissed by the academy, if the academy deniged to comment. To this day, I know English profs who’ll scoff at the suggestion that Kurt Vonnegut is the finest 20th century American novelist. I’m open to the debate. The profs might bring up names like Pynchon or DeLillo or other heavyweights with heavy books, but they usually just assess Vonnegut as “light” and fun, sure, but not “serious” literature. Because serious literature, apparently, should not be fun. It should be homework.

 

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I’ve read comp theory and other pedagogical texts that discuss the important link between reading and writing. But what’s the point when we’re asking our students to read what we think they should and write in ways that are foreign to them? If any of my teachers would’ve allowed me to write a paper on Stephen King or Vonnegut, I might have seen myself differently. I might have understood that I had a right to enter the big academic discussion and share my point of view. I know this for certain, because a teacher did just that. I enrolled in a class through my community college’s Alternative Learning Center where I got to pick my teacher, and, with his blessing, I got to pick the books I wanted to read. The sole requirements of this independent study were that I check in with him periodically and write papers on the books, the topic of which he’d help me develop, but mostly I was free to write what I wanted, reactions to the horror novels I chose as the course’s theme, observations on the structure of the novels, insights into the way this genre adhered to classic storytelling arcs as well as ways they subverted them. I wrote with abandon and joy. I got an A.

 

Those essays were likely crude mish-mashes of awkward sentences and goofy syntax, not to mention littered with spelling errors (these were the days before Grammarly or even spell check). But my instructor wanted to see something other than perfect grammar and punctuation. He was interested in my ideas and reactions to the texts. And I had a lot to say about them. He must have known that, eventually, I’d get to a place where my thoughts were better expressed. His job was to get me thinking. And the best way to do that was to let me explore a genre I enjoyed. Of course, he worked with me to make sure I was articulating something, analyzing the texts, and thinking beyond my cursory responses, none of which felt like a chore because I loved the material. And I loved the conversation, the discussion between me and the text and the instructor. I loved sharing my insights, even if I didn’t think of them as insights. Probably because I wasn’t burdened by the need to produce insights.

 

Within a year, I reading Byron, Kerouac, Bukowski, Anne Sexton, Hemingway, the sort of stuff I can’t read now but got me excited as a twenty-year-old. But my writing didn’t improve. That may have had something to do with my next step in higher education, for I’d gone as far as I could in junior college. Transferring to a university, I experienced a culture shock. No one was holding my hand or letting me find my own footing or whatever other metaphor I might mix. Thinking that I’d had some success with reading books and writing on them, I declared myself an English major. I was assigned the classics: Don Quixote, Astrophil and Stella, Don Juan, The Divine Comedy, and a bunch of other books I was half-ready for. Some stuck, others. . .  not so much. But I managed to write a few good papers before I decided that school and I were a mismatch. The root of this conclusion: I didn’t understand the logic of taking classes not in my major that I would only pass by the skin of my teeth. I wasn’t learning anything, just memorizing enough to get a C, at best. And yet I was supposed to take on more debt so that I could pretend I knew something about algebra?

 

My rejection of college, this complaint about core requirements, was hardly original. I was not the first to make this criticism. And while I can (sorta) defend the core curriculum now, I’m sympathetic to the problem: students are not being told why they need to know a little about philosophy, science, mathematics, literature, and history. And they are not made to see that all these studies are related. But, and this is the biggest issue, they are being graded on their ability to grasp concepts they don’t think they need to know. Not to mention a college degree has become the new diploma, a rite of passage before one goes off to the professional world. How exactly is one supposed to “appreciate” poetry if they’re just in school to get a BA and then, hopefully, a steady gig?

 

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As I am not the first to make any of the above observations, what I am about to propose is also nothing new. But that hardly means that this proposition is without merit. Scores of academics will disagree, possibly just as many who might agree—there’s no way for me to measure, as I’m a non-tenure track faculty member and need not burden myself with making a qualitative or quantitative study of this. I’m just a guy writing a blog post, so I can write whatever I want without backing any of it up. What fun!

 

The idea, right. . .  here goes:

 

Grades are dumb. We should stop giving them. They serve no real purpose. Sure, they allow us to evaluate students, rank them, give them a sense of satisfaction or, all too often, failure, but what do they really mean? Maybe, and for all I know this may not be the case, they make more sense in a math class where there are right and wrong answers and a good (if confusing) system of demonstrating why and how an answer is right or wrong, but for English classes? Nah. They do more harm than good.

 

I’m currently wrapping up a semester with one class devoted to tutoring pedagogy. It’s a fun class for me, and the students appear to enjoy it. This is a class that requires a set amount of “experiential credits” mostly achieved through tutoring my other students in ENG 101. Of course, this being a class held over Zoom, earning these credits is not always easy. But even if we were meeting face-to-face, the outside of class requirements are difficult for busy students to complete. One student sent me an email arguing that I am valuing quantity over quality. If they are able to generate good reflections and create a solid tutoring philosophy from three sessions—all three possibly offering different experiences that cover a decent range of tutoring challenges—then are they not enough? Do students really need a full seven sessions, especially when their time is otherwise taxed? What else am I doing here but generating anxiety?

 

I knew this already. I’ve often dropped a few of the experiential requirements or found ways for students to earn these credits through alternative assignments. My student wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. And yet, every year I make it mandatory that the students spend at least seven hours outside of class working as tutors. Because, I guess, seven is the correct number? Ironically, I only make my actual tutors—the ones getting paid—train for approximately three hours (the very number my student suggested was sufficient).

 

It appears I’m as guilty as the rest. Rather than let the students develop the curriculum with me, I impose one on them. There’s a standard, one above questioning. This is the way it is. Do it and do it without asking why and you’ll get a good grade. Question, defy, or slack when it seems pointless and watch your GPA suffer!

 

*

 

To consider what I think education ought to be, we’ll go back to the philosophers, both students and teachers, who used to get together to talk about stuff for a long ass time. Rather than measure learning in some systemized way, they had a chat. The wise man (who knew he was wise because he knew how little he knew) asked questions, sometimes in an annoying manner, and then more questions once there were answers, because the answers often caused more questions, and a back-n-forth occurred. This was called discourse. The chats could be long or short. They might go on as long as they needed to or fizzle. But they were not confined to an hour and fifteen minutes, not counting the time it takes to document attendance and set up the damn PowerPoint slideshow.

 

The idea of Socrates giving Plato a letter grade makes me laugh. Well, now, Plato, you’ve done well this term, though you did disappear for a bit after Spring Break, and now that we’re a week away from the final exam, I’m concerned about the make-up work you need to complete in order to pass. Your last three quizzes were good, but you’ve missed more than the absences allotted by the syllabus, so I’m not sure you’ll be able to get by with more than a C-. You might consider taking this class again when you have the attention and time to devote yourself to it. If you have any other questions, email my TA.

 

Maybe I’m over-romanticizing classical ways of creating knowledge. After all, I’ve not read the Greeks for a long time (and only because a philosophy teacher made me), so I’m likely full of shit. But I do know that the way I came to see myself as worthy of remarking on anything related to school was through exploration of my own interests coupled with some engaging instructors who saw that their job was to get me to give a damn about the course rather than expect me to care or prostrate myself before their alter.

 

This is not to say that we should bend completely to the will of the students, but jeesh. . .  maybe start by appealing to them a little? In a class like ENG 101, often the first class incoming freshman take, what is accomplished by inundating students with material they can’t relate to? Sure, that’s going to be much of what they encounter in college, but maybe let’s get their feet wet with some topics they can respond to. And let’s have some discussion. Drill for skill quizzes and lectures where the students never get a chance to talk are doing nothing for the aspiring writer/thinker. They need to read, think, engage in discussion, talk, venture ideas, have them challenged, think some more, talk a lot more, get ideas, write notes, write drafts, have them read, get both feedback and feedforward, rewrite drafts after seeing the perspectives of their peers, add to their ideas, develop their arguments, and sure, polish their writing, but based not on strict grammar rules (many of them debatable) but to achieve a form of clarity that reflects a reader’s ability to follow the writer’s ideas. This comes only after the writer knows what it is they want to say, not to mention sees themselves as worthy of saying it.

 

When instructors complain about shitty papers, what they mean (when not being strict grammarians) is that the students are not making sense. This is likely because the students don’t know what they think about a subject because they have not been encouraged to see themselves as having anything to say. They don’t know or they don’t care. And so they churn out something resembling an argument that is muddled and confusing. When they know, when they care, when they feel permitted to comment, they comment with clarity, despite a few fragments and run-ons.

 

But I have to wonder: why are we even teaching them how to write?

                                                                                                              

At the risk of making my profession obsolete (more so than it is already), I can’t help but wonder what we really seek to achieve when we teach comp. Stanley Fish believes that the good comp class will examine writing with an emphasis on syntax and the way writing refines thinking. His critics argue he’s reinforcing classist and racist traditions that created so-called “standard English,” which doesn’t allow for regional or cultural dialects other than white English. Fish would hate my classes. He’d argue that what I am teaching are Social Justice Studies or Contemporary Issues courses. He disdains the practice of assigning readings that the students are expected to respond to at the expense of close scrutiny of sentence construction. And he’s probably right, but I don’t care. I know my students. The ones who like my classes tell me they like arguing about things, especially during class discussion. My hope is that they then make these arguments in writing, having the ability to come up with salient points and after addressing counterclaims verbally. Because most of us do this all day long. We talk, argue, often without thinking, sure, but sometimes the only way to understand what one really feels is through exhausting the knee-jerk reactions and addressing the constraints that produce opinions. We obnoxious instructors call this “Interrogating assumptions.” We push students to go deeper, sure, but only after they feel comfortable speaking their minds. Imagine that: a classroom of experts all qualified to discuss ideas and issues, all with points of view informed by their races, genders, cultures, religions, and unique experiences. Sounds a dash better than being lectured.

 

So again, I ask: why do we insist that the end result of this discussion be written essays? Okay, I know—the written word is a supremely beautiful thing, and important across disciplines, and clear writing is prized in just about every profession imaginable, but if my real goal is to have students be able to make strong arguments and examine ideas and develop “new knowledge,” and if they can do this without having to slog through textbooks and spend anxious hours trying to put in writing what could more easily come out of their mouths—and if what comes out of their mouths is likely easier for me to follow than the rushed essays that don’t resemble what I call “good writing”—then what’s the point? Why not judge them on in-class discourse? The ideas may be as defensible as any they’d pen, yet, when grading the written work, I’ll ding them on grammar and, god help us, MLA formatting? Fucking silly, really.

 

*

Might we practice a form of education that allows students to co-develop the curriculum? Might we spend more time (without any clock ticking to tell us that the class is soon to conclude) engaging in verbal discourse, following the natural progression of a conversation with its many strands of thoughts and related ideas and, sure, digressions? Might we make education voluntary, subsidized, a thing born of a desire to grow and learn and challenge, something fun, an enterprise that needs no long think pieces or blog posts (ahem) to justify? Might we create a space for free-flowing dialectics? Could we possibly divorce higher learning from the trade school mentality (trade schools, ironically, present better opportunities for “problem posing” education than some universities) that churns out trained professionals? Might we return to a place where education, at this level, is seen as a chance for intellectual development, not a necessary step before going to law school and getting a clerkship, first-year job, partnership, mansion, boat, trophy spouse, secret paramour, divorce, ulcer, forced early retirement? Am I mad to imagine higher education with fewer administrators and less bureaucracy? Okay, sure— I’m going too far with that last question.

 

*

 

Look, I know I’m talking (er, writing) out of my ass here. Rather than let this already lengthy blogthing devolve into full rant, I’ll wrap up with a sort of statement of concerns:

 

  • We in the comp circles are not really preparing students for the expectations that other classes will put on them. Their history, psych, soc, and poly-sci instructors are probably unconscious prescriptivists. They won’t be as willing as us to overlook grammar and punctuation errors.

  • Those outside of comp circles need to chill on grammar. Look at the ideas. Relax a wee bit on the mechanics. Recognize that some of these so-called rules are indefensible, and all of them are made up anyway. Clarity is all that matters. When grammar and punctuation aid in clarity, bring it up. But is anyone ever really confused by a comma splice? Do too many adverbs really bother you (if so, sorry).

  • All of us, regardless of our discipline, should rethink what we do in class. How much time do we allot for discussion? Do we encourage students to bring their experiences into the discussion? Are we making space for work that speaks to them or are we pushing the same texts we endured because, well, I had to read this, so fuck you? If we are teaching a survey course, can we look beyond the cannon? If we’re teaching the first half of a Brit Lit survey, have we included Aphra Behn? If we’re teaching 20th century American lit, how much of the Harlem Renaissance is represented? (For the record, I need to improve here.)

  • Have we tried to reclaim a kind of educational practice that values real learning, not just validating students for going through the motions and memorizing things and regurgitating them for a passing grade?

  • Are we, in our well-meaning liberal approach, validating students without challenging them? Are we being unconsciously oppressive by championing their “natural voice” even when that voice creates sentences that are objective muddy? Are we ignoring the English language learners who just want some understanding of how standard English grammar (with all its racist, classist, sexist baggage) works? These are the students who won’t feel “empowered,” despite all our rhetoric, when they don’t have command of the language.

  • Have we explained the benefit of studying subjects outside of majors? Do we have a good justification for the core curriculum? Do we fail in our effort to create “complete” students?

  • Are we too far gone?

 

Regarding the last concern: I sure hope not. And I don’t necessarily believe so. But I have my concerns. I doubt they’ll vanish, but I can try to do my best to address them and tailor my practice accordingly. Still, it’s a hard fight when the culture has morphed education into a product with tangible results and an arbitrary grading scale.

 

Oh well, no point ranting onward. Fight the good fight and work within the system to change it, I guess. That or quit and start my own school based on my half-assed ideas. Maybe I’ll get lucky and strike it rich and can operate this imaginary thinkatorium independent of the need to make profit. Best get to work on the big best seller.