Teaching Out of Time

I think that when I feel “out of time” in my classroom I am aware that I am very concerned about the students who don’t respond to the traditional stimuli. I wouldn’t complain about the lack of response if I didn’t care about these “new” students. I’ve recently returned to teaching after five years of working within my discipline in the public sector. From my limited perspective, I’ve noticed that there are now many more students who have this ticket-punching perspective and expectation about the University experience.

For my part, I don’t like being “commodified” by this increasingly common student who sees this “learning” process as a ticket-punching exercise and who views me as one relatively unimportant ticket-puncher. I was and continue to be attracted to teaching/learning because it is a highly interactive endeavor that requires trust, suspension of belief and disbelief, and emotional engagement. More than ever before, I am constantly asked or required to “advertise” and “demonstrate” my “value” to students, administration, and the general public. I had hoped that I entered an honorable trade or craft or profession that did not require such hyping. Now, like everyone else in this “neo-liberal” world, I feel reduced to one more little voice hawking my wares on a street filled with noise. I think the constant competition wears down both me and the students.

I certainly think that a virtual or actual university might be a place for reflection and learning for anyone at one time or another in one’s life. I value the existence of universities as centers within a storm where the participants can engage in active learning with each other. I’m not so sure that many others in the larger social community see the university in the same way. Universities seem to me to be the modern monasteries and I’m always hopeful that I can engage a few of the students into the adventure promised by this life of the mind connected to the heart of the world. I’m willing to try a number of teaching and learning methods to do that. Yet, in the end, I’m inviting them into a “discipline” that requires the development of certain knowledge, skills, and abilities related to the consideration and generation of ideas and knowledge. I want them to discover, from their own efforts, the endless reward that follows “becoming.” If students reject ideas and knowledge, or don’t believe the skills and abilities are worthy of their investment, I am not willing to manipulate them through fear, or simplicity, or a belief that they can get the discipline for “almost nothing.” There is no “becoming” in that life, only possession.