In search of good teachers

By Henry Bair     3/9/16 4:25pm

A quick glance at the comments students leave in course evaluations reveals that justifications for the high ratings of a professor often concern easily obtained grades, low workloads, a professor’s aptitude for making jokes and a general high entertainment value to the classes. Curiously, the mention of teaching itself is frequently missing. So what does good teaching look like? Being no expert on university teaching, in an attempt to answer this question, I can draw upon only my own experiences.

In previous opinion pieces I have contended that the purpose of a college education is not simply to stuff our minds with pieces of information, but to learn how knowledge is created as well as how to think analytically about and conceive our own arguments. It follows, then, that a good teacher facilitates precisely this type of learning. The teacher doesn't merely provide answers; he persistently questions a student how she knows what she knows, and challenges her to express her rationales in the most cogent manner possible. For only through this process can a student acquire standards of craftsmanship and scholarship and hone her critical sense, or the ability to discern what is false, inferior and transient from what is true, meritorious and enduring.

Inclusive conversation, the reason for all the fuss over small classes, is integral to this type of learning. Within these classes, disciplined yet open-ended discussions carefully overseen by the teachers foster grounded self-assurance and inquisitiveness in students. The teacher compels each student to feel and grasp his own thought processes, thereby building better-organized minds, able to write and speak with precise and articulate language. The best seminar discussions I have participated in crackle with intellectual dynamism as the teacher prods each student to bring something fresh to the table, constantly reinventing the way everyone sees the material at hand. The visceral exhilaration in such collaborative thinking, which drives students to throw themselves unreservedly into the conversation, is certainly one of the most valuable experiences to be had in college.

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The point of forcing us to confront our own opinions and reasonings? As Professor Mark Edmundson of the University of Virginia writes, capturing a sentiment long asserted by teachers from Socrates to T.S. Eliot, “The enemy of knowledge is not ignorance … but knowingness.” Knowingness is the impression we are perpetually current and on top of things; it's the self-congratulatory sense that we are in charge and have the ability to master anything. Today, it is fueled by the surfeit of media constantly presented to us and the glut of information so easily obtained through the internet. But of course, information is not the same as knowledge, and knowingness only serves to reinforce our prejudices. Teachers try to counter knowingness when they tear down our assumptions and probe us with at times infuriatingly impenetrable problems.

Effective teachers can also often convince us wholly of the importance of what we are studying, be it biochemistry, Latin or structural analysis. Not necessarily because a grasp of protein metabolism or Tacitus will get us a better job, but because through the humanities we can better know ourselves, through the sciences we can better know the external world and through engineering we can build a better future. These teachers make us feel a tinge of regret when we only half-heartedly engage with the material, because by doing so we miss out on the full cultivating and humanizing benefits of a rich and diverse intellectual and cultural inheritance.

What the best teachers can offer us, I suppose, is mentorship. It's intriguing how we don't hear this term much anymore, especially in the context of our interactions with professors. And yet, it's something I suspect many of us yearn for — someone who can teach us knowledge not just as a means for immediate and material ends, but as instruments to shape the mind and refine conduct and character; someone who is more interested in showing us how to live a good life than how to make a good living.

We students have perfected the techniques for acquiring and regurgitating massive amounts of information. But if there's something a bit hollow or formalistic to the whole affair, it's because we're seldom asked to reflect on how these facts pertain to each other and to the world, on whether they have any bearing on our outlooks. Which is why when we hear the phrase “life changing” used to describe a class (as we scarcely do), it usually indicates the professor's ability to relate the taught material to her own life experiences, or to the experiences of her students. The professor isn't reluctant to veer off topic and welcomes cross-discipline juxtapositions. A history discussion detours from studying a list of dates and events to consider whether civilisation is truly advancing, how history illuminates human nature, and how this vision of humanity compares with the ideas of Socrates, Rousseau, or Darwin. A discourse on genetic engineering turns into an exploration of the limits of biotechnology, of its implications on our future, and of its representation in science fiction. The teacher abstracts generalisations from the material that serve, if only subtly, to clarify and ravel the human experience.

Is this all too much too ask for? In a way, probably. Providing close mentorship is by no means expected of a college professor. In fact, the research-driven nature of academia — “publish or perish” — all but ensures that professors are disinclined from spending too much time on undergraduate students. Nonetheless, there are many who delight in helping students ask the big questions, who relish in helping students find meaning in life or who thrill at the prospect of simply marveling with students at the mysteries of existence. It would be a tremendous shame if we didn't even try searching for our mentors. And when we do find them, we should hold on, for they may be the epitome of the best that a college education can offer.

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