Why I Love to Teach
Meg Steinke, GTF, English
For many GTFs teaching is an ordeal, an added workload, and undervalued, but necessary, means to obtaining a graduate degree. It is easy to begrudge the many hours (some unpaid) that we spend in preparation, teaching, and grading. Why doesn't someone pay us to hole up in the library and read books? While I will not argue that teaching lower division courses at a research university does not entail outrageous amounts of work, I would like to explain why teaching 47 undergraduates for three hours each week is one of the highlights of my life.
After two years of teaching and one year as a TA, I still haven't gotten over the wonder of getting paid to discuss with a group of people the things that I like to read. I've worked in the private sector for years and, believe me, there aren't many job out there that even come close to providing the exhilaration that I experience while teaching. I often leave the classroom energized and excited about the book that we've been discussing, and find that the students aren't always ready to give it up yet, either. Sometimes the discussion continues on the walk back to my office, or in a coffee shop on 13th Avenue.
As all teachers know, however, there is a lot more to teaching than the "classroom high." I can't honestly say that I don't resent all the time I spend preparing to teach. Of course I've read Pride and Prejudice a couple of times already, but do I really "know" the book? Am I ready to discuss the political and social background and implications of Austen's witty and provocative novel with a classroom of individuals who expect me to be the expert? Yes, I run scared a lot of the time. I'm scared of making a fool of myself in front of a room full of people. So I prepare, but I never feel ready. That's okay, though. Sometimes the pieces actually fall into place as we discuss the text and, while that prospect is indeed terrifying, it is also gratifying to know that I don't have to present a perfectly crafted lecture. If I've thought about the text, if the students have done their reading and thinking, and if we come together with an investigative spirit, amazing things tend to happen.
My advisor tells me that you never really know a text until you teach it. Of course he's right, and sometimes fear of appearing stupid is as good a motivator as you are going to find for becoming knowledgeable about a particular work. The practical benefits of this exercise should be obvious to those of us facing a tight job market in the academic world. The experience I gain from teaching in graduate school can only help me later, both in terms of looking good on my C.V., and in bolstering my confidence in my ability to work in the teaching profession.
And it's important work. Many times my office mates and I have asked ourselves if we aren't simply exercising an option of the elite. In the face of many serious problems in the world, reading and discussing literature seems like an expendable luxury, an indulgence, rather than a necessary service. But I have gradually come to see that the most important part of our task is to challenge our students to think critically, to get them to question all their assumptions, and to open themselves up to seeing other points of view. The class you teach may be the last time some of these people will be asked to examine themselves in this way. When I look back to some to the important realizations that I made while an undergraduate, I am sobered by my responsibility to present challenges to the students in my classroom.
Of course I find myself challenged as well. One summer my composition class included many foreign students, as well as individuals from minority groups in the United States. There were non-traditional students sitting beside people who had graduated from high school three weeks earlier. That class was the hardest teaching experience I have ever had, a time when I was forced to come to terms with my own narrow-mindedness. Suddenly my basis for grading written compositions had to take into account factors that I had never seriously considered. Should I demand that my students write a "standard" English composition, or should I give them credit for communicating from a world view that I did not understand and could only hope to partially grasp? Would I be able to be fair, not only in grading, but also in the curriculum and class discussion? I don't know if I succeeded with most of the students, but I do know that I came away from that class exhausted and sobered.
I also came away determined to be a better teacher, to suit my curriculum to my students' needs, not just to my preferences. Throughout my terms as a GTF I have tried to get to know my students, not just learn their names, but schedule one-to-one conferences or small-group meetings with them in my office. As I get to know them as individuals, I learn that some have recently lost a family member and are struggling to live above the level of grief. Sadly, many have told stories of date rape, assault, parental abuse, illness, and discrimination. While the hierarchy between teacher and student can probably never disappear completely within our system of education, I find that, as I get to know my students personally, I can be a better teacher to them. It is not enough to know the material you teach; you must know who is being taught and try very hard to be flexible enough to tailor your teaching to the needs of your students.
Teaching keeps me in touch with a wider group of people than I would probably encounter in any other job. Each term a room full of fresh faces greets me on the first day, a room filled with people who pay to learn what I have to teach. These people, each of whom I will come to know to some extent, challenge me to do my best. It is because of them that I love to teach.
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Last Modified:
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