TITLE: What Our Students Think of Us
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 17, 2012  3:32 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Following a recommendation on Twitter, I recently read
<A HREF="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?277207">
   Am I A Product Of The Institutions I Attended?</A>,
the text of a speech by
<A HREF="http://www.amitabhabagchi.com/">
   Amitabha Bagchi</A>.
Bagchi is a novelist who studied computer science in school.
It is a reflection on what we learn in and out of school,
which isn't always what our schools intend.  He closes the
paper with some thoughts on being a teacher.

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
... as all of us who have been teachers for even a short
while know, all we can do is give people an opportunity
to learn.  And if they don't learn, we can give them
another opportunity, and another.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Students learn on their schedules, not ours.  All we can
do is to keep providing opportunities, so that when they
are ready, an opportunity awaits them.

This passage:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Like so many other teachers I spend a lot of time thinking
about my students, and, also like many other teachers, I
don't spend enough time thinking about what they think of
me.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

... launches a discussion that touched a chord in me.  As a
high school student, Bagchi realized that students see their
teacher as a figure of authority and decorum no matter the
reality on any given day.  The teacher may be young, or
inexperienced, or emotionally out of sorts.  But to them,
the teacher is The Teacher.

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
So there you are, you poor teacher, frozen in eternal
adulthood, even on those days when you wish you could just
curl into a fetal position and suck your thumb instead of
having to stand up and talk for an hour to a room full of
young people who are looking at you, or at least should be
looking at you.  Sometimes in the nitty-gritty of the
syllabus, the announcements about exams and homework, the
clearing of the last class's doubts, you forget about the
current that emerges from your body and flows out into the
class.  You forget what you mean to them.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's wise to step back occasionally and remember what your
students mean to you, and you to them.  Long after the
details of any homework assignment or midterm exam have
left our minds, these relationships remain.

(And, as important as these relationships are, they are not
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2012-03.html#e2012-03-25T11_18_50.htm">
   the most important relationship in the classroom</A>.)
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