We’ve reached Labor Day, the unofficial end of the summer and start of another school year, at least here in the northeast. Often as a new school year begins, my thoughts turn toward teachers who have played key roles in shaping me and my life such as my father, a favorite elementary school teacher, and my doctoral advisor. However, as the sun set earlier each day and this school year approached, my thoughts have been focused inward, because for the first time in 13 years, I find myself standing at the front of a classroom, teaching a course on Assessment Programs to graduate students at Boston College.
My first concerns were whether I was up to the task physically. Could I make the 90ish minute drive to BC, teach a class from 4:30 – 6:50, a time of the day that includes my daily pre-dinner unwinding period (AKA nap time). And then make the drive home; night driving not being something I have reason to engage in on a regular basis these days.
The more pressing concerns, however, were related to the buzzword of the summer: student engagement. With all of the anonymity and lack of authority that comes with the position of adjunct faculty, would I be able to engage this group of students less than half my age in a way that got them engaged in the topic of Assessment Programs.
This, of course, is not my first rodeo. But this was not 1981 when, fresh out of college, I began my four-year (two part) stint as a high school mathematics teacher at Don Bosco Technical High School in Boston, where I engaged students by keeping on the move, talking none too softly and literally carrying a big stick. This was not 1989 and the first college class on assessment I taught to a group of prospective teachers not much younger than me. And as I’ve been led to believe by various mainstream and social media outlets, this wouldn’t even be the same higher education environment I experienced at BC between 2008 and 2012.
What’s a poor, old boy to do?
One could hope for at least a foundational level of engagement already built in. After all, these would be graduate students who had self-selected this program of study and to a certain extent chosen to enroll in this course. But we’ve all had to sit through those late afternoon courses when we just wanted to be at home, courses required for graduation or simply to fill out your elective dance card. It would take more than intrinsic motivation to engage these students in discussions of validity, fairness, and reliability.
So, I turned to my fallback experts.
I reread Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man and was reminded that I could keep them entertained (and perhaps engaged) for a while with stories of my life, but that eventually I would have to move beyond those to the actual subject matter. It’s a balancing act.
I turned to the aforementioned Don Bosco, patron saint of magicians as well as schoolchildren, who learned to apply skills learned from jugglers and other performers to draw students in with a performance before ending with a prayer or other lesson.
I still have my collection of psychometric props, including a scarecrow (i.e., straw man) and the ever-popular top hat, versatile enough to demonstrate hand scoring (i.e., pulling a number out of…) and to discuss Abraham Lincoln, slavery, and the minefields of assessing US History.
Teacher as performer.
I recalled the 2002 NEERO conference, that spring evening, my 43rd birthday, standing outside of the Hotel Northampton after dinner, chatting with my mentor and role model, Jim Rubovits, as I wrapped up my NEERO presidency and he wrapped up a distinguished career in teaching, Jim reflected on teachers as consummate performers, appropriating the line used by Frank Sinatra (and Robin Williams), “He goes to the refrigerator for a snack, opens the door, and when that light hits him, he launches into a 45-minute lesson.”
Teacher as performer.
The concept and importance of student engagement. It’s nothing new.
Sure, the world of social media and endless videos is different now than it was in the 1970s, but even then there was so much more engaging than spending a year translating Virgil’s Aeneid. Unless Mr. Jameson was teaching it.
In high school, English was boring. My friends and I got lost in the midst of the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks and to us a rose was just a rose. We devoted an entire year of English class to tallying the teacher’s use of his favorite verbal filler or staring longingly out the window. But then the next year there was James Joyce, perverse madonnas, barnyards, and that fascinating word, fecundity. I can’t speak for the rest of them, but I was engaged and have never looked back.
You never know how, when, or why engagement will kick in, so as teacher or student you just keep trying.
For my first class yesterday, our time together was heavily tilted toward life stories – sharing mine in the first hour, listening to theirs in the second. With just a few tidbits about assessment programs, assessment, testing, measurement, and the rest thrown in for good measure.
Know your audience.
I will restore the equilibrium next week as we dive headfirst into a discussion of validity – in our field it doesn’t get any more engaging than that.
And did I make it through that first class? As I wrote to a friend this morning, it’s just like riding a bike. I struggled to maintain my balance and after 2 hours my legs felt like jelly.
But it felt right. I was engaged.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
Embrace the Absurd 