By CandidProf, who teaches physics and astronomy at a state university. He shares his thoughts and experiences teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can be truly candid. Read all of CandidProf here.

Some students are just “needy.”  They want you to spoon feed them.  They don’t want to study and learn on their own. They would rather call you or email a question than to look it up on the textbook’s index.  They won’t go to the library to do research for a paper.  Instead, they’ll just do an internet search.  But they won’t do that to answer any of their questions.  If they hit a tough homework problem, they will come ask rather than try to puzzle it out for themselves.I don’t mind helping the ones that truly need it, but many of my students don’t even try on their own.  You can help too much.  Then the students don’t learn how to learn. But these are not the students that I really have a tough time with.  I can tell them to go work on it themselves for a while and then come back if they can’t figure it out after they try on their own.

However, some students have extracurricular life events impacting their studies.  Sometimes they tell me what is going on as a way to explain why they are not doing well.  Others try to turn to me for counsel.  Those students are tougher to deal with because my training is in physics, astronomy, and astrophysics—not in psychology.  In fact, I have never even taken a psychology class.

Students often look up to their professors, so that is why they come to me with all sorts of personal issues.  All I can do is listen sympathetically and be supportive, much as anyone else would do.  I can’t really advise them on anything.  I do tell them that perhaps they should talk to someone at the college’s counseling office, but often they are unwilling to admit that they need professional help.

Many students are dealing with difficult issues.  Most college students are young adults, and they are facing adult situations for the first time without parental support.  I also have many students returning to school after several years, and they face major life issues, too.  I have students come to my office to explain why they are not studying and doing well, only to break down in tears.

I have had students whose parents died; students going through a breakup with someone (including some students whose spouse left them midway through the semester); students losing their jobs; and even students diagnosed with cancer or other life threatening illness.

In most cases, there is nothing that I can really do.  I do listen and that is sometimes the best thing that I can do and sometimes that is all that they need.

I have spoken with faculty here and elsewhere, and we all agree that this is not something that we were prepared to deal with when we became college professors.

Our training is in our academic fields, but we are called upon to be teachers (most of us have never even had any training on how to teach), role models, mentors, counselors, friends, and even in-loco parents for our students.

A few universities offer support for faculty placed in these unfamiliar roles, but most do not, so we are left to fend for ourselves.

Join us next week for Dealing with student disabilities

Is this multi-role profile good for the students? For the professors?–Miki

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By CandidProf, who teaches physics and astronomy at a state university. He shares his thoughts and experiences teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can be truly candid. Read all of CandidProf here.

On my last post, I wrote about a student who was taking quite a bit of a colleague’s time.  Today, I wanted to write more about that topic.

[Thus starts a multi-part discussion of what today’s teachers face and the choices that they make. Miki]

Some students simply require more instructional time than others.

Sometimes they have gaps in their background that you need to fill in.  That means seeing you outside of class, since you can’t take up class time filling in gaps for everyone’s background.

Other students have difficulty mastering some topic in the class.  These students take more time.  In some cases, these students add significantly to my work load.

Unfortunately, the college administration likes to have bigger classes.  They see it is as more cost effective to have one professor teaching in one large class what would otherwise require several faculty members to teach several sections of the class. They don’t see the extra work on the faculty.  Administrators see you teaching the same number of hours, no matter how large the class, because they only look at the time spent lecturing and preparing for lectures.

They do recognize that three times the number of students would require three times the grading, but somehow that gets lost.  And they almost totally ignore the fact that three times the number of students likely means three times the number of students requiring addition effort.

Eventually, those out-of-class meetings take on as much time and effort as teaching an extra section of the class.  Of course, we don’t get paid for that.  Plus, we are still expected to teach the other classes, serve on committees, do research, etc., so our total productivity goes down.

But promotions and tenure often are based on those non-teaching duties, so that means that faculty wind up spending less time on the students who need extra time.  For some faculty members, that is just fine.  But for me it is a problem.

I take my duties as an instructor seriously.  But, I take my other duties seriously, too.

How would you handle the “extras?”

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CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts.

Last week I wrote about what is involved to be a good teacher. What I described takes a lot out of me.  It means that for every hour that I am in lecture, there are several hours outside of lecture associated with the class.  Every now and then, someone in the state legislature points fingers at the college faculty saying that we are overpaid because we don’t teach 40 hours per week.  A full load is considered only 5 classes per semester.  Depending upon the institution, some of that requirement is met by mentoring graduate students, and some is met by research in lieu of lectures.  But, that doesn’t look like much.  It doesn’t look like much, that is, until you look what some of us put into what we do.

For us, this isn’t just a job. It is what we do.  I feel responsible for my students.  I have dozens of students who sign up for the class expecting to learn something.  I feel that I am letting them down unless I give my all.  So, that is what I do.  And, that is what makes me successful.

Teaching is leading students.  You lead them to learning.  You can’t force the knowledge and understanding into them. You have to lead them to where they can learn.

Good leaders realize that leadership doesn’t stop at the end of the work day.  Sometimes, the leader has to put in extra hours just like everyone else.  As I see it, how can you actually be leading if you are not working as hard as those you are trying to lead?

What do you think?
Is teaching too easy?
Is compensation fair? High? Low?

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