“Is a professor difficult or easy?” is the central question usually posed by students when faced with creating their schedule for an upcoming semester. While there are exceptions I’m sure, most students are primarily concerned with how much effort they will need to put into a class before they sign up for it. I am often this student. Unless a student is looking into a class that seems compelling to them, they tend to pick whichever professor seems easiest and move on. I don’t think students should seek out “hard” professors for the sake of them being hard, but I do think a shift in thinking could open up new possibilities in the kind of education students get.
Content is the primary (and proper) concern when deciding which classes to take. But within this concern lies all kinds of variables that relate to how a student retains that content. This is where picking a professor comes into play as they are the main conduit for how a student learns the course material. Instead of students concerning themselves with how difficult a professor is, they should focus on the style of teaching they will receive and how that style might push them or foster an environment for them to grow learners.
Intuitively, there will be some styles that work better for students than others, but the main concern should be how a professor’s style compliments one’s education. Diversity in teaching styles across the many classes taken over an average of four years can develop ways of approaching ideas and problem-solving differently. I spoke with two Union professors with varying approaches to teaching about their style and the benefits they see within students who apply themselves to their work. While not comprehensive, these interviews will hopefully open a window to a new way of thinking about interacting within the classroom.
Gavin Richardson, a professor of English at Union, spoke to the shifting landscape of teaching in the digital age and the adaptations he has made in light of the internet.
“When I was in grad school, the idea of the professor was that it was somebody who had read all the right books and had all the information,” he said. “These were gatekeepers who had information. One person described college as a place where the information in the yellowed notes of the professor makes its way to the notes of the student without going through the head of either.”
College used to be defined by access to information. They were churches for those hungry for knowledge but as Richardson pointed out, information has been democratized by search engines. The role of a professor has shifted to now narrow down what information must be examined.
Professor Richardson draws very few lines in the sand in his classroom when teaching literature. Rather, he prompts questions out of his students to teach not just any given topic but also the skill of understanding literature.
“I think a really rich discussion question has always been more interesting than a definitive, reductive and totalizing answer that has no nuance,” he said.
Students in a Richardson class will read aloud from works of literature and discuss their views on the meaning found in the text. It’s an approach that subtly keeps students on their toes. Richardson’s approach encourages students to ask similar questions about what they read outside of class and in general how they feel about stories.
The broader implications of how a subject is taught appear to be a theme in how Union professors approach their fields. Keith Bates, a professor of history at Union, wants his students to apply what he teaches to whatever field they enter into.
“What I try to do is cover as many topics as I can but also try and draw meaning from them,” he said, reflecting on his approach to teaching which pushes students to draw their own conclusions from what they learn about history. “I try and make sure students understand we don’t study the past because of the present. Meaning we don’t just transpose the past onto the present because context always changes but we can certainly gain some wisdom about how events took place and what draws people to certain elements.”
For most students who aren’t planning on studying history, a history 101 class can seem tiresome, but Bates weaves history into a story. He’s more concerned with exploring why history has played out as it has than reading dates out of a textbook.
“I think having a sense of what’s come before us and what human beings are like is pretty important in all kinds of areas,” he said. “I’ve had conversations with students where maybe this isn’t the easiest subject for them, everyone’s brain works differently. But say they go into nursing, what I’d say to students like that is: ‘wouldn’t it be helpful to learn what motivates human beings because you will be spending your whole life helping humans?’”
There’s an approach to non-major coursework that incentives checking a box. There is certainly more motivation to put more motivation into the coursework that feels more important but oftentimes, professors’ styles of teaching subjects can show students new ways of thinking about whatever field they go into. As students begin to sign up for next semester’s classes, they should begin to question not just what they are learning but also how they are learning and how different methods can change their perspective.
