It’s the first week of the Study Period, which means the first Zoom session with a new class. It’s not only about giving students’ brains an outline of the subject, and providing a practical walkthrough of the online site.
Whatever I say or do in that first session will help them to work out whether they can trust me, whether I can support their learning, whether I have unreasonable expectations, whether I will help them see perspectives they did not consider, will share freely or even whether I will be boring and ramble. (SPOILER ALERT: All of the above).
I am doing three different sessions for three different courses this Study Period. Today was the intro for students just starting in the degree who probably had not been in my class before. Tomorrow it is with a lovely and engaged bunch, the majority who just completed a course with me last study period. They will know most of my party tricks and greatest hits already (like “ I will give you lots of instructions about the things I DON’T care about, so that where you make the choices is the thinky work that we all care about”). I still need to explain the basics for students who have not completed my courses before… but what do we do, all pretend it is fresh?
As I gear up for introductory sessions with new students in a new Study Period, usually two scenes from films keep haunting me. Because I am nothing like them… really….although it is really tempting to tell students that they will have to pay for their degrees in SWEAT! ..
The first is from Alan Parker’s 1980 movie Fame, following the school years of high school kids at New York’s School of Performing Arts. The dance teacher outlines her expectations of her class.
The second, from James Bridge’s 1973 The Paper Chase, which follows law students through Harvard. The professor launches into an explanation of how his classroom runs, insults his students, and condescendingly tells them they will never have the right answer… Which is way, way away from what I would dream of doing…
Except, except….watching it back for the first time in forever, some of his ideas, some of the ideas about learning, are actually very similar to what comes out of my mouth, and I genuinely think this clip… first seen when I was in primary school (OK… it was a TV series too) has influenced my educational philosophy. Eeeep!
I don’t use the Socratic Method, where I ask questions on question on question to show up students’ lack of knowledge… but “I am helping you to learn how to teach yourself this subject”, and “you will learn how to ask questions” , “if you come out thinking there is far more to find out about, then we will have been successful”, and “my aim is for you to come out thinking like a l…ibrarian” all cross my lips during my intro sessions. I do not, would not, tell students, however, that they are coming in with a skull full of mush.
But these two clips make me feel like the Zoom sessions this week are kind of portentous, like I should make it a meaningful and memorable transition into something new and exciting and different …. like I will only be doing it right if I go big, set a stern and stony face, scare instead of inspire and enunciate. Every. Word.
Note to self: these commencement sessions are ONLY done right if your hands are kept totally still and clasped together, either behind your back or wrapped around a very big stick.