Creating relationships
Saturday, September 27, 2008 at 1:26AM 
by barryneilI took a job as a teacher assistant for Intermediate German this semester. It's fun and I enjoy helping students master my oh so complicated native tongue, but man, there is something wrong with how many professors teach college courses. (If you are my boss and are reading this post, I am sorry, please don't take it personally.)
When most professors are teaching a class they try to get as much knowledge across as possible. Nothing wrong with that you might say. Try to remember some of your intro courses in college. Yeah, see, you probably don't remember a whole lot. The key is to get students excited about the subject. Not a whole lot of professors are doing that successfully. They know they won't be able to teach us everything we need to know, and even if they do, we won't be able to remember it all. Too few professors really get it.
The best way to add value to a student's education is to create passion and excitement.
Assuming that professors are passionate about their subjects (if you are not, don't teach) they should be able to bring it across (if you are not, don't teach).
In the example of the German class the students are overwhelmed with work and are therefore not liking the class. During the TA sessions I try to counterbalance the amount of work by helping with the homework and showing some German stand-up comedy. I still bet that only 20% of them will take another German class. It's sad because some of them really used to like the language.
It is the German professor's job to turn the students into better German speakers. Most of the language-learning will be done outside of class and probably in Germany. By trying too hard to deliver knowledge in class, the professor's teaching style is causing the opposite. The students might get better at grammar or learn some more vocab words but are not enjoying the language and most likely will not try and learn the language outside of class. It is a common mistake that many professors make.
Creating a relationship between the students and the subject is worth way more than at least half of the stuff on the syllabus.
Think about your customers in the same way. Having a good product and customers should not be your ultimate goal. Creating lasting relationships with your customers is what will pay your salary two years from now.
marketing
Reader Comments (3)
This is an interesting point.
Thanks for your comment. The other day I talked to one of my Entrepreneurship professors about it and I am happy to say that there are at least some profs who get it. He said that this is why it takes him so long to recruit faculty for his program. Teaching is way more powerful when it's not just a job to the prof, but is seen as an opportunity to share a passion.
"Teaching is way more powerful when it's not just a job to the prof, but is seen as an opportunity to share a passion."
If it were this way with every teacher, kids would hate summer (or at least I would).