What I've Learned From Being a Teacher

We're in the final stretch of the TELS 9x9x25 Challenge, and next week my colleagues and I have been asked to devote our "pieces of writing" to reflecting on the process of writing our reflections.  With that in mind, I'm going to go slightly less meta this week, and spend some time reflecting on the ways in which teaching as an adjunct for Yavapai College has changed me.

At the risk of sounding corny, I didn't look for this job... it found me.  During the spring semester of 2010, I received a call from Connie Gilmore, Dean of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (now retired) for the Verde Campus, asking whether I might be interested in teaching a human services-related course that fall.  Connie knew me through my husband Jason, who was a new faculty member at Yavapai, and also knew (through conversations with him) that I had a broad background in social services.

In 2009, when we moved from Eugene, Oregon (go Ducks!) to the Verde Valley, I had made the decision to put my eight-year career in social services on hold with the intent of staying at home with our two sons, who were four and one at the time.  I had spent the previous three years working directly and indirectly with child victims of sexual abuse and other violent crimes, and I was tired, burned out, and as my friend and colleague Sal (who worked for many years as a therapist) says, "I just couldn't hear any more stories."  I'd eventually like to get some of those Child Fatality Review autopsy photos off the back of my eyelids, too, but that may not happen until all of my own children have reached adulthood... only 16 years to go...

In any case, the job offer came entirely out of the blue and seemed to provide an ideal balance: I could coordinate the online class around naptimes and preschool drop-offs, and it would allow me to spend part of my day engaged in something more stimulating than Candyland, laundry, and morning sickness (yes, an ultrasound would soon reveal baby #3 was another turtle, not a hamburger).

My qualifications were a little on the modest side, but they fit the bill for credentialing and I had a solid background in adult education.  I said yes.

I learned within weeks - long before the class was supposed to begin - that from a logistical point of view, being an adjunct is not all that different from being a crisis worker.  The rules, requirements, and circumstances are constantly changing, which means adaptation is necessary and expected.  I ended up teaching an entirely different class than the one originally proposed, and my work as an adjunct began that summer, rather than in the fall as anticipated.  When fall did roll around, I found myself teaching two different courses to three different classes.  Now when I total up the number of courses and credits I've taught for Yavapai, I'm up to five distinct course numbers and a total of 55 credits, which will increase to six and 59, respectively, in the spring of 2014.

And it has been wonderful.  I have learned a great deal through teaching, and it has changed me in some very real and significant ways.

One might think holding dual degrees in psychology and sociology would be enough to ensure a given individual knew a thing or two about the subjects, but learning enough to answer a few test questions simply can't compare to the level of knowledge that is developed through teaching.  Teaching is the single best way to learn everything about a subject.  Though there's little direct evidence for it, this is one of the major explanations proposed as to why oldest children do better in school and have higher IQs than their younger siblings.  But we oldest siblings already knew that...

Since I began teaching, every aspect of psychology and sociology holds more meaning for me than it ever did when I was a student.  It's not that I can answer just about any question posed by a teacher, I can answer just about any question posed by a student... which is a significantly more daunting challenge!  Jean Piaget and C. Wright Mills and William Masters and Virginia Johnson - these aren't people I read about in a textbook at some point, these are real people who made major contributions to the ways in which we understand and organize our bodies, our societies, our development, and all of the world around us.

I know it like the back of my hand now, and more importantly I care.  I'm passionate about it.  I can't even stop talking about it.  Go ahead, try me! 

I've learned how to deal with consumers and colleagues as peers.  In my years working with crime victims, I had relatively few interactions with people who were on equal footing.  There was a built-in power differential in virtually all of my relationships, which in most cases were extremely one-sided.  The people I served, call them clients, victims, or survivors, knew virtually nothing about me - I was reluctant to admit even minor details like my children's ages or where I went to college - and yet I was trusted with the intimate details of the most traumatic experiences of their lives.  In other cases, I was advocating for victims with people who had much greater levels of power than I did.  I recall once asking a prosecutor to move a Grand Jury involving a deeply religious teenager to a more child-friendly location, and later hearing he had made snarky comment about my request to another person in the office, suggesting I had overstepped my "inferior position" by making it in the first place.  ("What a jerk," my boss had said, shaking her head, when I brought it up to her later.)

As a college instructor, virtually everyone I'm dealing with is an adult, and the power differential between students and myself is really only as great as I want to make it.  I may ultimately enter the final grades in the roster, but I calculate those grades based on how many points each student earned.  I treat them like adults, and I expect adult behavior from them.  I am also surrounded by colleagues with whom I share experiences and who (I like to think) respect me as strongly as I respect them.

I've learned to handle disappointment.  To my knowledge, I'm the only adjunct instructor participating in this blogging challenge, and so I'll say this: although I love it, it's not always easy to be an adjunct.  It's certainly much easier for someone like me (who teaches as a side gig to supplement the family income) than it is for many others, who really desire and need full-time employment.  But even still, enormous paycheck uncertainty comes with the territory.  Such fluctuations in income can be difficult - one three-credit class is what it costs to cover out-of-pocket expenses for two trips to the Emergency Room, or take my family on a modest vacation, or pay for a year's worth of karate lessons for my kids.  We won't lose our home if I get only one or two credits in a semester, but not knowing can still be difficult.

Probably more difficult than the changing financial picture is not knowing whether (or what) I might be teaching the next semester.  All instructors understand that the amount of time and effort that goes into putting together a new class for the first time can be enormous - and we adjuncts often find ourselves teaching a new class (or two) almost every semester.  It can also be difficult to ask for classes, taking my hat in my hand to point out a gap in the schedule with the hope I'll be asked to fill it.  But learning to cope with and make the best of disappointing or uncertain situations is an important life lesson, too.

Photo Credit: Moorepixes Images by Sarah (Moore)

I've learned many other things from teaching, but my life has also influenced what and how I teach.  Among my most frequently taught courses is Human Growth and Development, and as a mother of three kids, I can safely say I've learned a lot related to the best ways to parent and care for my children.  At the same time, my role as a parent of three young children also influences how I teach the course.  In their final evaluations, students often remark on how much better prepared they feel to become parents, to parent the children they have, or to cope with the aging of their own parents.

While I certainly don't believe having children is necessary to teach a course on human development, I do think on an intuitive level, I probably weight certain aspects of the course differently than a non-parent would.  This is not to say my course is "better" or "worse" than another instructor's version, only that my own life experiences have deeply affected the way in which I teach it.

I'd like to remain an adjunct for Yavapai College for as long as they'll keep me.  Pending an unforeseen disaster, I'll be headed back to school next fall with the hopes of being able to continue to do just that, as new and improved credentialing requirements set in.  Because if I had to put a label on the most important thing I've learned about teaching - and learned from teaching - it's that I love it.  And I'm good at it.  And it's something I want to keep doing for as long as I can.