Instructors are Human
SaveThe purpose of this article is to let students in on a little secret: more often than not, the whole "treating students like adults" is actually just something we say to justify our classroom policies.
By Xavier Royer
"We have to treat them like adults" is a common line amongst higher education faculty, usually in reference to new students failing to shed high school habits. However, all teaching faculty are bound to interpret this in their own way. Some take a very "no-excuses" approach to things like late-work and absences, stating that students "are adults who should be able to manage their time." These are instructors that want proof before they excuse an absence, such as doctor's notes and obituaries.
As a professor, I find myself on the other side of the spectrum. I have hard deadlines and (hopefully) clear expectations, but I do not think an extension ever killed anyone. Brand new "adults" have myriad other new responsibilities that might necessitate the deprioritized of my course in the short term. Neither the strict nor laid-back faculty are "right" about this: the courses I teach are fairly malleable. Others are necessarily structured that missing even a few classes would jeopardize students' success.
The purpose of my short anecdote is to let students in on a little secret: more often than not, the whole "treating students like adults" is actually just something we say to justify our classroom policies. "We should treat them like adults" is often actually just a polite way of saying "because that's how I want to run my classroom." No longer is the strict instructor annoyed by extension requests and suspect excused absences, they now have "clear expectations that teach responsibility." As for those of us on the laid-back end, "students are adults, they can make their own decisions" is often just code for "I do not have the time or willpower to keep track of my students that closely or argue over requirements." In either case, it is simply to run our classrooms the way we want to.
Students and Instructors Goals and Responsibilities
The moral of this story and point of this article is that just how students have their own goals, preferences, responsibilities, and talents, every instructor is unique in the same ways. We get along with each other to varying degrees, and often departments house as much drama (if not more!) than the dorm rooms.
Why is this important? Understanding that faculty are individuals, with their own goals and preferences, can help students be successful in the classroom. Imagine stepping up to the plate in a baseball game. You know the first pitcher you have bat against cannot put spin on the ball, but he can throw his fastballs harder than most other pitchers. Later in the game, you face a different pitcher. He does not throw nearly as hard, but he can throw a lot of different pitches with very deceiving amounts of curve. Both are very strong pitchers, but they are going to employ different strategies to strike you out. This means you must adapt your own strategy to your batting. In a similar way, each instructor is going to have different goals and talents in the classroom, and will adapt their course to suite those goals and talents as much as possible.
Take myself and my officemate, for example. We get along excellently, but have very different teaching styles. My goal for my class is partially to introduce new content to my students, but it is important to me that my students wrestle with that content in class. If I can avoid turning the computer and projector on, I do. Instead, I favor a fresh Expo marker that allows me to try to capture or lead class discussion as new ideas come to mine or my students' heads. My courses lend themselves more to wandering discussions with no specific end point. My officemate, on the other hand, has very nicely laid out PowerPoints that articulate everything his students need to know as he elaborates.
His goals are very different as his courses are much more grounded in the content than the discussion. He has two-way traffic during his class discussion, but his students ask more "what" and "how" questions, while I am looking for students taking cracks at solving the "why." To accomplish our different goals, I assign more papers with open ended prompts while he does more multiple-choice tests and quizzes. Neither is more "correct" than the other, and some students will appreciate his class more than mine and vice versa. Instead, our classes are built to achieve our individual goals.
At minimum, this article hopefully sheds some light and alleviates some frustration for students who are unsure why their instructor has the policies or assignments that they do. In a best-case scenario, a student can use an instructor's philosophy to get out of a jam. Approaching conflicts with instructors by appreciating there is probably a reason for their policies will often lead to a better starting point than an approach agnostic of the instructor's goals and preferences. Offering a solution that skirts a policy but addresses the goal or solution backing the policy can often put an instructor in a better mood to negotiate.
Xavier Royer
I am currently a full time instructor at a William Penn University, a small private university in Iowa. I am the lone political science faculty member there. In my time teaching, I have already connected with an incredible cohort of students in ways I could never have expected. Partnering with SAGE will allow me the opportunity to help even more students across the globe navigate those tricky questions.Articles & Advice
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