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That’s me doing what I do best: talking with students.

Not at, with.

Like you and whatever it is, you do well; we fail as often as we succeed.

Embarrassing.

Worse, I’m describing the first of three reasons I thought Kamala Harris would beat Donald Trump.

Professors like threes; it makes them seem organized, even when wrong.

I’m 75 and have been in a classroom for half a century, starting with 6th graders and ending, well, I haven’t finished yet. Since 2018, when I retired from teaching Politics to college students, I’ve been on the Lifelong Learning circuit, with a few short appearances in Romania and Mexico. The photos are from last fall at West University in Timişoara, Romania.

Rodrigo S-C asks what we do well. And then gives us his answer.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?
28 writing prompts for February for the Challengedmedium.com

Power to the Powerless
Introducing Mediomanmedium.com

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“She’s a natural-born teacher.” We hear this all the time. Nonsense, and patronizing. No more than Michael Jordan was a natural at basketball. Jordan practiced his way to excellence.

For most of my teaching years, my practice involved learning about the topics I taught. Michael took 100s of jump shots every day during the off season. I read 10s of books every summer. I saw my craft as learning better content. Until Jenna knocked on my office door in 2008.

She was a psychology major taking my course on poverty and inequality. I developed this course soon after I arrived at Luther. It attracted majors from around campus and usually enrolled 30.

I was proud of keeping the course fresh by using different books each year. Books I had read the previous summer. Jordan was shooting. I was reading.

By the time Jenna took the course, I had replaced overhead transparencies with PowerPoint.

Slides.

Full of words summarizing the main ideas from the day’s reading assignment. High-tech transparencies.

I sent an email to Jenna asking her to stop by. She had earned an A on the first exam but was missing classes. That was an unusual combination. Usually, students who missed didn’t do well.

I asked her why she was missing class. “I’m bored in class. I don’t need to go. All you do is summarize the material.”

And then she added this kicker.

“You faculty are hiding behind Powerpoints.”

I felt my face turn red.

There was no smile from Jenna to soften the blows.

In response, I made comments about the value of in-class conversations. And about how I didn’t just summarize the reading but added insights from other authors and my ideas.

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I didn’t change right away. I fumed.

And told myself stories: I was a good teacher; Jenna was an arrogant student. True stories. But Jenna’s words wouldn’t go away.

I always prepared my classes in the early morning. Two hours into one morning’s work, I realized all my energy had gone into how to organize the perfect Powerpoint slide show.

And not what my students needed to understand that day’s assignment. Two weeks after Jenna’s observations, I stopped using Powerpoint.

Cold turkey.

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My favorite scene in Mr. Holland’s Opus, about a high school music teacher played by Richard Dreyfus, was after most of his students did poorly on a test. Those test results were a Jenna moment. He had to find another way.

In the next scene, he uses a piano to show his students how a Bach minuet formed the background of a pop song. You can watch this scene here.

I love this scene because Dreyfus’ Glenn Holland sits on the piano stool and talks to his students. And asks them questions about what kind of music they like.

Barriers down. He was still the teacher. But he had now joined the class.

It took me a year to revamp my pedagogy. Experimentation.

Finally, I developed an in-class template.

I broke our sixty or ninety-minute classes into 15-minute segments. Each was organized around a theme or question about the day’s assignment. I rearranged the classroom so that we were all facing each other. Sometimes I would be in the middle. I was part of the circle, prodding, questioning, and summarizing.

I relaxed in the classroom.

And started to arrive 10 minutes before the students filed in.

So I could smile and greet each one.

Teachers are made, not born.