or do therapy? or do anything?
In three weeks, I’ll be back on contract. That makes this as good a time as any to ask, Why am I doing this?
For me, there’s three factors.
- I know my stuff. I have privilege. That carries obligations to those who don’t and haven’t.
- I love what I do and feel an overwhelming sense of
- Gratitude for the great good fortune of being able to do it–sometimes I still can’t believe I get paid for this!–all these years. (I’m paid peanuts, of course, but that’s another rant for another day.)
On r/Professors last semester, I called myself a “teacher” and a commenter jumped all over me. “Why do you call yourself a teacher???” etc., as if “professor” was something more valuable. I’m not sure. But it was weird, how really incensed he got about it.
Along about the same time, in another thread I got told (by the same guy? who remembers?) that it was “creepy” that I said I loved my students (!), he certainly didn’t love his students, blah, blah…. Again, quite incensed about it.
And I’ve been thinking about those two incidents ever since, because “teach” and “love” go straight to the heart of why I do this. It’s like this dude was [or these dudes were] completely missing the entire point.
Let’s tackle love first
I actually felt sorry for the commenter in the second case: If you don’t love your work, love the people you do it with (colleagues and clients/students), what even are you doing there? And how sad for you! I would not want a job where I could not love my work, my craft, and the people I do it with and for. Can’t imagine it.
(Well, yes. Having worked as a typist for Dun & Bradstreet once, I can imagine it–I used to joke that when I died and went to Hell the Devil was going to set me up for all eternity with a Selectric and a stack of D&B reports–but still. You get my meaning.)
Where was I? [Checks notes.] Oh, yeah. OK.
Perhaps it would be creepy if I were in the habit of telling individual students that I loved them but I would never, ever, not in a million years do such a thing. Rather, I love what I do, I love my students as a class, in the sense of affection, fondness, appreciation, and enjoyment–delight, even–and I do tell them that occasionally. “I love you guys!” when they’ve done something sweet for each other or produced some awesome work or had a particularly lively and intelligent discussion is not creepy.
How someone can not love a class under such circumstances is mystifying. And said to a lecture hall of dozens of students of all ages and genders, it is not creepy. In fact, that this guy thought it was probably says more about him and how he does think about students than it says about me. (Again, another subject for another time.)
Could It Be That You Can’t Love People You Don’t Respect?
Maybe that’s why I’m mystified: Because it’s sort of automatic for me to respect people, whereas we live in a culture of disrespect. (And people who think teachers are less than professors are being disrespectful as hell.) We are always attuned to matters of class and rank, to where we stand in the pecking order — and woe betide anyone on the rungs below. And then of course there are some people who just seem, as individuals, to be particularly snobby. We’ve all known at least a few: No one, it seems, is safe from their disdain or their verbal abuse. (The popular thing these days is to call everyone like this a malignant narcissist: We’re not going there, for reasons we’ll get into…in another post, another day.)
(Automatic respect can get misinterpreted: I’ve been accused of wanting to be friends with my students. Stuff and nonsense! We’re not equals: You can’t be friends with people you’re in a power relationship with. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a friendly, respectful attitude towards everyone you encounter.)
With some professors I have observed a tendency to overvalue the doctorate, to demand respect for themselves while believing it somehow frees them from any obligation to show respect for others who might be just as smart, just as knowledgeable, but who for one reason or another, lack the terminal degree. They seem blissfully unaware that there is often no difference in intelligence or drive between them and the person with a masters–or, for that matter, the para-pro with the high school diploma*. To a degree (if you’ll pardon the pun) the difference is often only a matter of privilege: The “I’m-a-doctor-and-don’t-you-ever-forget-it” crowd as often as not are people who were born on third base but think they hit a triple.
*Did you know that the guy who invented the microwave was a self-taught physicist who dropped out of school in the fifth grade?? Learned that from Alexa this morning and have no earthly idea how to cite her. So I’ll give you the Wikipedia link for the guy’s bio instead.
Psychologists in particular I have found to have a tendency to believe that we know it all now that we have that ‘terminal’ degree, and to fail to take seriously those coming up behind us. We stop being teachable. Some of the best moments in my classes have come from understanding that students are teachers, too, and holding space for them to do that. I love (there’s that word again!) when my students fact-check me in real time. My students (and you have to take time to find this out, which you won’t if you think you know it all and your students know nothing) come into my course with all kinds of useful and interesting prior knowledge, skills, and experience.
Professors who think they know it all and that it is their job to pour into people’s empty heads create an atmosphere in which, I suspect, little real learning is taking place. And if it is, it’s probably a miserable slog for everyone involved. Freire (2000) calls it “necrophilic” (p. 77) because it kills students’ minds and spirits. Not a lot of true learning can occur in such an atmosphere. Some rote memorization maybe, but that’s not real learning. And students don’t need you to do it, either.
(FWIW, I tell my students every semester that true learning is fun: That if we’re not having fun it’s because we’re not doing it right. My own best classes when I was a student were damned hard work but they were fun. They were challenging, exciting, like taking your brain out for a drive with the top down. And these are the classes I remember over 50 years later: Even my first statistics class was fun and it was because our professor knew how to teach.)
Moving on…
What students know is not all that I respect about them. I’ve got people doing college with disabilities that would absolutely have prevented kids in my generation from finishing their educations. I’ve got single parents, literal kids who are primary caregivers for a grandparent, and folks working two jobs while attending school full time. One year I had a 19-year-old full-time student whose entire family had suddenly been forced to relocate to his tiny apartment from the Middle East, three or four people that he was housing and entirely supporting on his meager wages alone.
But we have wandered a long way from the original question: Why do I do this?
To pick up where we left off, a person could love a lot of things and a lot of people (as a class, remember, non-creepily). I loved my clinical practice, for example, loved doing therapy, loved learning more about therapy all the time (you should see my professional library, still in cartons in the garage, alas), and cared a great deal for my clients, colleagues, and employees/supervisees. I did not like some of them, just as I don’t like some of my students and colleagues now. But I loved what I did! Leaving my office for the evening or the weekend or for a holiday felt much the same way as it did leaving home for work or for a trip. Laugh if you will, but I literally said “Good night!” to my sweet office when I locked up at the end of the day.
I love my hobbies, my wild birds, my pets. I love my home. I love reading and word games. And on and on. Life is too short not to, amirite?
So if I could love a lot of things, which obviously I do, why do this? Why single out this one thing as how I choose to make my living these days? (Again, not much of a living, but we’ll deal with that later.)
From Those To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Expected
Ever heard that one?
As far back as earliest adulthood, I was aware that I had led a privileged and lucky life and as I had received much, I wished to give much. I can remember that being dissed, too, when I said it in my first interview for my first professional position (I didn’t get the job). I’m glad it didn’t dissuade me. I went right on saying it and it did get me an offer elsewhere, a couple of years later.
In Alcoholics Anonymous (1976), the recovering alcoholic is advised to quit asking for stuff, and to pray instead to be of service, so in middle age I found some validation there–with a side-benefit of it occurring to me for the first time (doh, I know) to apply that same principle to my personal life. For years I would go in to work praying to be of service. And in my dotage I discovered Shantideva’s prayer and realized…hey! I’ve been believing/vowing/doing this practically my whole life! I nevertheless recite it daily to keep myself focused. First thing in the morning, before I leave the bedroom.
“May I be a guard for those who need protection, a guide for those on the path… May I be a lamp in the darkness, a resting place for the weary, a healing medicine for all who are sick…etc.”
It dates back to around 700 C.E., old enough to keep me from feeling weird approaching my work and personal lives this way when some rando on the internet trolls me. I don’t do therapy (“a healing medicine…”) any more but the phrases “a guide for those on the path” and “a lamp in the darkness” fit teaching to a T. And while Introduction to General Psychology is not therapy, the course can be a growing experience for some students some of the time, so even the phrase “a healing medicine” can occasionally apply. I’m careful that this is not my goal: I am not these people’s therapist but it’s a rare side effect and I’m always delighted when something like “you teach for the betterment of your students” or “this course has helped me to grow as a person” or, best of probably all I’ve seen in my time here, “from this class I have learned that I matter,” pops up in student feedback.
I call it “teaching” because it is exactly what I do. (What is “professing” anyway? Is that even a word in this context?) I am proud to do it. And I believe that teaching is at least a high a calling as the therapy that I used to do, to the point that I am even kind of reluctant to call myself a teacher because I’ve had so little training in it compared to actual teachers. I (mostly) lurk on the r/Teachers subreddit and honestly don’t feel worthy to claim the title there.
In fact, one year I had some Chinese students all fresh off the plane from the same small town, all top of their class back home. Their English was hella better than my Mandarin, but that’s not saying a lot. Also, there were many, many cultural differences they hadn’t learned to bridge yet. And so they consistently called me “Teacher” instead of Dr. or Professor, which is the norm at my school… and I sort of equated that with Bhante or Ajahn or Rinpoche or Thay or… well you get my point. Looking at it that way, I would be totally, completely unworthy of the title Teacher with a capital T and as a result I always felt a little bashful responding to it. I had the urge every time one of ’em called me that to check behind myself and ask, “Who? Me?” as if there was a real Teacher back there somewhere.
(FWIW, I got my first degree at a Quaker college where we were all on a first-name basis with our professors. I firmly believe that the Quaker way is the only way, but learned the hard way that here it’s an engraved invitation to disrespect to invite your students to call you by name.)
And so to sum up, what I felt for the guy who took me to task for using the word was that, educational attainments and professional status aside, he was a fool. Also, I thought, What an arrogant asshole. (Which is not maintaining a friendly and respectful attitude towards everyone I encounter, I realize. Mansplainers and trolls are a real test of my good intentions and I don’t always pass with flying colors.)
Which Brings Us To Gratitude
If you’re paying attention to business, you can’t help but be grateful for a great job. And so here we are, half a century later, all these years of opportunities to meet my obligations to humanity and to have fun doing it with amazing people–how could I not feel the deepest gratitude? In giving, I’ve been given still more!
At meals, I recite this gatha I learned oh, a decade or more ago:
“I receive this food with gratitude to all beings who helped bring it to my table and in return I vow to respond with wisdom and kindness to all in need.”
This is an attitude. Not just words you say for a few seconds before digging in, but an attitude that you carry with you throughout the day.
“Help” is the operative word, here. I think too many psychologists/professors think they did it all themselves (see hit a homer, above) and forget that, as I say to my classes when I thank them for coming, “without students there can be no teacher.” When I say grace, the students whose class it is, whose tuition and/or taxes pay my salary; the clients who used to pay into my savings, retirement, and Social Security accounts; my late husband, who made nearly everything in my entire adult life possible for me; my parents, who paid for my education and encouraged me in it; the good supervisors I’ve had; the farmers, the birds, the bees, the bakers, and my Instacart driver… they all had a hand in this. I didn’t do hardly anything in that whole chain from dirt to dinner! And thus I am reminded at least three times a day that I owe my students. They are not the enemy. They are not a burden, as some would have it. They don’t owe me anything. They are an opportunity to be of service and they contribute to my learning and my well-being, too–it’s not all one way. That is not their job, mind, and I’m not in the classroom for my personal gratification any more than I did therapy to meet my own needs–but let’s be real. In any human relationship, there’s the potential to get as much as you give even if you don’t go into it with a transactional mindset.
So this is why I do what I do. And what keeps me going is hope (Gannon, 2020).
Why do you do what you do? Comment below!
As we get ready for the new term over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting tutorials on course mapping, on making the D2L grade-book work with specifications grading, and on teaching with the Bullet Journal™ method, OneNote, Evernote, Asana, Zotero, and Obsidian… and more. Obviously, these posts will be more oriented toward my fellow professors than my ultimate intended audience, the consumer of psychology, but I’ll start teaching psych in earnest next month. Promise.
In the meantime, if you don’t want to miss the chance at some tips, support, and companionship for setting up your courses and making life easier for yourself/maintaining your sanity (and yes, it’s possible to do both), please subscribe! I’ve spent years working out some of these systems and might be able to save you some trouble. Think of it as psychology specifically for professors (because it is: It’s cognitive psych, motivation, pedagogy, ethics, forensics, stress management…)
References
and where to buy them (I earn a small commission if you use my links):
Alcoholics Anonymous. (1976). Alcoholics Anonymous: The story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (3rd ed). Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. Get the current (4th) edition here.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury. Get it here.
Gannon, K. M. (2020) Radical hope: A teaching manifesto. West Virginia University. You can get this one here.
Percy Spencer. (2024). In Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/9/24 from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Percy_Spencer&oldid=1231876221
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