The Nelson piece highlights the idea of intent of the instructor. In my experience on the other side of the desk I have mostly overlooked the intent or objectives of the instructor. I feel though that my age as a young instructor will benefit me in being aware of the students' attempts to circumvent the lesson objectives. The idea that so much weight in the mind of the student is based on task competition rather than the lesson of the task is scary. In the dual role as student and instructor I am having a hard time balancing the strategies of the student to navigate the course with the goal of attaining a grade versus the role of the instructor who worries less about the final grade and more about the knowledge behind the course. The two things seem hard to reconcile.
The thing I keep going back to among the many different topics we discussed in class is the idea that school is a specialized setting. School is a very unique way of thinking and communicating. The Nelson article makes clear that "Too often teachers expect students who are newcomers to a field to be able to determine the implicit ways of thinking and presenting evidence required to write successfully in their particular disciplines." This knowledge is acquired over time, knowledge of writing correctly in a very unique and singular way that can be different than any other kind of writing done in the students' lives. The school setting of the nature of our work puts the profession in a bind. We are teaching for the academic setting but the academic careers of our students might have any variety of lengths. Teaching only to the academic setting over looks the life of the student. Teaching only to the life of the student then too, takes time away from the academic writing of the student. I hope in my class room to navigate this treacherous crossing in focusing on audience awareness. I would also like to stress the importance of recognizing the rhetorical situation and strategies to navigate these situations successfully. I cannot and will not decide which is a more important part of a student's life of writing. I can only hope to give options and to provide lessons that the student can put in their tool box and use as they grow. Writing is a challenge to teach in any form, let alone in multiple forms.
The Nelson piece, in writing about the resources available to the students, enlightened my thinking that I will not be the only meaning maker in the classroom setting. The meaning and even the course are up for negation. Negotiators being me as the instructor, as well as my students. The students play an important role as the pace setters. The students also have each other to inform or confuse each other on the topics of teaching. I am hoping to encourage process thought and multiple evaluations. These multiple evaluations, I hope, will give my students the tools to navigate the course with more input from me rather than using each other to define the course expectations. In reading Nelson, I have decided to keep this in mind as I design my assignments. The students that come into my class room will not be tabula rasa. They may be blank slates when it comes to college. But most will have roughly a dozen years experience in navigating or playing school. With that experience they will bring with them strategies that I need to respect as being part of their process. Not necessarily as a more correct or effective process but a part of it just the same. I will also in my teaching try to keep in mind that what is obvious to me will certainly not be obvious to my students, especially my intent of the assignment. This sharing of intent I feel would have helped the sociology professor from the Nelson article in sharing the value of the assignment with the students. I found it very surprising that I was not surprised that most of the students did not even do a field study but just faked it knowing that it did not matter.
Students who are perceptive decision makers frighten me going into my first semester teaching. If the student can circumvent the lesson and feed me what I want to hear in their work then what have I taught them? Teaching those who do no want to be taught is just a hazard of the job though. I will also need to keep in mind that just because a student my play school and play me, that does not mean they are a bad person. This game of school for grade reward was built over time not necessarily a malicious decision. In this case the lesson would be solely my own in that I am the one who will be subjected to the learning curve of teaching. The students come prepared to adapt to the college setting, because being a student is a highly adaptive field of work. This balancing act of placing my needs and the students needs together in mind seems like it is going to be one of the interesting things about teaching. I look forward to never having the same class dynamic twice. I am hoping to keep this attitude as the actual work of teaching takes off.
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