So I was a bit perturbed by the teaching persona described in Chapter 1. I don’t know if it’s my frustration stemming from the term (thanks to a seminar class on the topic that I have this semester—Tim, you understand, right?) or my general distrust of personae, period. I really don’t like the idea of adopting a teaching ‘persona’—it seems completely antithetical to any sort of real relationship to my students. The greatest moments I’ve experienced in the WL are those when I feel like I’ve really, truly connected with a tutee. Now I’m not trying to sound too New Agey—you know, spirit animals, healing crystals, find yourself by wandering in the desert sort of thing—but I really think that striving for a genuine connection with students is the best way, in my limited experience, to teach. Now I’ve only really worked with younger children, where bonding over SpongeBob SqarePants and macaroni and cheese was enough, but I nonetheless consistently found that a more intimate, personal rapport was the most effective method of teaching. The adoption of a persona seems to undermine that sort of bond. Maybe I’m just too naïve and need a semester of apathetic freshmen to toughen me up. We’ll see. Stay tuned.
As long as I’m on the sappy notes, I’d like to share what I highlighted and starred this week in Chapter Nine—the advice to turn to ones you care about when you receive a student’s less-than-stellar reviews. I hope that next semester we all still turn to each other with teaching frustrations/problems/questions. I feel that our cohort is an invaluable resource, people. As you all know too well, I’ve been so stinking sick this semester, but it’s been support and encouragement of my cohort and instructors that has made these past months bearable. I hope you all understand that all the get-well wishes, cards, hospital visits, and gentle reminders of due dates have been of tremendous help. I hope that we continue to assist each other next year!
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8 comments:
I think the best "persona" is probably just you- if you're comfortable being yourself, the students will see and respect that, whether they're 8-year-old Spongebob fans or 18-year-old Will Ferrell fans. I think the persona C&D describe is less important after the first week, and not important at all in conferences, where the rapport you're talking about is really useful (despite Bean's bit about pushing students out the door). I guess their point is that we should be aware of how we present ourselves; if we're aware of that and satisfied with it,ls there's no need to change.
You raise a good point about the necessity of community. We all help each other in ways we might not even realize. It's so important to remember that nobody has to go this alone. I'm sad (in a way) that I won't start teaching with everybody else. Guess I'll just come crying to you all when I finally do start teaching, and you can pat me on the head and give me words of sage advice.
Persona is tricky. We want to have a good rapport with our students, but we also want them to respect our authority. If your persona is too strict, your students won't like you. If your persona is too friendly--"hey, guys, I'm a student just like you!"-- then your students WILL take advantage. I think Joe's right about being yourself. It seems like my favorite teachers had this amazing ability to be themselves while also creating a teaching persona which established the needed authority (without being rigidly strict).
I do agree with you Liz. I never thought of teaching as acting, just being myself always worked. If you set the ground rules then afterwards you don't have to be a stern teacher persona. Students see through it and it is simply better, I think, to be yourself so that you can honestly react to needs that arise in your class without first thinking "how would this personality deal with this situation?"
I don't see the idea of "persona" as necessarily meaning that you're not being yourself. I think it just means that you're being yourself in a specific situation. I think we're all different based on what situations we're in (for example, in some situations I'm outgoing, in others I'm painfully shy). I think finding your teaching persona is just a matter of finding out who you're comfortable being in front of your class, if that makes any sense.
I agree with Leta 100%. Here's my cue to bring in a seemingly completely unrelated book (but it happens to be a great book)--The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman. Maybe everyone else has read it and it's old hat--I don't know--but I think it's a really useful way to think through what you all are saying. In it Goffman inaugerated "dramaturgical sociology," which contends that our actions are largely dependent upon the time, place, and audience in which they are "performed" (part of Goffman's larger theatrical metaphor), just as Leta says.
For Goffman, the "self" is largely a product of the "scene" that one is performing in, and so it is a construction that is always in flux. An obvious example for Goffman is how waitstaff will kiss diners' asses to get tips, then make fun of them with one another in the kitchen. There could be, of course, some "core" self--if you take all of your possible selves and diagram, Vinn-like, where they overlap, at center would be that core.
I guess I've always found Goffman's take (which is echoed in a very different way by, say, Foucault, and Judith Butler after him) as being very liberating. But I'm weird (hence, maybe, my perception that I have multiple selves).
Liz,
Our cohort IS an invaluable resource and of COURSE we're all going to be there to support one another. Right, folks?
Don't worry.
And we love you.
"I guess I've always found Goffman's take (which is echoed in a very different way by, say, Foucault, and Judith Butler after him) as being very liberating. But I'm weird (hence, maybe, my perception that I have multiple selves)."
I feel the same way (whether that's the solidarity of the weird, or the sign of a more general truth). The notion of the simple, self-consistent, solar ego seems like a bit of mythological wish-fulfillment to me. Like Nietzsche, Freud (and many others who are neither dead nor German speaking), I think of the self as "a social structure composed of many 'souls.'"
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