Teach Thyself

Mid-February, 2013

In last night's class, I had the interesting experience of being so exhausted that I brought all to bear on a lecture about pulling sources together for the synthesis paper I have assigned. There were some sleepy people in the crowd, but at least they were there. I'm not certain how many in the classroom I actually was reaching, but I did manage to get some feedback. One student said she liked the class, but could she please take off early? Another, sort of a scruffy guy with a short curly beard and a backstory of medical failure sauntered back into class after everyone was gone to reveal the following to me:

"So I gotta say something to you about this class."
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Well, I gotta ask you a question. And don't take this the wrong way--I mean I like you, your a great teacher and you're covering the material well, but..."
"Uh-huh?"
Well, I gotta ask you. Why do you tell us to just 'bring whatever you have?' I mean you're just telling us basically that we can bring in whatever we want, and there's no real expectation for a complete assignment."
I nodded. Knew what he was talking about. "Yeah, I hear you. I need to hear this."
"Yeah." Well I think it's the reason--well maybe not the whole reason--why some of us aren't  coming to class."
Ouch. "Right. Not the whole reason. But you're right. So let me tell you that respect everyone in this class. They're coming in after a full day of work, kids, etc. and it's all they can do to be here. So I guess I'm learning the tricky balance of knowing how much to expect and how much slack to cut."
The student started to move toward the door. He reminded me of someone I knew once. "You remind me of my dad," he said, and I got the impression he felt in some way damaged by kindness. An interesting thought.

So, coming away from this conversation, driving down the freeway towards home, I started thinking about how I may not be expecting enough from others, because I may not be expecting enough from myself. In some way, I have learned to lower my expectations, and it may have taken this student to let me know that it isn't helping anyone.

So what about it? Am I or am I not holding myself to too low expectations. Very possibly, for expectations are not standards. The former is the set of objectives that I carry around in order keep working towards achievement; standards are those thresholds that I use to measure the effectiveness of what I achieve. Neither is particularly helpful to actually getting anything done.