Teaching Tales: Collegial Advice

It was my second semester at NVCC, and I’d been assigned Bio 102. Full of enthusiasm, I wanted to be the best college professor I could be. I pored over the course objectives for Bio 102 and the list of chapters to be covered: zoology, botany, and ecology. “Wow, that’s a lot of stuff I don’t know much about!” I whispered. My last exposure to botany was in high school, and I didn’t remember ever studying ecology. Skimming through the assigned text didn’t help my panic. The depth of coverage was such that I’d need three semesters to deal with the set subjects.

The Botanist

I asked my colleagues for advice. The first professor I approached was an older man with a yellowed beard wearing a rumpled suit and tie. He leaned back in his chair, “Well, I’ve been an adjunct professor here ever since I retired from teaching high school, and I’ve found that, as long as you touch on all the objectives, no one cares whether one is covered more thoroughly than another. I love plants, so I cover two animal organ systems per lecture and only spend two lectures on ecology. The rest of the time I teach botany.”

The Ecologist

Another professor chimed in. “I don’t teach 102 that way. I think ecology is the most important subject to teach these days of global warming and the destruction of our environment.” She stood up, her voluminous skirt swirling around her ankles, and began sorting through her overflowing bookcase. “I’m sure I have a copy of my syllabus somewhere.” After a time, she gave up. Flipping her rather wild-looking hair out of her eyes, she said, “Anyway, I skip most of the animal systems and the plants. Instead, I spend over half the semester on ecology… we take field trips, and the kids really seem to like them. Of course, I also have treats for when we get back.”

I repressed a smile at the mental image of her traipsing across a meadow, pointing out its various features with a class of 25 college students in tow, returning to feed them milk and cookies.

The Disciplinarian

Just then, a clean-cut man in his fifties with a military bearing entered the room, “Good morning, all. Ready for the new semester?”

“Actually,” I replied, “We were just talking about that. This is my second semester here, and I’m teaching Bio 102 for the first time. Do you have any advice on how to tackle it?”

He drew himself up and adjusted his tie, “Don’t take any nonsense from ‘em. Most students want to be spoon-fed and given a grade without working for it. I don’t stand for any crap and fail ‘em. The way I see it, there are two types of people—us and them. We’re the ones who work and study hard, and we made it. Most of the students here are ‘them.’ They’re lazy and dishonest; they’ll cheat and even try to make you lie for them.”

His face flushed, and his voice grew louder, and I backed away. “One student I had last semester came in after the last day to drop and asked me to sign the paperwork necessary because he was failing. For him to be allowed to withdraw, I needed to sign that he had extreme circumstances, like a death in the family. I asked him how he dared to ask me to lie for him. He denied it, but that’s what he was doing and I didn’t let him get away with it…” 

My Decision

Noticing that all my fellow professors had left the room, I made my excuses. “Um, I have to go. But thanks for your advice.”

With all this advice under my belt, I began to prepare the course. I decided to focus on teaching what I was most familiar with and spent most of my time on animal organ systems, three weeks on botany, and one week on ecology.