Teaching Through the College Transition

In my three years teaching at UMass, I’ve had hundreds of students.  If you count my time as a teaching assistant, that number would be in the thousands.  In all that time, I only met one set of parents – it was move in week and we bumped into each other at a café. 

While secondary school teachers are in a game of chess, negotiating school administrations, unions, helicopter parents and students, College professors are playing checkers.  They have the distinct advantage of singular, content-based focus.  In other words, all they have to worry about is education.  But the singular focus, risks myopia.  College marks that strange, awkward (and now prolonged) transition to independence and adulthood.  It’s those very struggles that often enter into the classroom sideways – chronic tardiness, sleeping in class, plagiarism, generally being unprepared.  Which makes me think – is the single focus flawed?  Would a broader perspective help professors connect with students and teach their material?    And if so, what would that look like? 

UMass, Amherst’s Residential Academic Program (RAP) might provide a model:  Students live together in the same dorm and take three classes together – one in the dorm room.  It’s an opportunity for a small college experience at a big research university.  The class provides a bridge between college life and college responsibilities.  As an instructor, there is one big difference – it’s not just an educational environment, it’s a social environment.  While in my traditional classes, students hardly speak to one another before or after class, in RAP classes, I often had a hard time getting students to stop talking. 

On the one hand, it made my job more difficult – I had to balance a social dynamic in addition to class requirements and content instruction.  But on the other hand, it helped deliver a more meaningful classroom experience for the students.  Many of whom, stay in touch. 

But the parents – for better and for worse – are still absent from the picture.  I’m not suggesting that helicopter parents should make the trip to college.  But is there a presence of absence that should be acknowledge or considered?  And if so, what does that look like? 

Reading an Op-Ed in the Washington Post this morning by Michael Gerson reminded me that there is a complex social and familial dynamic – alongside the complex economic calculation – underpinning the college experience.  And professors would be crazy to think that that doesn’t creep into the classroom.