The value of being a student when you are an educator

I’ve been teaching at the college level for many years. My goal is for my students to learn more than they thought they could in my courses, and to be empowered by that experience. I push them to work hard and to show me what they’re learning. I have had many, many students who have impressed me with their learning, and it is a joy to see their growth. But sometimes, honestly, my students’ work disappoints me. Maybe they didn’t follow the instructions or look at the rubric (that I worked so hard on) when they were doing an assignment. Maybe they copied someone else’s work. Maybe they put ideas together in a creative but surprisingly illogical way. Maybe they asked me to tell them what to do rather than trying something out by themselves before asking for my input. 

I think about these students a lot, because I want to support and encourage their growth. However, with increasing experience as an educator, I’ve found it increasingly easy to settle into my position as a subject area (astrophysics) expert. Over time, I remember less about what it was like to struggle to learn a topic or skill in my field, or to challenge misconceptions I held with new, evidence-based ideas. I work hard to improve as an educator. I am hard on myself and I don’t always get it right. But I still have a level of confidence in my subject-area knowledge that is different from that of my students.

So I thought I’d share how valuable it has been to me to become a student again. (Here I want to acknowledge several of my colleagues who post here on TMV are also students as well as educators, and they will have important and individual insight on this, too.) A few years ago, I began taking weekly classes in drawing and painting. While I have always been interested in art, I had little formal training in this area and did not consider myself “good” at art. The experience of studying and practicing drawing and painting has been extremely rewarding, often humbling, and overall very instructive (beyond painting), and it has fed into my practice as an educator.

A progression of expertise, a progression of expectations

When I began taking art classes, I didn’t expect much of myself. I experienced the simple joy of finding out that I could paint something recognizable. I wasn’t too hard on myself if my composition wasn’t perfect, or if I chose the wrong background color. I was receptive to my instructor’s corrections. I was a beginner, after all. Over time, however, I began to expect more of myself. Recently, I decided to try a new medium and was frustrated by how hard it suddenly felt to mix colors or hold a paintbrush. I wanted instruction but also wanted to be able to successfully paint on my own. I’ve realized that it now takes much more bravery to begin each painting. I worry that the new painting won’t turn out well, and I go so far as to imagine that if that’s the case, it might prove that I’m not really an artist. I now have a lot of attachment to the idea of being an artist, where I didn’t before. 

At these times, I can remind myself that I may be experiencing something akin to what my students feel when they are taking a test or beginning an assignment or project: if they don’t get positive feedback on this test/assignment/project, how will that reflect on them as a learner? How will their peers and instructors (like me) judge them? How will they judge themselves? How can I help them approach their learning with open-mindedness to the subject and to the outcomes of their work, especially as their expectations for themselves grow?

Bravery and the potential for failure

Sharing something you’ve worked very hard on can be an act of bravery. There is uncertainty about how it will be received; it is always possible to misunderstand the instructions or what is expected. It is possible to fail. Putting myself in the position of being a student has helped me experience for myself why a student might not try hard on an assignment or might act like a topic (or whole subject, like math) isn’t important. Among other things, this may be because they are avoiding the potential, terrible feeling of failure in the wake of hard work.

Experiencing this has made me think harder about how to make space for students to make mistakes and, occasionally, fail. How can I help them take risks? How can I help them use their mistakes, challenges, and failures to learn more? How can I make space for mistakes and failures in my own teaching, and learn more from them, so that I can get better at supporting my students?

Learning as a not-quite-linear process of growth

Although my continued art practice has improved my ability overall with respect to technique, composition, and working with color, every so often I start a painting that doesn’t come together the way I’d hoped, or I work on a painting so much that, honestly, it gets worse rather than better. These paintings are still a part of my learning process, and they have taught me a lot about learning itself: learning is not necessarily a linear process. I cannot assume that each painting will be better than the last, or that each time I use a painting technique I’ll show improvement. However, I have to practice, experience challenges, and overcome both failures and failure avoidance to become more skilled. 

Similarly, I have to be cognizant that my students may experience setbacks in their learning. They may get stuck on a concept and have a hard time getting “unstuck”. Like me, they may procrastinate because it’s easier to think about the nice grade they got on the last assignment than to start all over with a new assignment. Or, also like me, they may be discouraged by a past grade or outcome they’d hoped would be better, and need some time to approach the task again.

Caveats and conclusions

I want to emphasize that experiencing these things is much more instructive than conjecturing or writing about them. Directly experiencing the uncertainties involved in learning something new has given me deeper insight into what my students’ experiences might be. A major caveat here is that I cannot assume that my experiences directly mirror those of my students. 

What are some strategies and considerations for better supporting students?

• It is important to let students know that we do not judge them as whole human beings based on the outcome of one test, one project, one assignment, or one course grade. 
• Students may feel more like we see them as whole human beings if we give them ways to let us know a little more about themselves, including what is important to them, their responsibilities outside of classes, and what their relationship is with the subject matter of the class. One way to do this is to give students surveys, and read and respond to what they write.
• It can be important to give students constructive, critical feedback at times, to let them know how they can improve. This can be a sign of our respect for what they can achieve, and we can let them know this comes from a place of respect.

What are some strategies and considerations for becoming better educators?

• Acknowledge and work with our positions as students and practitioners of education itself. It’s worth noticing the parallels between the fact that we are constantly learning about teaching while our students are learning about the subject we are teaching. 
• We can always consider ourselves students with respect to addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion in the classroom. As we aim to improve in these areas, we can keep in mind that our growth may not be linear, and may include high expectations, hard work, and failures, as well as successes. 
• We can remind ourselves that the point of this work is to support the incredible, whole human beings that we teach. It’s a side benefit that we get to grow alongside them.

Thank you to the many colleagues and students that I have learned from at the Institute for Scientist & Engineer Educators (UC Santa Cruz), Sonoma State University, and Santa Rosa Junior College. My sincere thanks to my art teacher, Mary Fassbinder, and my fellow art students.