Teaching as a performative art (also a follow-up on Adi’s post)

A few days before reading the excerpt from bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress, on the drive home after a frustrating couple of days in the classroom, I found myself pondering on the performative aspect of teaching. Teaching, to a great extent, is a performative art. When the “audience” responds positively and reciprocates, I have a good day in the office. When the response to my thought-provoking questions, carefully-timed jokes, and explicit statements on the relevance of the topic in question are blank stares into space, I feel completely drained. This performative aspect in teaching strikes me even harder after our discussion of radical pedagogy: how much personal or non-academic interaction one chooses to have with students and how much one’s choice in mannerism and outward appearance play a part in students’ learning experience. To expand on this interesting discussion, I’d like to share some of my own decision-making process on these subjects.

Personality does affect one’s teaching style. That said, I do think pedagogical approaches can be learned and developed just like how one develops disciplinary knowledge. I’d like to think that every teacher makes conscious pedagogical decisions about how much of their personal life and/or experience is revealed/shared both in and outside of the classroom when interacting with students. Every moment of interaction can be a teaching moment, and the performative aspect of teaching manifests itself when one teaches by example. For me, professionalism is essential in my interaction with students. If we consider college a form of apprenticeship to prepare students for their professional lives, then students need to learn how to be professional and respect professional boundaries (yes, boundaries can be challenged and approached with creativity, but let me finish this thought…) I tell all of my students on the first day of the class that our relationship is professional, which means that both the instructor and the students have responsibilities and must keep their respective ends of the “contract,” so to speak, in order to have a fulfilling learning experience. Upholding professionalism does not mean that I have no personal interaction with students at all or that I am aloof or unfriendly. I do, however, set parameters of my interaction with students from the start, as well as establish my authority (not a word with positive connotations in a shared-learning environment, I know, but not so negative considering the big picture of teaching and learning), which is derived from my disciplinary expertise and my professional role in a university setting, not because I consider myself superior to the students as a person. What is important in my teaching is that students learn the methods with which information is treated and knowledge is generated in my discipline. The emphasis on professionalism sometimes has the effect of a “threat”: “You agreed to enter a contract with me on the first day of class, as the syllabus describes. So after I have reminded you over and over again of the deadline of an assignment and you still fail to submit it in time, or after I’ve helped you learn and review the materials over the course of several weeks and you still do not study for the midterm, then you have to bear the consequences of your own action.” But professionalism also helps to set clear expectations, both for me and my students. I rarely deviate from the syllabus and give students every piece of course material promised on the syllabus. When I mark a student down in an assignment, she will know (after a bit of explanation) that it’s not because I don’t like her personally but because she does not fulfill the requirements of the assignment. I hope she will apply that principle to other areas of her life. If students don’t quite know how to draw the line between the professional and the personal, I consider it my responsibility to teach them. I may not be the most personable professor, but students have told me that I am fair, and that I am very clear on expectations and I help students meet expectations.

My choice in making professionalism the principle of my interaction with students also has a gender dimension, as well as a consideration for what my public persona (what I wear, how I walk and talk, my command of the English colloquialism, etc.) does to my effectiveness as a teacher. I am impressed by some of Josh’s implementations of radical pedagogies, especially the office grading, the meditation, and the deliberate choices in outfits or appearance. On the “being personal” and “being weird” aspect, though, I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts–I’ve been thinking about it all week. When I first started teaching as a faculty member, I received numerous advice from female mentors and colleagues on how a relatively young (or youthful looking), petite, international, and female faculty member should carry herself so that students would respect (out of fear or fondness, either way) and not walk all over her. I’ve been told that I need to be stern, strict, and in control, and have an imposing presence through my choice of wardrobe. Although teaching is performative, one still cannot be what one is not. It is difficult for a youngish petite female professor who’s just starting out to strike the right balance, especially when one needs to determine what one is comfortable doing. In very generic terms, female professors are expected to be nurturing, friendly, perhaps easier to negotiate with, and possibly being more easily disrespected by students (and their parents). Being liked may mean less respect for the professorial role (Adi provided a perfect example of how students would expect special treatment because of a perceived rapport with the professor), and yet demanding respect in the wrong way could make one lose students’ fondness, and ultimately, respect. I learned these the hard way in my first full-time teaching position somewhere else several years ago, where classroom discipline was an issue I had to deal with for the first time in my teaching experience, and I was terrible at it at first. My confidence in asserting my authority (as a subject-matter expert), presenting course materials, as well as the command of the English colloquialism have all improved over time, but lessons learned from my first full-time teaching job continue to be a reminder of the gender, age, nationality/ethnicity dimensions of the performative art called teaching. I dress relatively formally and conservatively at work; I usually choose to use humor rather than reprimand in my teaching when I enforce my rules, and I choose to lay out expectations and policies very clearly on the syllabus. There isn’t a perfect formula when it comes to putting oneself out there. I am interested to hear what everyone has done that works in their teaching and how “performative” you’ve been in your interaction with students.