How are you still this horrible to students?

I've written here before that I used to be one of those "well-meaning but still doing harm" teachers. I replicated systems I waas taught- I bought in that rigor was rules and compliance. I thought controlling small things, the broken windows approach to teaching, was the way to ensure larger things didn't go off the rails. I believed in hard deadlines and not taking late work. I used to give 0s.

Over the years my pedagogy has radically changed.

My classes have sign in sheets, not to punish students for attendance but so I can email and check in with them every week or two if they've been missing. I tell students why- when I was in undergrad, I had an 8a art history class. I had an A in it on all my tests.  She had a strict attendance policy and she failed me for being one over. I had to repeat the class senior year. It was totally not fair.

I focus now on what the pedagogical reasons for readings, assignments, activities are in my classes.

I design my classes each semester around the students in front of me, what will engage them, what they need.

Students get 100s for turning in work, receive detailed feedback, and write grade reflections for larger assignments where they tell ME what grade they think their work earns.

There is no penalty for late work. Students don't have to justify or explain absences or beg for extensions. 

It's taken me longer than it should have.

I was given a few opportunities to learn and resisted. Cognitive dissonance is real.

But I eventually got here, and try, really hard, to keep learning, doing better. 

Education programs really need to start training teachers in the most recent research about how students learn, equity, and focus more on pedagogy than a checklist of best practices that are decades old. Most education programs and certainly the majority of school systems are still training, and expecting their students to perform, as though they wish for some artificial reconstruction of the "good old days" of teaching (not so much of an emphasis on learning).

Sadly, I've learned that higher education is not much different. Too many professors have no interest in teaching, or learning how to teach. They seem more concerned with holding students to out-dated, inaccurate models of "rigor" and arbitrary rules that "prepare them for the real world" than anything else. These people seem to be totally secure in their positions, happily bragging and ranting on the internet about their lectures, lack of student support, failing students, making fun of students, both their behaviors and assignments, in public spaces.

Their pedagogical style seems designed around punishment, them as the authority that cannot be questioned and students as the peons who should worship at their feet.

These people should not be teachers. They should not be entrusted with people's learning. They do active harm with their policies, and content choices, and approaches.

The last few months have revealed another aspect of horrific teaching. It's not a new issue, but with the massive move to online learning, it's certainly been moved to forefront. There are a vocal number of professors who assume their students are cheating, cannot be trusted, are dishonest, and must be surveiled. They must turn their cameras on, show professors a 360 of their surroundings, record themselves taking tests. 

They do not trust their students to complete their own assignments, listen or participate in class without their camera on, take a test with the time they need, accomodating all the possible thing that might interupt a quiz or test like poor Internet, family responsibilities, or anything else.

There is a vengeful glee that I have noticed in professors who are not concerned with how their students are in a literal world on fire, with protests against systematic injustice, state sanctioned violence, during a global pandemic disproportionately affecting and killing those who are already marginalized but are VERY concerned that we use X software so students can't cheat.

There is everything wrong with this. 

First, how, as a teacher, do you live every day with this negative assumption of your students? If your view of your students is as cheaters, people who are looking for the easy way out, looking to fool you, that colors your entire pedagogy, all the decisions you make in your classes and your teaching.

Second, have any of these professors stopped to ask WHY their students are cheating? Do they not know how to cite? Were they under a time crunch, painted into a corner, and felt they had no choice? What is the professor doing that contributed to this?

Third, design better assignments, unique ones where students choose their own topics, and *poof* suddenly you stop having issues with "cheating."

These professors are actively harming their students.

The professor requiring you to produce a death certificate to be allowed to make up an exam or an assignment is actively harming their students.

The professor not choosing texts or tailoring their content for the students in front of them is actively harming their students.

The professor not granting extensions, or penalizing students for late work, even if we're not in the middle of the worst nine months of our lives, is actively harming their students.

Most of the good teachers or professors I know have horror stories of things they experienced, like me and my art history teacher, and how it informed or changed their practice.

For too long these professors have been able to do this harm for a variety of reasons. Students have not felt comfortable advocating for themselves against this harm, there has been no support when they do, other professors refuse to hold their colleagues accountable, and students often have no choice in taking a certain class or professor.

On Twitter I've seen a lot of students sharing the awful things their professors are doing. I'm also seeing a growing frustration by students on professors who are dumping more work on them because they think they're just sitting home doing nothing, professors who are failing them because of tech glitches or not complying with surveillance software.

These behaviors are unethical and awful in normal times. During all this? I think it's horrific. 

Our students should be at the center of what we do. We should be basing decisions on what is best for them in this moment. 

Students should not feel they have to apologize for sending a professor an email.

Students should not be afraid to ask their professors for help.

Students should not have added stress or anxiety because of anything a professor is doing.

I cannot fix or even begin to address, or in some cases comprehend, what my students are going through and experiencing. I have a steady job, I can pay my bills, I have so far managed to stay healthy, although I've grieved as I've lost people to Covid and struggled with the state of the world. 

But here's what I can do for my students.

My classes do not have due dates, or penalties for late work.

I set aside a week for us to workshop major assignments, time for them to work on it in class, ask questions, get help. I tell them so far as time management that they should aim for turning it in sometime that week so they don't then find themselves behind as we move on. But the line I always repeat is "you are adults and I trust that you will make the decisions you need to." It costs me nothing to do this. I set a deadline, a week before the end of the semester that's a hard deadline for turning any/all missing work, so I can grade it and the students know what their grade is before the final paper/project, but other than that, no deadlines, due dates, restrictions. So students don't have to request extensions, or share personal reasons for needing extra time, or justify their trauma or things they're struggling with. They just get the time. Automatically. I've heard some professors complain about the work this creates, that the burden is put on them. First, having done this for years I can tell you I've never seen this. The nightmare scenario that these professors like to describe- that somehow all 150 of your students will wait until the day before class ends to submit all their work never materializes. It just doesn't happen. In my years of having this policy each semester there is at best in each class a handful of students that take advantage of the extra time. Not a burden, or extra work. And while I totally understand that depending on your status and role at a school your labor conditions are different, and often unequitable, if you are a professor your job is to teach and you need to do that. You need to serve your students.

Students can revise any assignment for a higher grade.

For some classes the grades are 75% practice assignments they write grade reflections so we can calibrate where they think they are versus where I think they are, but they get a 100 for turning it in and the final paper that reflects all the practice is the final 25% and they argue for what grade they think it earns based on our work all semester. In other classes they have major assignments with ungraded formative assignments that practice. In all cases if they do not like their grade, or want to revise to practice or improvetheir skills, they're welcome to, and the higher grade replaces their previous one.

There is no attendance policy. 

I tell them we do most of the work in class, so attending class is important, but I trust them to do what they need. I have students who have child care issues, who have responsibilities at home, who have not felt comfortable attending class after hearing about campus parties in light of Covid. Others have issues with work schedules, or their commute, or struggling with depression or stress or anxiety. Again, it costs me nothing to NOT penalize students for these things.

Policies that penalize students for these situations and issues are inequitable and often ableist. They reward students with advantages and privilege and punish students for conditions beyond their control.

There has been a lot of talk about how *waves* all this provides an opportunity to interogate these systems and build better environments, better approaches. A recognition that our classes do not have to be this way, and we can do better.

In the scheme of things, these are all really small things. They require almost no effort on our part as professors and make sure a big difference to our students.

I cannot do anything about my students having family who are sick, or vulnerable. I cannot do anything about students worried about their job prospects in this new world. I cannot do anything to cure a students' depression, or stress, or anxiety. If anything, the list of things I cannot help with or improve has only grown in the last few months. I can listen if students want to talk, I can be sympathetic, which helps some students just to have someone to talk to, even if I can't DO anything to actually help. I feel more powerless than I have in twenty years of teaching. So with all the things I CANNOT do it really seems like the least I, or any of us can do, is these small moves that can help our students so much. Because I CAN take late work. I CAN make sure my class is not an additional source of stress or anxiety. I CAN tell students I'm happy to see them. I CAN email and check in with them to see if they're okay.

I am not a magical professor. Not all students will take advantage. Not all students will come to class, turn in all their work, love my topic. There are things my policies and approaches can't, won't, fix. These things are not magical fairy dust. They are literally the least I can do to help though. So I will continue to do them, and reflect on ways I can do better. Make my class more accessible, more accomodating.

So here are the small moves folks can do to help:

If you screw up admit it, fix it, move on.

If you can make a change to how your class runs that will benefit your students, make it. Even if you're halfway through your semester, there is no rule that says you can't tell your students that you've realized X and want to change some things to help them so now you're going to do Y.

When students email you apologizing or feeling like they need to make excuses, don't underestimate the power of saying thank you, but you don't need to do this. Of telling them you're happy to help. Of asking HOW you can help.

Be sure to tell students how they can do better, end the class well, catch up. Sometimes students can't see a way out, and just give up. SHOW them there is a way to finish class.

As so many have pointed out though, I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. The educational research and evidence shows the harm these types of policies and behaviors do. There is no excuse for continuing them.

If you continue to view teaching as a form of control, as a way to be cruel to students, to belittle them, enhance your own power, then I think you're an awful human being. You are actively harming your students. You are doing lifelong damage to your students, and how they view learning. You should not be trusted with students. You should not be a teacher or a professor. You're in the wrong job.

We can't solve a lot of these issues.

But we can certainly not make things worse, harder, for our students.