...one question we might ask is: "Do we always know when we are teaching?" I do not think we do. The single most important thing I learned as an undergraduate may have been that I was capable of graduate study. I learned this from a professor who had no idea he taught it to me. Brief remarks that seem innocuous to us may have a lasting impact on our students. Hopefully, the influence is positive. I do not mean to give us more importance or power as teachers than we actually possess. However, a different but equally significant error may be to ignore the potential impact we can have at moments when we are least aware of what we are saying. -- Peter J. Giordano, Teaching and Learning When We Least Expect It

I had a similar experience, when an American Literature teacher named Beth Ann Bassein answered one of my annoying questions by saying, "Oh, you'll learn all about that when you get your Masters." It floored me. She just continued on in her lectures, not missing a beat. I barely even knew what graduate school was, let alone felt I'd be able to get into one, and here this professor was, assuming I would get my master's degree...heck, she didn't even bother trying to talk me into it! Beth Ann Bassein taught me many things when I took her classes, especially her poetry writing courses (because she's a knockout poet herself), but she was one of the toughest teachers on campus and that one passing comment -- with all its unexpected acceptance and faith in my ability -- alone gave me courage to try. (I had another moment like this when, during my Masters, a Medieval lit professor wrote in the margins of a critical essay: "Oh, shut up and go get your PhD already!") These little para-educational things mean nothing -- and yet they mean everything.

So what a wonderful essay Giordano's "Teaching and Learning When We Least Expect It" is. He reminds us that we are not always in control, that learning often happens between the cracks of the syllabus, and that what we say and do informally with (or around) our students can often teach them far more than we realize.

In his essay, he raises a very pithy question: "Do we always know when we are teaching?" And the answer is, of course not. All we really have is faith and speculation and a whole lot of intuition. Sure, good teaching is mentored, learned, and practiced, grounded in deep, lifelong study and professional development. It's based in what people call "best practices"...but I think we often draw on our unconscious well when we are teaching -- modeling our strategies and challenges off of how we ourselves learned best, and refining our techniques and personal style in a series of never-ending encores of successful teaching strategies we've employed in the past. New teachers really do make it up as they go along -- and might be surprised to learn that older teachers (usually the ones who are still engaged and excited about teaching) are making it up even still.

One of the joys of teaching, for me, is coming up with a really good discussion question off the cuff, or dreaming up an impromptu writing prompt, and watching what happens when students get inspired by it. It's magic. I'll sometimes run back to my office and make sure I write down what I did, so I'll remember to do it again in the future. But sometimes we'll run a really great exercise or discussion prompt one year and it'll come as a surprise to us just how good it can be, but when we repeat it the following year, it doesn't click and we wonder what we did wrong. The idea is only half of it; it's the fuel -- but the classroom dynamic provide the fire.

Giordano mulls over metaphors for teaching, and how none of them are quite right, though "midwife" comes closest. I like his idea that teachers need to be "good company" to students. We have to let go of control fantasies for that to happen. Giordano's essay reminded me of the basic principle of learning: it can happen any time. The best thing a teacher can do is try to create an environment where there's lots of flint that might spark fire. But it's up to the student -- and an infinite number of variables beyond anyone's control -- to strike it.

I think it's crucially important to remember these lessons during times of (what Carolyn Segal has termed) Assessmentdelirium.

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I found this article on a site I often mention here on Pedablogue: the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list run by Rick Reis out of the Standford CTL program. Their mailing list is worth subscribing to. I'm currently researching "Transormation Theory" for a pedagogy paper I'm delivering next weekend at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, and I found Giordano's essay very useful.

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