Thursday, April 7, 2011

How Not To Be A Bad Teacher

I aspire to become a teacher sometime later in my career. I have already had the privilege of taking several classes* in a formal classroom setting and I must say, it feels good to face the other direction of the class; it feels special!

I have attended more than 2500 hours of classes at IIT Madras alone and in the process, I have realized that certain practices of teachers turn off students easily and therefore be best avoided. And this article is about a few of them.

Note that I have intentionally not titled the article How To Be a Good Teacher, because that is an entirely different topic and something that I don't have the experience yet to write about. But the first step to be a good teacher is to not be a bad teacher. And here's how.

When I become a teacher, I would strongly try to follow these points myself, and therefore, I have listed them out in the form of strict instructions to myself. The readers are requested to view them as mere suggestions and make appropriate use of them.
  1. Don't arrive late for your class. Be present at the scheduled start-time. An occasional delay is acceptable, but on a regular basis, any delay more than 2 minutes reflects very badly on your professional ethics.

  2. Don't humiliate students in classroom, especially if they arrive late to your class. The late-comer might have arrived after breaking his alarm clock that didn't ring at the right time or after puncturing his cycle on the way or after not getting a piece of (so-called) dosa in mess despite standing in the queue for 15 minutes - don't make him feel worse by humiliating him as soon as he enters the class.

  3. Don't come unprepared. You may have been teaching the same course for the last 10 years, you might have taught the same topics just a week ago, but do spend some time to prepare every time before coming to a class. You may spend anything between 2 minutes to 2 hours or more, depending on your level of comfort with the topic, structure, content and style of presentation, but never walk into a class hoping for stuff to come out of your mouth all by itself.

  4. Don't dish out petty rules and regulations. Asking students to switch off cellphones in class is okay, but asking them to stop using cellphones in life is definitely not okay! Don't thrust too many regulations and restrictions on the students. Don't make stupid rules on how they should enter the room, how they should sit, how they should wink or how they should breathe in air. Maintain your sanity, give them their space.

  5. Don't make a mess on the board. Be neat with your handwriting, be clear with your notations. Use the board well. Don't make spelling mistakes. And for God's sake, please don't spell the title of your course wrong!

  6. Don't harp on attendance. Your institute may have attendance regulations for students, and as an ethical/law-abiding teacher, you may have no option but to take attendance every class, but never use attendance as a crutch for making students attend your class. If your teaching is not a reason good enough, then your classes don't deserve to be attended anyway.

  7. Don't bluff. You are not God; you are not omniscient. It is never a shame to say, "I'm not sure of this right now" or "I'll think about it and get back to you in the next class". Never bluff to hide your ignorance; the next-gen students don't take long to figure it out!

  8. Don't throw high sounding jargon. You know the subject better than the others in the classroom and that is exactly the reason you are there as a teacher; don’t try to prove it. Think at the level of the class while introducing new terms and concepts. Don't show off; don't be rude.

  9. Don't talk to the walls. Your students sit right in front of you; look at them while you're explaining. Be interactive; don't deliver a monologue. Don't sound monotonous too; modulate your voice well. And please don't talk facing the board.

  10. Don't stretch your class beyond the scheduled end-time. You may take a couple of minutes more to wind up the last topic you were discussing, but every extra minute beyond that will reduce your popularity by half. And never try to take advantage of your students' respect for you by asking questions like "Can I take 5 more minutes?"; they will always nod their heads in approval just to save you from humiliation (Can you imagine how you would feel if all students answer a unanimous "No" and walk out of the classroom?).
*2 as Summer Research Fellow at IISc, Bangalore (Summer 2010) + 5 as Teaching Assistant for EE6110: Digital Modulation and Coding at IIT Madras (Fall 2010) + 3 as Teaching Assistant of EE6170: Introduction to Wireless and Cellular Communications (Spring 2011). Kudos to the concept of Teaching Assistantship for Dual Degree students at IITs!

(This article of mine will appear in The Last Bencher, a book of memories of the Class of 2011 brought out by IITM's Alumni Affairs Office.)