I envision learning as a process of seeking and satisfaction. In this way, learning is a movement one makes willingly. I came to know profound materials through scholarship and experience that I was always enthusiastic to share in my teaching. I also came to know many techniques, tricks, and skills through experimentation and I hope that witnessing my passion and my willingness to experiment made my students want to seek more learning, and to dance and move as they did so. Learning should bring joy and develop in one a taste for more.
I have come to know a lot about learning per se through practice and reflection. We’ve all heard that the focus on learning should be more about process over product, right? This is easy to grasp (and even easier to just say). To experience it like I was able to—thanks to the freedom the UM Residential College affords its teachers to create an engaging, fun, student-centered curriculum— made emphasizing process over product a daily practice with many rewards. There is always value in creating a welcoming environment and I found that including some low-stakes activities and assignments can make students want to learn, and it can boost their confidence.
I hope and believe that I never became complacent as a teacher. I evaluated every single item and every single activity that I brought to the classroom and tried to consider how each student would respond. I tried to figure out what each student needed individually, knowing that only then could I begin to assess each student’s learning. My attempt to be aware of what each student understood and to what degree that student had mastered material became an almost meditative focus in my final years teaching. Truthfully, I only wanted each student to learn in a supportive environment, and I understood that not everyone learns in the same way or at the same pace. A good starting point was just to check in with each student regularly to see how they were doing and what they understood, and what they wanted to work on next. Making a plan was then easy.
It was important to me to try to adjust and improve every assignment right up to my last day in the classroom and in the theater. Rather than take the same old materials into the classroom every day, I always redesigned materials and assignments--I took time and care to present lessons aesthetically and with thought behind each word and action because I believe: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” I brought as much of my own experience into the classroom as I felt appropriate and I always tried to let students share, based on their own experience. I rarely used or referred to a textbook in my teaching or did so only for short periods of time,. Instead, I favored letting the classroom context and group dynamic determine how we should proceed. This does not mean that I didn’t have a plan, but that my experience teaching improvisation gave me the confidence to shift gears, while working within a plan. I learned early on that if something is not working, it might be time to switch things up. (As a side note, I felt it was important for students to have a textbook as a reference that they could explore on their own, especially novice-level learners, but there is no point in being bound to or restricted by exercises in a textbook.)
“So, why the pictures of cakes and cookies?” you may ask. I promise that I won’t use any cliché here about eating! I include these photos as a memory and a metaphor. I learned that baking a cake or cookies every Monday morning for the RC German program Kaffeestunde made Kaffeestunde a whole lot better for the students and for us teachers (“If you feed them, they will come.”), and that there was something in it for me, as well. Getting up 90 minutes early (to bake) at the beginning of the week gave me time to myself to think about the week to come. This always started my week off with a great-smelling house, with something to look forward to at the end of that day, and with satisfaction that I was doing something emotionally nutritional if not always healthy (even though I generally cut the sugar way back and even started using vegan ingredients whenever possible). I believe that there were times when we all need practice and experience being at events that are low stakes and not teacher-led (though a teacher might be useful sometimes—at least for cake!).
This was first published on May 27, 2020 as part of a series of reflections I posted in my final days, leading up to retirement.