Contact: Roger Martin, Research & Public Service, (785) 864-7239.Martin writes about research at KU and edits a webzine at www.research.ku.edu/explore/
The year was 1971, and respect for authority was in the toilet, and it was my first day of teaching English 101 at the University of Kansas, and the seven brothers from Sigma Chi fraternity all sat it one row. Nightmare.
My tongue spoke words that day, but they seemed to be coming from somebody else. One of the Sig Chis - I'll remember you on my deathbed, David Elkouri - was whispering to a guy next to him. This annoyance continued for weeks.
All this came back as a recovered memory at a recent KU summit conference on teaching. Hundreds of faculty poured into a Budig Hall auditorium to hear out the provost, the chancellor and each other on the subject of teaching.
The provost, David Shulenburger, started things off. He talked about a faculty inquiry into teaching launched in 1989.
"Our frustration," he said, "was not unlike that of Harry Truman."
President Truman had been faced with choices on economic policy when what he wanted was a single prescription. Truman chewed out economists for mumbling "on the one hand, but then on the other" and declared that what this country needed was a good one-armed economist. Just so, the faculty group of 1989 wanted one learning theory that would apply to all teaching situations. They found it didn't exist.
"What we did find," Shulenburger said, "was that teaching at KU, as at other research universities, had been neglected - not by everyone, but in a systematic manner."
So KU administrators reminded professors that teaching was as important as research. They also put money where their mouths were: Today, KU has teaching professorships, fellowships and awards that didn't exist in 1990.
After Shulenburger had finished, Chancellor Robert Hemenway led a discussion. There was talk about accommodating students who don't fit the traditional mold. For example, is a "Parents Weekend" relevant when some students are now grandparents? A math professor who teaches calculus spoke of accommodating a baby who, for several weeks, crawled about the classroom demonstrating his lung power.
And that's when I had my recovered memory. I wanted to say, "Screaming babies are nothing. You guys never faced a murderers' row of Sigma Chis. You never dealt with David Elkouri."
Well, eventually I dealt. When the students arrived one day, I was sitting in the back of the class.
"Don' wanna to teach today," I whined. "You guys do it." I knew David would sucker to this. As he tried teaching, I whispered to a student nearby. I groaned my boredom, writhed in my chair, voiced the sullen contempt of English 101 students then, now and forevermore. I had switched roles with the kids so they could experience what I dreaded went on in their minds.
At the end of the class, the Sig Chis came up. Was I OK? Was I mad? We talked. That was our turning point. By semester's end, we were big buddies. If there'd been any teaching jobs, I'd still be in the profession. Why?
Because when a class is really cooking, it doesn't matter which side of the podium you're on or whether there's any coherent theory that explains the magic of great teaching. At that moment, everybody learns.