Final Fall 08 Tips meeting

In our final Tips for Teachers of the Fall semester, we watched two excerpts from the film, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and then discussed these. The first excerpt was when Mr. Chippings was a brand new teacher in a boys’ boarding school in England, and showed how he completely lost control of his class. The headmaster entered the classroom and reprimanded him, even questioning his ability to be a teacher. Mr. Chippings then overcompensated to such an extent, that he became unreasonably strict and punitive, and even kept his class in during an important cricket match against another school.

This opened up a discussion amongst ourselves as to the question of discipline, especially when starting out as a new teacher, but even beyond. One teacher mentioned how he taught a long, late class and how it was hard to maintain his professional attitude. With one student who was misbehaving, he said, “Go if you don’t want to be here!” since he thought the student was paying and was free to leave if he did not want to attend. Another teacher said he’d been in the same situation and said the same thing, and the student did in fact leave, but reappeared in the next class and apologized. The same teacher said, though, that any tiny problems of discipline at Rutgers were completely overshadowed by his experience when he was a substitute in a school in Camden, in which there was such open conflict in the classroom.

One teacher mentioned a student who always chatted, whether in peer review or in general class discussions, and the teacher would often ask him to be quiet, but this would only last a few minutes. So one day the exasperated teacher asked him to move to the front of the room away from his friends, and as she asked, was suddenly scared that he would refuse to move and then she would have lost face. But he did indeed move, and said as he did so, “That’s what they always made me do in high school!” She befriended the student and told him he reminded her of her son, and when he asked which one, she replied, “The naughty one!” And another teacher related an event in which a student, who is a good writer, kept getting NPs as her papers were too short or late, and then she did a grammar presentation and gave some wrong information. The teacher had, of course, to correct her in public so that the class would not be misinformed, but since this time, the student has now been challenging the teacher in class. The teacher feels, furthermore, that other students have bonded with this student. But it was pointed out to her that it could be advantageous that the students are so bonded, as that way they should be able to reach a higher level of learning. And when one teacher asked about how to generally maintain control over a class that is doing group work, another teacher replied that the most effective way is to give them a time limit, and also to walk around.

Another teacher spoke of how a student had tried to befriend him in the hope of getting a good grade, and thought this probably was what he had done with teachers in high school. We spoke about how this does not apply in the Rutgers Writing Program, since we have common grading criteria and institutional authority. This led a woman teacher to say how she is not an authoritative person and also she is short, so she said this can lead to trouble, so she is glad to have departmental policy to rely upon. And another teacher spoke about dress code, saying that he likes to look formal even if he is feeling chaotic underneath. This was answered by another speaking about having worked with young Ph.D. students at NYU, and how they felt that they were not very much older than their students, so many tried to dress very formally to define boundaries between them.

We moved on to speak about the first class of the semester, and how it is important to establish a balance between being liked and being in control. Some teachers talked about how in Expos, since the first three papers do not count towards the final grade, the class might be taken less seriously. But we also said that the virtue of the class is the emphasis on collaboration, so a student is not only responsible to him or herself, but also to others, so this should encourage harder work.

The second excerpt we watched from Goodbye Mr. Chips, was when the teacher, Mr. Chippings, who for so many years had been so strict, was encouraged by his wife to tell a joke in class. This was met initially by stunned silence, so the teacher was convinced that his humour had not worked, to one boy and then eventually the whole class, exploding with laughter. And this led us to discuss amongst ourselves about the role of humour in the classroom. We agreed that it is good and that this generation needs to be entertained, and indeed humour helps them learn and pay better attention. We asked about whether this is so online in the hybrids, and concluded that it is riskier there, since the online teacher can not be heard or seen, and the asynchronous environment introduces a time lag, whereas the power of a good joke is often in the timing. However, we did speak of the importance of the ‘virtual lounge’ online, as this provides a place for more relaxed, informal conversation.

Another teacher spoke about the humour in Faludi’s and Jenkins’ writing, and how many students don’t know that it is permissible to laugh as they feel it might be disrespectful. We also wondered whether a teacher might feel a loss of control with too much levity, but we thought this was not usually so. In the case of the film, Mr. Chips started it, and he too, could control when the joke was over. We wondered when it is good to start introducing humour in the classroom; at the start of the semester, or later on when we better know each other, and concluded that it is best to behave naturally.

Finally we looked at whether it is appropriate to let students know about our private lives as Mr. Chipping had done by introducing his wife, and realized that this question overlapped with our discussion in a previous Tips for Teachers meeting, when we wondered about this in the context of FaceBook and other social network sites. In Mr. Chipping’s case, however, he was teaching in a boarding school, which made an introduction to his wife much more likely to occur.