The Peak

Tips for teachers

By Gary Lim

While the majority of The Peak’s readership are the students here at SFU, it should be known that there remains a significant minority of people who also frequent these hallowed halls and who pick up this paper weekly. Service staff, professors, people who need something to shield themselves from the rain: these people also read The Peak, but where are their articles? Their opinions? Their want-ads selling things no one will ever buy? Well if the lead-in wasn’t obvious enough, it’s here. This article is for those plucky individuals who are there to make sure we don’t fail our classes horribly. To the professors, TAs, and to a lesser extent the manufacturers of Ritalin, this one’s for you.

Now, I don’t want to tell you how to do your jobs, but . . . no wait, yes, I do want to tell you how to do your jobs. Otherwise this article would be about 500 words too short. While it’s true that I don’t “technically” know anything about teaching nor have I ever spoken to a professor outside of class, I still feel perfectly qualified to dispense teaching advice. Having experienced at least two classes, I feel I can boil down all the troubles of the teaching profession into a couple of problems faced by every educator I know of.

Problem: Your students repeatedly ask you a question that you’ve explained several times.

Solution: The problem here is a simple matter of human biology, the average post-secondary student is a nocturnal creature by nature, and by holding classes during daylight hours you’re essentially committing a crime against said nature. You’re entering into a battle against melatonin and its sidekick serotonin, which you can’t possibly hope to win. Case in point, a sleep-deprived student will only manage to catch about 10 per cent of the words that come out of your mouth (five per cent if you have an accent). This is why we end up asking you the same questions over and over again.

Fortunately for you, there exists, hard-wired into our brains, a sequence of “never-miss words,” if you will. Words that if heard, even in a state of non-existent brain activity, can cause a reflexive action. Like a guard dog’s attack command, it is almost instinctual and can turn even the most comatose student into a frothy-mouthed, note-taking machine. These never-miss words include such eye-openers as “mandatory,” “cumulative,” and “75 per cent of the grade.” Sprinkle these liberally into your daily lectures for (quite frankly) astounding results.

Example: “Atlas Shrugged advocates the core tenets of Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement.” 
Student Response: [Yawn. Snore. Crickets.]

Example: “Atlas ‘75 per cent of the grade’ Shrugged advocates the core ‘midterm’ tenets of Rand’s philosophy of Objecti-‘not scaled’-vism and expresses her concept of human achievement. ‘Due tomorrow’.” 
Student Response: [Just the sound of frantic scribbling and someone in the back of the room hyperventilating].

Note: Conversely there are also a number of words which will do the opposite, and send a student to dreamland faster than a turkey leg soaked in NyQuil. Words to avoid include “recorded lectures,” “optional,” and the dreaded “take-home final.”

Problem: My students never seem to respond to my class-wide questions.

Solution: It is well known that students will rarely answer any question posed by their professor or TA for fear of a wrong answer and looking foolish in front of their peers. Or they may just be asleep, in which case, refer to solution above. The key here is to mitigate their feelings of nervousness and fear of embarrassment. One way to do this is by systematically humiliating and debasing your students on a regular basis. This will allow them to adjust to the idea of failure and allow them to become more at ease with their surroundings. Or it may just inflict catastrophic psychological damage giving them deep-seated mental issues for the rest of their adult life. But, hey, you got tenure right?

Ways to accomplish this include:

Loosening the bolts on random seats throughout the lecture hall. Laughing loudly when a student falls, making snide remarks about their weight.

Go off on a random tangent that has nothing to do with course being taught. At the end of the 40-minute digression, causally mention everything you said will be on test. Then, do not put it on test.

Assign imaginary questions from textbook, if a student questions you on this. Imply that they and they alone have bought the wrong textbook. Twirl moustache sinisterly.

During an examination, disassemble the clocks in your room. Help your students keep track of the time by loudly counting out the seconds that have passed. In German.

Wait in the underground parking lot until they finish their last class. You’ll need jumper cables, duct tape, some fishhooks, a case of b- Never mind. Turns out this one is technically a war crime.

In this writer’s opinion, there are few professions nobler than teaching. You’d have to be truly selfless to take up such a job. I mean the hours aren’t great, the pay is mediocre, and you have over 300 people who each want a piece of your ever-shrinking sanity. So I am glad if any of the advice I have given helps even one educator, and while this may not solve all your problems it’s a start. A start down a wonderful path to a dream I think all educators share: never having to teach again.

Next week an article for the food service workers here at SFU. “Spitting into someone’s food: The fine line between unnoticeable and unmistakable.”

(No, not really.)