By Samah Sabra
At the beginning of May, I started a new position as an educational developer with the EDC. It’s difficult to convey my excitement about working at the EDC, but suffice it to say that I’m a total geek when it comes to discussing anything to do with learning and teaching. (My closest friends will attest to this). Indeed, I get an excited glint in my eyes when I hear the word pedagogy and, in true nerd fashion, I consider this geek-dom as one of my most endearing qualities.
I have to admit that there is a tiny part of me that would sometimes like to think of education and educational development as a kind of vocation, a higher calling into which I have somehow been inducted by the Universe (or University) due to some innate quality. In fact, I think a lot of people tend to think of teaching, learning, and an interest in either of these as something intrinsic. When I take the time to reflect on my interests in this field, however, I have to admit that I am not someone who was born with a natural interest in learning, teaching, and pedagogy. Instead, my passion for these was cultivated by some of the most important relationships in my life. It is perhaps here that luck or serendipity play a role: I was lucky enough to have a number of mentors in my life who not only cultivated in me a love of learning, but who were also willing to speak with me at great lengths about the lessons they imparted.
Some of my mentors where not employed as educators, but they nevertheless taught me a lot about teaching and learning. Growing up, I had a great grand-mother who was one of the best story-tellers I have ever met. Her stories were certainly entertaining, but they always imparted a lesson and she would answer her grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s questions with degree of patience that seemed as endless as her repertoire of stories. Both of my grandmothers also told stories, but they had very different styles of narrative – one funny, the other serious but fun.
My dad had learned these skills from his mother and grandmother and, as a teacher, he brought them into his classroom and used them to engage his students. I was lucky enough to witness his ability to engage his students on days when he would bring me to work with him. He had his own, very hands-on style of teaching, though. When I asked my dad why the sun moves across the sky, he got a big grin on his face, went into the kitchen and came back with a lemon which, he explained, represented the earth. He stood on a chair, brought the lemon up toward a bare light bulb (the sun) hanging down from the ceiling in our living room and proceeded to explain to me how the earth revolves around itself and around the sun so that we have night and day as well as four seasons. He did so in words that made sense to me as a five-year-old and his lesson remains with me until today.
In high school, I had an amazing English teacher who made me feel like my interpretations of a text, even (or perhaps especially) when they differed from hers, were worth discussing and further developing. She had a reputation as a “tough” teacher and we wrote countless essays in her class, including at least one timed, in-class essay a week. She expected a lot of us, but she also gave us a lot, trusted us, and made us feel valued. I had been terrified when she was assigned as my grade ten English teacher but was upset when I had a different English teacher the following year, and even more so when I realized that my grade eleven teacher did not value discussion or disagreement in the classroom.
Throughout my undergraduate and graduate education, too, I had some amazing – and some not so amazing – professors. They did not all teach the same subjects and they most certainly did not all use the same techniques to impart their lessons, but each was effective in her or his own way. Here, at Carleton, as I completed my doctoral studies, I was lucky enough to work as a TA with or be invited into the classrooms of professors from whom I learned a great deal and who, each in their own way, became mentors, role models, and confidants with whom I could honestly discuss some of my most difficult classroom experiences. Add to all of this my discussions with fellow graduate students and, well, I have had amazing opportunities to develop my interest in teaching and learning.
I have to admit, however, that it was only when I took the Graduate University Teaching Skills (now called Preparing to Teach) certificate program at the EDC that I reflected systematically on these experiences. Such reflection, facilitated through group discussions and individual assignments, became an indispensable avenue through which to articulate the pedagogical lessons entailed in my life experiences of observing different teaching styles both in and outside classrooms. What I found most fascinating in the group discussions was the variety in what each of us noticed and the differences in whether and how we thought we could adapt a technique to our own practices as teachers. These were consistent reminders that there is not one way to teach or learn and that, rather than being a source of fear, such differences can enrich a learning environment. Three years later, I continue to be grateful for what I learned from the community of graduate students with whom I took that program as we all prepared for our work as instructors.
Among the many things I learned that summer was the value of combining observation and reflection for developing our teaching practices. So I’m sure you can imagine the excitement of this self-described pedagogical geek when I learned that the EDC will be starting a Lecture Club in September 2012. The goal of this new program is to offer opportunities for faculty, contract instructors, and teaching assistants to develop their personal teaching techniques and pedagogies through a self-reflexive peer-observation learning model which requires little time commitment. If you want to learn more about Lecture Club and/or how you can participate in this program, email me with questions or stay tuned for more details.