Good teaching requires making many thoughtful decisions from a variety of complex choices. In addition to assessing one's own abilities realistically and evaluating the university and classroom environment, there is the investigation and then subsequent questions that must be raised about the nature of knowledge, the general aims of education, and the nature of students. Making important decisions about teaching includes carefully examining all of the above, and then selecting approaches to instruction that are compatible with one's own teaching values. Given this rather daunting charge, I have come to realize that, for me, the central question is, "How do I view students?"
I view students as individuals who enter the classroom with a wealth of knowledge and experience. Therefore, I view my instructional status not as one who is an expert, but as a teacher who has expertise. The distinction between expert and expertise is a reminder that I must also be a learner and that students can also teach. To ignore or disdain the experience and knowledge that students bring to the classroom is to miss the opportunity to utilize a valuable and useful resource.
I view students as democratic citizens living and learning in a pluralistic and diverse society, who hold a variety of opinions and perspectives. I view my instructional role as challenging students to learn how to interact freely with knowledge and information that is biased, sometimes in conflict, and often incomplete. The principal purpose is to help students learn how to make and support informed judgments. The instructional challenge is to strike a balance between teaching both content and process; helping to educate students, as well as helping students learn how to become educated. I find it curious, perhaps even tragic, that we, as academicians, trained and experienced in the skills of scholarly investigation, somehow forget the spirit and discipline of open inquiry when we leave the library and enter the classroom door. We too often revert to the egocentric habit of passing off knowledge and information as the unvarnished truth.
I view good teaching as making a commitment constantly to examine and reflect upon what one selects to teach—the agonizing task of selecting what to neglect. The explosion of knowledge coupled with the revolution in technology has eroded the university's guardian role for determining what knowledge is of most worth and for deciding how that knowledge is to be delivered. Therefore, I ask myself if "knowing" translates into "using." Theory must relate to practice and practice must relate to theory in order to uphold and strengthen the value of a university education. Certainly a clear and defensible rationale for determining what one requires students to know is an established academic tradition. However, in an age when access to information has dramatically increased and teaching accountability is climbing the ivy-covered walls, a thoughtful and well-grounded rationale has achieved critical importance as well as an ethical significance.
In summary, I view students not as spectators but as participants in the teaching/learning process. Viewing students as spectators tends to separate or remove students from the learning process, and tacitly gives students permission to become passive learners. In contrast, viewing and including students as participants is an evolving approach to instruction that first invites, then encourages, and ultimately expects students to become involved in and assume ownership for their own learning journey.
Devon Metzger, Education