My teaching practice

A long time ago--that's what it feels like--my daughter was half way through medical school and she decided that neurosurgery was what she wanted to do.

While I am familiar with many aspects of higher education, I know nothing about the intricate details of these professional schools.  So, I asked her about the process.  How does one become a neurosurgeon?

Without rolling her eyes at me, thankfully, she gave me the details.  The shocking aspect was the 7-year residency.  Seven years after medical school, which itself is four years after the undergrad.

I expressed my shock at it being 7 years.

She barely paused.  And I remember verbatim her response.

"Would you want any Tom, Dick, or Harry to work on your brain?"

That put her dad in his place ;)

As she worked through the residency--like a dog, she used to say--I was impressed that many of her mentors were older than me.  Much older than me.  The curious me asked her about it.  And, she had an immediate answer to that, just like she had answers for everything ;)

She said something like this: "You really begin to hit your stride a few years after you start working. While to others it might seem strange, it is common for neurosurgeons to be on the top of their game through their 60s, even into the 70s."

No wonder they call it a practice--it gets better and better with practice!

But then that is no different from the teaching practice too.  It is not uncommon for people to complete their PhDs as they turn 30.  The lucky ones in a track that gives them a permanent job, work with a focus and intensity to get tenured.  By the time this happens, and with the sabbatical break, one begins to hit the stride at about 40.

But, here is the major and real difference.  My daughter did 7 years of residency to get trained to do what she does.  We faculty never go through any residency program to do what we do--teach.  We are lucky if we are given any pointers about teaching when we go through the doctoral program. (I was unlucky, like almost everybody else.)  We are lucky if we get to teach with faculty mentoring us. (I was unlucky.)  Yet, we are hired to teach!

Luckily, neither the faculty nor the university are sued for malpractice, despite us being the least prepared to practice our profession.

Way back in my early years, a full-professor once told me, as we were nearing the restrooms: "we all have PhDs and we know how to teach. Nobody needs to tell us how to teach." 

I so much wanted to explain to him that having a PhD doesn't say anything at all about our teaching skills, but I followed Socrates' advice not to argue with fools.  I told him that I had a restroom emergency, and was thankful he didn't follow me into the stalls :)

It is depressingly ironical that most of the faculty rarely want to even engage in any serious discussion of teaching and learning.  They think it is useless. My attempt to engage with faculty on what it means to be a professor in the 21st century was a dud.  A big dud.

Here I am well into my middle age, and I continue to practice, with hopes that I am like the neurosurgeons making things better and not worse. I hope.