Caring is expressed in listening

Lee Shulman, whom I heard speak at one conference many years ago, was one heck of a guru in the world of understanding teaching and learning.  He talked and wrote in plenty about pedagogy, by observing the teaching and leaning in various fields.  Shulman made me think a lot about the pedagogy in medical schools, which I also understood vicariously through my daughter's experiences.

There is a lot we can--and should--learn from how knowledge is conveyed in professional fields different from ours.  A constant reflection on what we do and what others do is a requirement for teachers.

Abraham Verghese writes about the rapid infusion of big data into the medical profession, and the essay gives me a lot to think about.  Verghese, who I referred to in this post seven years ago, I came to know of through a book of his ... that was more than 20 years ago.  He is one of the Indian-American physician authors who seemingly have time for everything!  And now the guy has even wandered into writing fiction.  An ultimate Renaissance man indeed!

Anyway, in this recent essay, Verghese writes about the practice of medicine:

True clinical judgment is more than addressing the avalanche of blood work, imaging and lab tests; it is about using human skills to understand where the patient is in the trajectory of a life and the disease, what the nature of the patient’s family and social circumstances is and how much they want done.
... that patient’s greatest need is both scientific state-of-the-art knowledge and genuine caring from another human being. Caring is expressed in listening, in the time-honored ritual of the skilled bedside exam — reading the body — in touching and looking at where it hurts and ultimately in localizing the disease for patients not on a screen, not on an image, not on a biopsy report, but on their bodies.

In our profession, too, we deal with data about students like the graduation requirements and GPA.  But, working with students is not merely about looking up that kind of data and "solving" their problems.  Well, that too. But, often, it is above and beyond those mechanics.  It is about listening to students.   And to "genuinely care."

Earlier this week, as we wrapped up a nearly 30 minute chat about her academic plans, the student said "thanks for your advice every time." I was slightly taken aback.  She continued with "you always listen to me, and think about what will be good for me."

I thanked her.  I wished her a good summer.

Yesterday, it was deja vu all over again with another student.  At the end of our meeting, she put her stuff in her backpack, picked it up, and then said, "thanks for listening to me and always putting myself in my place and thinking about what will be good for me."

I thanked her.  And told her that it was pleasantly strange that she was saying something identical to what another student.  Her response was even more interesting for me: "Most other faculty I have taked to seem to be single-track and they only talk about their own stuff."

I agree with Abraham Verghese: Caring is expressed in listening

Aha! This is why pedagogy is paid so little. It is slave labor!

One student in an online class remarked something complimentary (I hope so, at least) about me bringing in readings and other materials from so many different places that are not necessarily academic in nature.  But then, that is what I have signed up for by opting for the teaching profession.  Teaching is not merely repeating  the same thing over and over to different batches of students, but to explore along with students the subjects that fascinate us.  Every exploration is a unique experience guided by results of the previous experiences and new ways of thinking that I would have picked up.

If I didn't add to my repertoire, then, hey, shoot me dead.  Fire me from my job.  Banish me to Outer Mongolia.  Anything but teaching because I will be unfit then.  Hopefully, that day is far, far away.

I know for certain that this essay (sub. reqd.) that I read in the New Yorker will affect my teaching in many, many ways.  Not that I will assign this to any of my classes--it will not fit into the currculum by any means.  But, essays like this make me think a lot about what it means to teach and, therefore, students will, of course, get to experience that.

There are so many gems in that piece, of which I want to write only about a few.

For starters, this was a shock to me:

The word "pedagogy"comes from the Greek term for the slave who escorted a child to school.

Whaaaaat?  

This being the New Yorker, with one of the best fact-checking process among all the publications, that explanation for the origin of the word has to be true.  But, come on, didn't that make you also stop and re-read it?  

The essay is about a hospital in New York--Elmhurst Hospital Center.  But, it is more than that. It is about Dr. Joseph Lieber, who has worked there almost every single day for the past twenty-five years, "working from 4 A.M. until late at night."

Lieber doesn't simply work.  People who have known him refer to him as a genius diagnostician and clinical educator--it is a teaching hospital.  The quotes from different people about Lieber make it clear, without any iota of doubt, that he knows what he does really, really, well, and is very, very good at teaching that to medical students.  But, here is the chilling truth: despite decades of such phenomenal work, he is only an associate professor without much of a compensation:

Lieber is an associate professor at Mount Sinai, and is paid less than the majority of doctors in New York.  ... "You can't advance professionally just by being an amazing clinician and teacher." ... "Lieber's an absolutely incredible physician in a way that's now completely obsolete in the field of medicine" Krieger continued. "And let me be clear what I mean by 'obsolete': that's a flaw in how medicine is evaluated and rewarded, not a flaw in what he does. He's the best diagnostician and teacher I've known."

If you read the entire piece, then by the time you reach what I have excerpted, you would yell out, as I did, "what the fuck!"

It is one awful, awful, aspect of higher education--whether in medicine or in philosophy, it doesn't matter--that only research and grant money are rewarded, not teaching.  Plenty has been written about it, but it is difficult to change direction, it seems like.

The author did ask Lieber about this:

[He] shrugged. "Oh, people are always giving teachers a hard time," he said. ... "It's true that it's research that gets the kudos," he said. "You have to love what you do."

Now, I feel so petty when complaining about how I was denied promotion to full professor level, and that I am condemned to be only an associate until I retire or die.  Here is a guy who is universally acclaimed for his knowledge and teaching and he shrugs off the fact that he doesn't get paid like others or that he hasn't been recognized with awards.  

Teaching is awfully difficult.  It really is.  The essay quotes another Mount Sinai specialist:

"Sometimes it feels like Sartre's 'No Exit': you find yourself saying the same things over and over again; you have to remind yourself that it's a new group of students, that they're not just the same people renewing their ignorance to torture you."

A good reminder, yes.  Even if pedagogy meant in the original "slave who escorted a child to school."  Am glad to be such a slave, and I look forward to many more years of escorting students, even if only as an associate professor.

Explaining "short selling"--the power of Web2.0

The fantastic aspect of Web2.0 is clear in videos like the following--where anybody with content knowledge is now able to deliver it to a mass audience using multimedia and completely bypassing the mainstream media. If only we in academia would adopt such practices and make our lectures more interesting and accessible, instead of it being restricted to "closed doors" and with 19th century pedagogy!