A sense of calling is often associated with teaching, that teaching is more than just punching the clock: in at 8 and out at 5 (or earlier). Teaching involves working with others, helping students learn and prepare for their careers. It involves relationships of trust and respect (see What Works in Teaching).
The calling of the professoriate is evident in Bardiac’s blog post about a student having to “jump through a hoop” and how the student did not realize that the hoop was supposed to help. It’s also about how it wouldn’t have except that Bardiac took the time to actually help the student. And it’s a post about what we hope we can do as teachers. We hope we can change our students lives. That is the fantasy that we all dream about, isn’t it?
This reminded me of Dr. Lee Skallerup’s What I Learned as an Undergrad post.
One of the commenters falls in line with how I think of Bardiac’s fantasy life.
Even the stuff we did learn in a classroom sometimes takes years to sink in. Like your example of the books you were “forced” to read. @enkerli talks about planting time bombs when he’s teaching, stuff you can’t assess during that semester but you hope will sit in the back of your students heads and have an impact later on.
How do you embed future learning in your students’ education now?
By giving them interesting and stimulating things to read now; things that I know will resonate with them now and in the future. I also think that helping them develop the skills in order to continue learning well past university is important. Building up their confidence, too.
Many students really do think that education is exclusively about economic benefit (get the degree to get the job). Rarely do they express that they enjoy leaning for learning’s sake. If you can show students that there is a world of knowledge out there that can be pleasurable and fulfilling and meaningful without the paycheck, then they are set up to continue learning.
Thanks for the kind words 🙂 I really do hope the student can find some strategies to help him/her thrive here.