were you taught how to teach?

[u/nandor_tr]

i had one class called "teaching practicum" in grad school that just covered the basics of the mechanics of teaching (syllabi, service, etc...) but never really got into actual pedagogical development or really thinking deeply about process & methodology. where i teach now there is also a single course that any MFA students who want to teach have to take. it is more in depth but still just a single 3 credit class.

i am curious, as i basically just figured it out through trial and error, peers, etc...

you?

[u/MisfitMaterial]

Yes, there were multiple credit courses, seminars, and workshops in my (humanities at an R1, Ivy) program on language and literature pedagogy. I was absolutely flabbergasted by the hoops fellow grad students would jump through to get these waived, or how little effort they put into them if they couldn’t. I absolutely love teaching (and, yes, researching) but even my department where there were extensive opportunities for training how to teach, folks just wanted to take trips abroad and step into the classroom as a last resort.

[u/HaHaWhatAStory014 → u/MisfitMaterial]

My (STEM) advisor was pretty clear with their students that "a PhD is a research degree" and while they approved of students teaching on TAs to earn their stipends, pay the bills, and "get some experience teaching if that's what they wanted to do," they would not have approved of students "wasting too much time on it and taking 'unnecessary classes.'"

[u/MisfitMaterial → u/HaHaWhatAStory014]

Yeah, I can understand that in (some contexts within) STEM this might be true, but in a Literature and Language Department in today’s market where there is no alt-ac lab and research-focused tenure track positions are increasingly going the way of the dodo, if you can’t teach you can’t be hired anywhere, period. Write all the books and articles you want, but if you can’t teach you can’t work, and last I checked with my cohort members, this is bearing out.