Your Favorite Class? Your Best Class? Both?

Saw this gem on Twitter this morning...

A3. I start every year with a simple statement:

“They say your favorite class is the one that you like the most, and your best class is the one where you learn the most. If we both do our jobs, this class will be both.”

We don’t teach content. We teach people. #satchat pic.twitter.com/5hQ3kDEU53

— John Meehan (@MeehanEDU) August 25, 2018

I love, love, love the idea of your favorite class (the one you like) and your best class (where you learn the most) being one and the same. I know that in my own experience in school this was not always the case, and I'm sure it hasn't always been the case for the students I've taught over the past 20 years.

But, what if...?

What if students came away from my class at the end of the semester saying, "WOW, I learned a ton in that class...and I loved it!"

I'm thinking of a course like Intro to Education in this light. It's not a "content-heavy" course, which makes me wonder if students would come away feeling like they learned a lot. I suspect that many students feel like it's an easy course, and I suppose it is, in some sense. It's not that it isn't rigorous. But it isn't as cognitively demanding as a course like Art History, or Medieval Philosophy, or Organic Chemistry, mostly because it's an intro level course, and Education is pretty accessible for most of my students, who have spent a significant part of their years up until now in schools, watching teachers at work, so they think they know what teachers do. (And, to be fair, they do know what teachers do...but they don't know all of what teachers do.) Still, I hope that students taking this course could both enjoy the course as well as feel that they have mastered the content for the course.

I'm also thinking of my World Regional Geography course. That one is much more content-intensive. Students read a lot--we basically study the geography of the whole globe in one semester! I like to think that I've structured the course in a way that makes the content accessible, and relevant, and meaningful to the students. But for students who haven't studied much geography previously, there are a lot of places on the map to discover. And that doesn't even begin to touch all the tools of regional geography that we utilize in the course: demographic models, political and economic systems, various types of maps designed for particular purposes, theories about development, and more. I hope that here too the students might enjoy the course, even as they are working to master the content.

What do you think about that last comment in the tweet--that we teach people, not content? This resonates with me a bit, but I wrestle with this. I've said before that I teach students, not subjects, but that feels a little false somehow.

Regardless, I'm thinking about how I can connect with my students as we start a new semester together, and also how I can help them deeply engage the content.

I don't think it has to be an either or situation. Your favorite class just might be your best class!

I'm excited about the second time around in World Regional Geography this fall!