Wednesday 6 May 2009

The wearing of jeans to work

Whenever I begin teaching a new group of students, I make an effort not to wear jeans on seminar days. This, I think, stems from my days as a postgrad teaching assistant, when I felt I had to look semi-authoritative because I didn't have any Dr. title to provide this authority. I tried then to project to the students (and myself?) an image proving I was qualified to teach them. I suppose I now do this as a confirmation of that. I set off with the intention of wearing 'tutor clothes' every week, but as term goes on I start to slip, and by the end of the year I'm wearing jeans to seminars. I figure by that point if they don't see me as their 'tutor' jeans won't make a difference (and I do like to promote equality of ideas and opinions between tutor and students in my seminars!). I have never given a lecture in jeans. This, I know, is a matter of maintaining my own confidence.

For my new admin job, I wouldn't wear jeans to work. Not as a spur to my confidence, but because my image of office/secretarial workers is smarter than that (smart casual, not necessarily suits). None of the other ladies in my office wear jeans either. Presumably they feel the same as I do.

There are only three men in the administrative unit in which I work. One at my level (lowly admin assistant), one is my line-manager's manager, and the other is my line-manager's manager's manager. Both top level administrators wear suits and ties for work. Lowly administrator wears jeans and a sweater or a casual shirt. No one seems to question this. No one seems to object. But I wonder what would happen if I turned up in jeans and a hoodie tomorrow? I'm sure someone would notice, and probably they would object.

So, ignoring my seminar jeans issue (which is, I acknowledge) entirely of my own imposition) what do you think about wearing jeans for work? Do you think its appropriateness is gendered? Am I imposing my own rules again?

Saturday 2 May 2009

Student comments - about me

This week was the last week of my Contemporary Women’s Writing course. It has been a lot of hard work, and attendance at the classes has been pretty poor, but other than that, I have actually enjoyed teaching it. (And I have learnt that I can research and write two lectures in a week, and teach a 3rd novel on top, but I wouldn’t recommend this if there is an alternative.)

I jokingly said to those who turned up one week that I was going to start taking it personally if attendance continued to be as low as it was (which it did), and one of the students offered as an possible explanation that there was too much reading on the course. This is a complaint I think I’ve heard about every single course I’ve taught – the only difference with this is that I chose the texts and their number. But I don’t believe that there were too many texts. When I taught a long(ish) novel, I scheduled it over two classes. Shorter texts (poetry, a play, a novella, and a collection of short stories) got a week each. If the students planned ahead they had plenty of time to get the reading done. And I did point out to them that I managed to do the reading and produce a lecture for each text. (And in fairness, one of the other students did agree with me).

Last week I gave out the module evaluation questionnaires to the five students who turned up. Two of them – my best attenders – are visiting overseas students. They thought there was too much reading, and the lectures were too difficult. I suspect both of these comments have some connection to their language difficulties; they both struggled a little with their English at points. But, if lectures too long had been a complaint shared by the other students (which it wasn't), then I'd be happy to write shorter lectures! Of the others, two were very positive, and it’s nice to know that I hit the right level with some of the students. The other had some good points, and some bad, and I think it’s unfortunate that convenors don’t get the opportunity to respond to students on the points they raise on evaluations. Had they been raised at a consultative meeting, here are the points, and what I would have said in response:

1) the tutor quoted from critics and used their words rather then her own.
2) some of the texts were too modern so it was difficult to find criticism.

Well, yes, in response to 1. I did indeed quote from critics in my lectures. But I did contextualise, and I did explain, comment on and argue against their comments. Engaging with criticism is an important part of academic writing; I was trying to demonstrate to you ways in which you could do this. And this also relates to 2. All of my critical quotations were fully referenced on the PowerPoint slides I made available to you, so I have done some of the research for you on all of the texts, including the more modern novels. I also put links to / electronic copies of relevant material on the Virtual Learning Environment for you to help with the criticism that was particularly difficult to find. By third year – which is the level of these particular students – you should also be capable of doing a little bit extra on your own research, but if you’re struggling, then ask your tutor. And dealing with the more contextual part of the second comment, I’m not sure I have any need to make a defence or give an explanation: you chose a course called contemporary women’s writing.

Friday 1 May 2009

Student comments - not about me

I started a new admin job last week in the Education Faculty at the other University here in the City where the Castle is also a Prison. It's three days a week, and should take care of my bills over the summer, which is a relief.

As part of this, I minuted a staff-student consultative meeting this week. It's very interesting to hear what students think about courses in a department where you don't do any teaching, and see how different departments run. This is one in which a lot of the teaching is practical stuff, rather than book based - I'm used to consultative meetings in which all of the students on all of the courses complain about having too much reading to do. In fact, my Women's Writing students at the same University have complained about this to me (more on this another day). But, as an informed observer - I have some thoughts on how seminars work from both a student and tutor perspective - some of the students' complaints revealed much more about students' 'faulty' expectations than about the tutors. For example:

"Our tutor didn't know enough about his subject to teach us anything. When he asked a question and it stayed quiet he just kept waiting for someone to answer rather than telling us the answer himself. And sometimes, when he had us doing group work, when one group asked a question, he asked the other group if they could answer it. He was waiting for us to tell each other because he didn't know the answer himself."

Now to me, waiting for students to answer rather than answering your own question immediately, and having them think for themselves and discuss with each other rather than treating the tutor as a teacher, seems to me like very good tutorial practice, and something I try to implement in my own seminars. They are not the place for me to give the students information - that happens in lectures. But what I found really odd was that the Chair of the meeting did not attempt to address this complaint. He just moved on and left the accusation of not knowing enough about the topic to linger over the head of the absent part time tutor. And I wanted to interject. But I was not wearing my academic hat to the meeting, so I had to just write down what was said and leave it alone. But it does emphasise that students expect university to be like school: that they will be spoon-fed information and won't have to do any independent thinking or group work. What worries me is that these were second year students. I don't know why this idea wasn't shaken out of them in their first year, but it should have been. And the course co-ordinator ought to have put them right at this meeting too, otherwise the same sort of complaints and expectations will continue.

So, for the record: your tutor may well know what he is talking about. He may also know what he is doing in running his seminars like that. You have to do some independent thinking. At least some of the time...