I don't say this in a just-you-wait-and-see way at all but as one who has not only had the same experiences you describe here but also has achieved something like the condition to which you aspire: It's been true for me that, over the years, I've found myself feeling more and more frustration with the really bad choices students make regarding their education. Teachers should teach, yes, and I agree that law school students should know by now the basics of being (good) students; but part of teaching surely is providing guidance to students regarding the business of being students, no matter the level said students have risen to. I used to think that wasn't my job, precisely out of the fear you mention of sounding too paternalistic; now, though, I find myself engaged more and more not with school-marmish stuff so much as with what I choose to call conscience-raising. This fact may be due to the student population I deal with, but based on what you've described, maybe not.
Anyway, all this is to say that being a prof is a different dynamic from being a TA, one that has nothing to do with experience in preparing to teach a class. I feel a heightened sense of responsibility for my students' success that I just don't recall feeling with the same intensity back in my TA days. I had my own student worries back then. So, it'll be interesting to see if your thinking about all this changes.
Hi John,
Oh, I fully expect my thinking to change. It always does. However, I suspect I would be schoolmarmish about the things I grudgingly concede are "good for me" such as banning wireless or having absence and de minimis participation policies. But I hope I wouldn't grow so rigid in my pedagogy that I wouldn't acknowledge my students have different learning styles and levels of comfort talking in front of others! I myself hate being called on during the first few weeks, and often utilize "preemptive strike" (I volunteer _a lot_) so that I am not called on when I don't feel comfortable talking later in the course. It's how I am, and I know change is good--but let me be responsible for that change.
But you're right about professors feeling greater responsibility for their students' learning--I'm just wondering if it is always right to feel so much responsibility for what is a very individual process.
Excellent, thought-provoking post.
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