There’s so much truth to this. The “authority figure” thing is especially interesting. As I started in “education” fairly late, I was conspicuously older than most of my graduate school cohort. They had discipline problems in their classes; I never did. This was because I at least looked like an adult, and dressed like one, too. Every other TA was all of three months removed from undergrad, and tried to show up to teach wearing backwards hats and ratty school apparel. The one kid who took my advice and switched to teaching in “business casual” didn’t have a single discipline problem afterward (poor bastard, he no doubt got killed by his peers for “ageism” or something).
Of course, this was so long ago that students used to be unsure how to address me. Most professors had gone “hip” and had students call them by first name, but there were enough crusty old codgers around who insisted on “Dr. So-and-So” that they didn’t assume. After which I started telling them “you can call me whatever you want, but as a general rule life runs smoother if we respect each other’s station. If you know someone has a title, it’s best to use it unless they specifically tell you otherwise, and it’s always good to respect the social distance between yourself and someone who has something you want. So, choose accordingly.” 20 years ago, most of them got it, and addressed me by my title. 15 years ago, I started getting lots of puzzled puppy dog looks (“what’s a ‘social station’?”). 10 years ago, they all just assumed first names were fine, and before I retired I counted myself lucky if I got so much as a “hey dude”.
Meanwhile, as far as the students were concerned, my job went from “trying to teach them something” to “the annoying meat puppet whose presence we have to tolerate until he puts the A+ in the gradebook for record-keeping purposes”.
Severian, responding to a comment on “Movies Made On Mars”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2019-02-04.
January 30, 2023
QotD: Teaching … back in the day
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