The Philosophers' Cocoon

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" post, Amanda writes:

You've mentioned a few times you show a Karate kid clip to show your students the importance of making them work hard. Would you be willing to share a link to that clip? Thanks.

I'm glad Amanda asked! I'm not only happy to share (see below), but think it's a good opportunity to discuss a part of teaching that I've rarely seen discussed: reaching students.

Before I share the clips, a little backstory. In my first or second year at my current institution (nearly a decade ago), I found myself struggling a bit getting through to students. Sure, some of my students were really into philosophy–but others were disengaged, including a good number of students who seemed to "give up" due to receiving low assignment grades. Because my student reviews weren't great and I wanted to improve (in my own eyes, I wasn't succeeding as a teacher), I looked for opportunities to learn and rethink my approach.

Anyway, one day I saw flyer on campus advertising an interesting-looking panel discussion–a panel of students addressing the topic, "What I wish my professors knew." So, I decided to go…and what I heard surprised me. Although the students on the panel didn't agree on everything, every last one of them gave some version of the following answer: 'I really wish my professors shared their teaching philosophy.' If recall asking the panel if they would like their professors' syllabi to include sections on the professor's teaching philosophy, and they all answered enthusiastically yes.

So, I gave it a shot..and it worked! My syllabi now contain fairly detailed sections explaining how I envision my role as their teacher, the kind of classroom environment I want to foster, and the pedagogical rationale for different types of assignments…and I found students really appreciate it: both in my student reviews (where they often mention how my practices follow my philosophy), and in everyday student engagement. 

It later occurred to me that as teachers we can sometimes forget that our teaching pedagogy may be nearly as opaque to our students as Mr. Miyagi's teaching methods are to Daniel in The Karate Kid. Miyagi has Daniel wax all of his cars, sand his wooden deck floors, paint his fence, and paint his house…and Daniel gets pissed. Why? Because he doesn't understand why Miyagi is having him do all of these things. From Daniel's vantage-point, Miyagi doesn't care about him: he's using (and abusing) him. It's only once Miyagi reveals to him that he has been developing muscle-memory for karate moves the whole time that Daniel understands Miyagi's teaching methods are worth it…and that Miyagi cares about him as a student.

All of which brings me to the Karate Kid clips Amanda asked about. I'm a really tough grader (my assignments and grading standards are always rated as far more difficult than average in student evaluations). I tell my students this in my syllabi, explaining that I demand a lot because I want to hold them to a high bar. Still, I learned that telling them this in my syllabi doesn't blunt the shock they experience a month or two later when they get their term-papers back. Although I allow students to re-write their papers, I found years ago that a good number of them would just get angry about their low paper grades, tune out from the course, and never follow through on rewrites. In my book, that's a failure on my part. Like Daniel, our students are still maturing. If my methods lead them to just give up, I haven't taught one of the lessons I most want to convey: the pedagogical (and philosophical) value of grappling with and learning from 'failure.' I don't want my students to give up: I want them to learn not to give up but instead learn from their philosophical mistakes.

This is why now, when I return term-papers, I often show them the following clips from the Karate Kid:

After showing them these clips, I explain to my students that I am hard on them on their papers because I care about them–because I want them to improve and go out in the real world able to read, write, speak, and think well, and because improving in these areas takes hard work in learning from mistakes. I explain how the same lesson applies throughout life: from how someone like LeBron James had to practice day and night to become a better player, to how we (as their professors) often need to write and rewrite our own papers many times to improve and fix our own mistakes. Finally, I ask my students to have faith in themselves, faith in me as their instructor, and faith in the process–telling them that if they really take my (ample) feedback to heart and put the work in to rewrite their papers, chances are they will see improvement in their work they can recognize and take real pride in. While the 'Karate Kid lesson' doesn't get through to every student, my experience is that it gets through to a good number of them, and that the faith I ask them to have is often repayed. Finally, when it is–when I see their hard work lead to improvement, and they see it too–it makes teaching so very worth it. 🙂

Anyway, this is just one of my practices. How do you try to get through to students?