Time again, for a teaching self-evaluation. This semester, I taught three classes, and ran three independent studies. This workload was a mistake. I use the term ‘mistake’ because I signed up for those independent studies; that is, I chose to over commit myself. I had foolishly imagined I would be able to do justice to these multiple commitments; I soon found not I could not keep up. The result was one of the most disorganized semesters I’ve ever suffered–or made others suffer. The time taken up by class meetings–including the discussion sessions with my independent study students–and class preparations, reading weekly written responses, grading, office hours, and so on, quickly swamped many other commitments; and I failed to respond with adequate organization. (Yes, that dreaded ‘time-management.’) My students felt this lack of disorganization; I constantly felt harried, underprepared, late, and negligent. Several students complained to me that I did not respond to their emails in time; in each case, they were correct. I also committed the mistake–out of sheer emotion and physical weariness–of not sticking to my specified restrictions on assignment deadlines; the result was a blizzard of late submissions and resubmissions. Which of course just further increased my sense of disorganization. One manifestation of my harried feeling this semester was that I walked out of a class meeting when it became apparent to me no one had done the reading; I’ve done this three times in my fifteen years at Brooklyn College, and on each occasion, the fury I evinced left me feeling empty and spent. And my students bewildered.
What went well? I enjoyed great classroom interactions–of varying kinds–with two out of my three classes. Two of my three independent studies went well in terms of the quality of the discussions I had with my students. I used new syllabi for all classes; this was required for one class, which was new, while the other received makeovers; and in general, my selections–four ‘religious novels’ for my Philosophical Issues in Literature class; Plato, Hume, and Nietzsche for my Landmarks in Philosophy class; and Marx, Weber, and Durkheim for my Social Philosophy class–went over well with my students. (Some students, quite understandably, found the assigned readings from Weber a little too dry.) Many students impressed me with the quality of their responses to the readings, and by the sophistication and thoughtfulness of their papers. Some told me they enjoyed my teaching; an affirmation that is always gratifying. Some of these responses, to be honest, brought tears to my eyes; they included comments about my ‘passion for teaching’ and how I had ‘taught them a lot.’ I do not think I can adequately convey my emotional state on hearing my students express themselves so openly and emotionally to me in these personal and private encounters. I also think I did a good job in my one-on-one interactions with students when going over their papers with them; almost everyone I worked with told me they found these sessions useful.
So, another semester of learning–in both directions–comes to a close. Teaching remains my greatest philosophical passion; and my partners in this enterprise–my students–continue to enrich my engagement with philosophical thinking. I’m looking forward to the summer’s travel and writing plans, but I’m also looking forward to the teaching in the fall–more new syllabi, more unread books to be worked through. Hopefully, I’ll be a little wiser then too, and will have learned from this semester’s mistakes.
Samir Chopra 