Parker Palmer rethinks the norms of what it means to be a professional, writing that we should not aim to be “value-free” to excel in what we love. Following Palmer’s rethinking, I do not think academia should be value-free. I have not mastered it, but as a teacher, I hope to maintain a balance between thinking about what we value as a society and individuals with teaching students what they are expected to know to be professionals in their discipline (at least as it applies in my class).

While some say teachers should not express their personal beliefs in the classroom, I think that this perspective is too black and white. Students are not mere receivers of information, and I am not merely a dispensary; this is what machines do. Rather, we should be open to having conversations with our students about our values, and their values, with the understanding that we are critical thinkers who are emotional and rational. This knowledge is what makes us different from machines, and what I think should define “professional” in teaching.

Many in academia speak of an “authentic” teaching voice. I put authentic in quotes because a little Michel Foucault is sitting on my shoulder telling me to critique all word choices ever.

I would not choose the term because authenticity means that there is some essential truth about oneself that has yet to be revealed, when really we are always growing and changing. Instead, I prefer the phrase “relateable” teaching voice.

Relateable might not be exactly what those mean when they say authentic, but this is something I value in my teaching voice. Channeling bell hooks, I find my voice in my attempts to engage in conversation with students rather than by lecturing to them.

I don’t always succeed in teaching this way because I feel that strict lecturing is an easy fallback—you can plan ahead and you know exactly what to expect. However, so far, I have found that engaging in conversation with students as a form of class discussion keeps the classroom energetic.

Alfie Kohn wrote that grades have the effect of “diminish[ing] students’ interest in whatever they’re learning,” “creat[ing] a preference for the easiest possible task, and “tend[ing] to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.”

This has certainly been the experience for me throughout undergrad and graduate school. One thing that I think intensifies the effect of grades is the multitude of responsibilities that students have. I had a professor in undergrad who used to sympathize with how busy we are with our jobs to pay for school, our extra-cirriculars, or our unpaid internships, not to mention the book(s) a week we are expected to read. This professor would say, “I understand, sometimes you have to rob Peter to pay Paul.” More

Advancing technology creates new opportunities for learning—new points of view, new mediums for inquiry, and new modes of expression. Technology is advancing in a way that it is increasingly immersive. I think that this can be a bridge for experiential learning to adapt to advancing technology.

Experiential learning, I think, is a form of simulation. High-ropes courses, for example, are built to facilitate the learning of problem-solving skills, emotional coping skills, and team-building. The completion of the course simulates challenges one may face in other scenarios in life, and facilitates learning and growth by allowing one to develop skills for coping with those situations in a safer environment.

Simulation can be used in many other ways for learning. More

Tim Hitchcock blogged about the changing platform of public discourse, and the academic’s role, in his post titled, “Twitter and blogs are not just add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion underpinning it.”Over the past few decades, discourse between academics and the public has transformed away from print newspapers, monographs, and journal articles, toward online interaction. Hitchcock thinks academics need to lean into this transformation, rather than fight against it—the world is changing and communication will be difficult if academics do not acknowledge the need to adapt. I agree with this point, but I want to respond to Hitchcock’s blog post because I think the advice that academics adapt to changing modes of communication is not such a simple task as moving from paper to the the keyboard.

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