The Return…

“In the end, the goal is retention, for we can only instruct
and shape the students who feel safe and supported enough to stay.”

There’s no better feeling than seeing students who struggled a semester before tough it out and return! I often think “College Professor” is such an inadequate term for the work we do as professionals because the realities of the job call for so much more.

We have no control over the needs students bring with them to the classroom, nor do we control the roles they insert us into based on those needs. So the professor can sometimes ends up being the student’s avatar for any number of support and instructional roles they may have required and not had access to.

That doesn’t mean the professor is functioning in or should seek to function in that role, but it does remind us that in the full scope of meanings attached to our presence, we do more than share disciplinary information. I happen to think we share human information before anything else. We can never really get to the place where learning happens in the student unless we can first penetrate the stop-gate of their human needs. That may be something as minimal as compassion, or as grand as safety. Whatever it is, I think being an effective teacher means you don’t get to opt out of it.

"...if you service the needs—whatever they are—you'll always see the returns."

My semester started off with two students who struggled last year stopping by my office to share that they are doing the work. Not just that they did what was necessary to retake courses and compensate for what their prior struggles wouldn’t allow them to do at the time, but that they are also doing necessary internal work to be better and feel better.

I had thought about both of them numerous times during my summer vacation, wondering how they were and if they’d return. I did all I could to support them up until the point where some internal instinct told me to back off … they have to make choices. Clearly they made those choices, and made the right choices. In one way, I could question my curricular effectiveness based on how they progressed through the course, or didn’t. In another way, I could revisit what I know of the needs they showed up with and hierarchize those needs to reconsider what the real priority was. I think the latter is the most accurate lens to use.

A close friend always says to me, “Your best ability is your availability.” Cliche? Yes, but it’s on target nonetheless. And yes, I’m aware he’s not the author. However, the lesson in all of this talk about service, needs, and returns is if you service the needs—whatever they are—you’ll always see the returns. Those returns may look like students not giving up, seeking therapy, or fighting it out with curriculum until they’ve mastered it, but in whatever ways they manifest, they matter. Students show up with layers of needs, they are not one-dimensional. Some can do the work of prioritizing and compartmentalizing fairly to very well all on their own; others might need a little guidance. In the end, the goal is retention, for we can only instruct, and shape the students who feel safe and supported enough to stay.