Faith in Students

My media students tire of me talking about Top Chef, but it's really the only show I have time to watch during the semester.  Recently, I teared up watching it, too, and not because someone's souffle failed.  The challenge for the chefs to go to the finale involved their mentors visiting them on the set. As the senior chefs entered the kitchen, four of the five contestants became visibly emotional.  One of them, Paul, could barely say hello because he was crying.  I have seen such reunions on reality television before -- between contestants and family.  Here, instead, their mentors were the family.

Why is this sort of bond so strong and full of love?  I think of the person who guided me through graduate school; put up with me when I was strongly wrong-headed, patient as I started to get my act together, and triumphant with me when I finished my PhD.  When someone like that says he's proud of you in an e-mail, well, you print it out and save it.

How does this work in today's world of undergraduate teaching?  Not every relationship becomes so deep, of course.  But some of them do, and not only between professors and their "A" students.  Sometimes it's the "C" student who is struggling with family issues, economic struggles, or a lousy high school background. Some of my most important writing instruction has not covered grammar or spelling, but instead has been a lecture in self confidence:  telling a student that yes, she can do this, it is attainable, and when she's slogged through the work, she will have accomplished something to be proud of.  We can't stretch without risk, and sometimes a teacher's most important task is to convince a student to jump -- or push them onto the playing field.

Showing faith in someone is a form of love.

I have been the lucky recipient of that gift from my parents, some remarkable teachers, my husband and my children.  Not all our students have been given that gift.  If we can be that person, who shows faith in someone who is faltering, we can make a difference beyond the syllabus. It is hard though: students, especially young adults, can be complacent, demanding, whiny and downright lazy.  But until or unless someone says "I have faith you can do this" -- or even, "I have faith you can grow up" -- why would they?

I'm trying not to be maudlin here. There are days I want to clobber my undergraduates.  There were days I wanted to clobber my own children, however, and love was the reason I did not.  Rare is the person born with self confidence, with complete faith in their abilities.  Teachers who plant that seed are the ones we wish to please, to honor, if only to show that their faith is not in vain.