To Teach... Perchance to Learn

I find myself attempting a graceful “glissando” into greying semi-retirement. And what better way (other than Volvo-driving) to add gravitas and prestige than by teaching? A large part of the scientific community has been involved with teaching and might fall into all three categories. In most life science fields, many researchers start out with some teaching responsibilities – a course “load” as it’s called. That is, many start off teaching and gradually extricate themselves from the tentacles of correcting, corralling and guiding students – students with mixed intentions and varying levels of ambivalence.

Listen to many, speak to a few

In the case of scientific researchers, bogged down in ever-ramifying pursuits, teaching can be seen as an impediment. Who wants to pontificate at length on introductory subjects to smartphone-clutching young people? Are current students – our distraction-era pioneers – really as oblivious as they seem? Well, only if you teach with disinterest and don’t listen.

Some become teachers as a conscious effort to apply a practical career choice on a non-applicable field, such as politics, history or others too numerous to insult. Subjects that, while they can be studied, cannot be learned as a career. Teaching is the only real option for a huge swathe of academic pursuits. And by continuing to teach these subjects, more (similar) teachers are created, thereby sustaining a peculiar human loop of academia. That is not to say these subjects are not worth teaching – there is more to life than getting a job, although living without one is challenging.

Others come to teach later in life. They may be retired, passing the torch to the dynamic, openly driven younger crowd that will survive them. Or they have been marginalized, dismissed, “smart-sized” or made redundant; rejected from their professions in a disorienting haze. No longer motivated exclusively by money, title or position, they attempt to be useful, they seek to enlighten. In the tired words we all know, to share and give something back; to make a difference. Such ossified words persist of course, because they are true.

And this is where I find myself. After decades of high intensity upper management lifestyle, I am now non-corporate. In fact, I’ve been through the five stages of management:

1. Who is Lee DesRosiers?
2. Get me Lee DesRosiers
3. Get me the Lee DesRosiers type
4. Get me a young Lee DesRosiers
5. Who is Lee DesRosiers?

Typically, business people come late to teaching, if at all. I say “if at all” because, oddly, teaching business, that most pragmatic of pursuits, is a highly theoretical process carried out largely by academics, who are a world unto themselves. A brief glance at authors’ bios from a typical management course lists an astonishing array of individuals who run management institutes, with such rarified qualifications as PhDs in Management. No sane sustainable business organization would ask for a higher degree for a non-technical position – but our universities do.

Management textbooks are written almost exclusively by academics, and are taught by similarly described individuals. Certainly, these people have something to offer, but so do experienced business people. Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions. Nonetheless, the value of business experience is dismissed; the academic world believes that experience, while quaint and amusing, is not really relevant. Academics refuse to value experience in the business world because they see themselves above it and, most importantly, they don’t have any.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio

The French word for company is “société”. And we speak of social guests as “company”. There is a distinct sense of exclusion (or possibly excision) for me now, having left business; exclusion from society.

The fact that I came late to teaching has given me an idiosyncratic acuity apparently lacking in my colleagues. In many ways, teaching is analogous to business. Certainly, teaching is one characteristic of great managers – the best managers teach but the best teachers don’t really manage anything, other than their considerable administrative burden.

There are distinct benefits to teaching as compared to business.

In business, they say you should only attend the meetings that cannot happen without you; as a teacher, every class is like that. The class is analogous to a business meeting and cannot start without you. You cannot be absent or late – it is very much “your” meeting.

As the “leader”, it is not difficult to infuse a culture of mutual respect in a classroom; the students are not really competing with each other. You teach respect by example, by practice, by encouragement. Respect is a constant uphill battle in commerce, continuously undermined (most insidiously from above).

Students, unlike normal meeting participants, don’t want your job. No student has any interest in seeing you fail, your success truly is their success. In business, meeting participants may well be secretly hoping for your failure and often do want your job.

I have no “boss” as a professor, only my students. They are, for three and a half months, more like family than colleagues (if you can imagine a transitory, temporary family). I am responsible for them and the challenge is all mine. I decide what they must learn, from where and how it will be evaluated. The course becomes a self-contained, breathing organism, adapting to both students and teacher as it evolves over its short life.

Most delightful of all is the “HR” situation. Disruptive person keeping you up at night? Hang tough and they will automatically be gone in a few weeks. In fact, you will decide their fate. The students move through your class like a whirlpool – the form remains while the content shifts.

My fellow professors are companionable enough, but we are ships sailing in different waters. We don’t spew jargon at each other and we don’t speak of “delighting our stakeholders”. We are disturbingly empirical. What is the best way for our students to learn?

As far as rewards go, in business roles, you get up early to be with people you don’t like to do things you don’t want to do in a place that you don’t want to go to. Are you happy? You might say so, but only after you’ve been given a car and many thousands of dollars. You wouldn’t do it for free. Teaching for free is actually not inconceivable.

All the world’s a stage

Teaching is the highlight of my week. It’s an intense social interaction like some wild complex party. All too soon it is over and my long silent week begins. I love that silence too, and I rejoice when class ends, high as a kite when I imagine or believe that I really had an impact. Only rarely in business, perhaps after a particularly successful presentation, have I ever had that rewarding sensation. Now I can’t live without it.

More pragmatically, you cannot drift aimlessly through your day in a twilight level of consciousness, as most of us do at work some or all of the time; you are always center stage. You must be as alert as a cat in front of your class. There are some similarities to being a stand-up comedian – including stage fright. Every class is an important performance and you can certainly “bomb”.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

When people ask what I do, I don’t say “I’m a teacher” but rather “I teach”. The corporate equivalent, “I manage,” doesn’t work. No longer do I offer vague titles like “Global Senior Business Development Team Leader” or “Commercial Director, German-speaking countries”. Functionally, there is no doubt about the usefulness of teaching; occupationally, it is unassailable.

I like to think of myself as a glowing talent with a certain distinction and a hint of decay. In fact, much of what I know about business still applies. Nonetheless, many of my business “skills” are obsolete. I remember when an advertising mock-up was delivered as a “blue” (a strange intermediate print), and how to bind catalogues – all those seemingly ancient activities that dominated marketing 30 years ago.

Students today don’t “own” music, movies or even books anymore. Soon they will see no reason to own knowledge. Why not just look it up? The best software wins.

And yet in my profession, things are often still paper only. The hand-written, in-class case studies are priceless – as irreplaceable and unrepeatable as a Charlie Parker jam session.

I absolutely cannot lose hand-written final exam papers. My university will not mail them to me as there is a miniscule chance they will be lost. Of course, this is another process that will disappear as exams go completely on line. But for now it is a wonderfully refreshing glimpse into the arcane world of valuable, diligently prepared documents.

Aye, there’s the rub

Some teach all their lives. They are compelled to explain, to guide, to enlighten… or at least try to. Among them are the great, charismatic, kindly individual landmarks who have shaped many of our lives and will guide our children. It is an aspiration I reach for every day.

A teacher is only evaluated by their students, which is much like your customers deciding your next promotion in a business setting (and maybe they should).

You don’t usually fail as a teacher – you give up.