Another semester has ended at the local community college where I teach as an adjunct instructor. For the 6th semester in a row (or has it been more?) I have taught the course Interpersonal Communication. And as is often with these types of things, I have no real academic background in the subject, nonetheless it is the mainstay of most Communication departments. And I am a PhD so theoretically I am supposed to have the academic chops to master such a course. A course that is often a blend of Psychology, Communication Studies, and Sociology. With a pinch of personal experiences tempered by years of reading, studying and research that, while not "interpersonal communication" focused per se, nonetheless often involve interpersonal communication. To say nothing of the wealth of personal experience one acquires on the subject as an aware and empathic, if not slightly neurotic, human. So here I am, with Spring 2018 at a close and another Interpersonal Communication class come and gone, or two of them to be precise. And it has been a doozy, a whirlwind of emotions.
Let me say, first and foremost, I love teaching. I love interacting with students and getting to know them. I love the fact that I learn as I teach. That is probably the superpower of teaching really, that one's knowledge grows as one's knowledge is 1) being held to account and 2) is being tested, and failing or succeeding at that testing at a rapid fire rate. Part of this process however necessarily, I think, involves a deeply personal commitment to engaging with not just the students and the material, but with one's self. Which brings me to this moment.
Part of how I teach is by using personal examples. It holds up to the light my own ideas and theories, my interpretations and understandings of the field's literature. It seems intellectually honest somehow to bring theory and "real-life" together in this way. Plus students seem to find it interesting, as long as I don't stray off course too badly. The only ones who appreciate major subject divergence are those hoping to breeze through the class, but thankfully this is not the norm in the student populations I've interacted with. Recently however I have begun to wonder about the efficacy and sagacity of these personal, real-life examples. I mean, perhaps I am revealing too much. Perhaps, while there are plenty that provide positive feedback regarding this type of pedagogy, there are enough students of the other persuasion. The student who feels that this is a burden of some kind, imposed on them as they sit, trapped in my classroom. Or they oppose the theatricality of it. Because, if I was to be honest, just as with any storytelling-qua-lesson, there is a performative aspect. And then there is just the plain exhaustion of putting your own story forward in a kind of cross-examination, where my students and I intersect our critical vision at the heart of one of my missives. There is an emotionally draining quality to producing personal stories as sites of interpersonal communication analysis. But then this week happened and all my misgivings melted away.
"Dear Professor Bush, I want to tell you how much your class meant to me. I learned so much that I can use in my own life, and I really loved hearing your personal stories. They were always interesting and helped me learn."
Etc. I received nearly 10 such emails, to say nothing of some of the face-to-face communication that also referenced my narratives. It turns out that, according to what I am gathering from the feedback, that personal stories act as a way of accessing 1) the material, 2) sustained interest and 3) the instructor. And the students' own final stories! So revealing. So touching. Layers of depth that anchored directly into concepts we covered. It is not an understatement to say I wiped away many tears as I read their final assignments.
So while the immediate answer to the conundrum I was having, "Should I continue using my personal life as a way of clarifying theoretical concepts?" is now a resounding yes, more has been revealed. Students, we all know, often desire a connection with their instructors. But what does that connection look like? How do we understand this connection in the middle of a professional relationship? I think the answer could be, in service to it. In other words, using personal transparency to convey concepts, especially of the ilk found in an Interpersonal Communication class (i.e. self-disclosure, self-esteem, stereotypes, etc) benefit from professorial transparency. A willingness to test the applicability of theoretical knowledge within the roughshod landscape of a real life, in this case, the life of the professor. Additionally, this opens up the atmosphere in a class, important when tackling Interpersonal Communication, as students attempt their own version of what they see enacted for them.
To push forward with this kind of pedagogy certainly has its pitfalls. Undesired scrutiny by those who already institutionally evaluate you and now, potentially, have more information at their disposal to discredit you with. An insensitive response to a raw experience put deliberately on the "lab table", by you, for public dissection. Or downright disinterest or disregard. Nonetheless, there is power here. There is the power of vulnerability and courage and academic integrity when forced to contend with the theoretical, in real-time with the actual. There is the power of humility. Of failure. Of showing students what it means to live as honestly and aware as possible. And, by all accounts, they seem to love it. The few who, withstanding, do not. So I move forward, emboldened with my emails and interpersonal encounters, to continue to offer up my stories for scrutiny when appropriate and helpful. We live in a time where I think we cannot underestimate the importance of the humanizing experience and learning power of the deliberately interpersonal.
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