How to Be a Student

I’ve taught for more than three years now, with never more than two weeks off, in a variety of modes:

• weekly workshop
• traditional college classroom
• one-time super-intensive workshop (that’s the technical wording for it)
• lecture
• online
• one-on-one

I’ve also been an adult (i.e., post-high school) student in all of these settings, minus the online workshop. I’ve also, at most times in my life, been the very worst student there can be. And believe me, I have lived to regrempt this. So let me lay it out for you.

How to be a student:

1. Show up. This sounds ridiculous and plain, but it is not. People miss classes for all kinds of reasons, and while some of those reasons are wicked solid — car crash, dad had a stroke, daughter getting married in another country — some are wicked not. Sometimes people skip workshop because they’re scared. If this is you, ask yourself: is the workshop intimidating or is it abusive? Because those are two different things. And if it’s abusive, talk to the instructor’s boss.

But if it’s intimidating, that’s often a function of your brain clinging desperately to Comfort Island. And that’s a shame, because you took the class to get off that island, didn’t you? Sometimes people skip because they don’t have a piece ready that week. To which I say: why don’t you? And: even if you don’t have a piece this week, there’s still value in being part of the discussion. There’s value for you, because being part of that discussion will challenge you and perhaps offer you some inspiration. But more than than, your classmates, like you, depend on getting feedback. Don’t withhold yours!

2. Do the work. Also a simple notion, also sometimes the hardest one to enact. Again, nine times out of ten, that’s your fear talking. Fear is a jerk. All it does is take and take. Why would you want to give it the satisfaction of taking anything more from you? Sit your ass down and write a page. I’ll bet you can’t write just one! And if the work at hand is reading an assignment or summarizing something, challenge the material: Tell me something I didn’t know. Look for the value. It’s in there somewhere — or it’s in your reaction to the lack of value. In other words, everything will have an effect on you in some way. Your job is to name that effect.

3. Learn the difference between participating and dominating. This one is me. I never had a problem showing up, I never had a problem doing the work (except for the advanced research class in Psychology). But I sure as hell never learned to shut up. Fun fact: when you’re talking, you’re not listening. I feel certain I largely wasted the first three residencies of my MFA studies by jabbering on like a coked-up video store employee in every workshop, lecture, and event. What I said: “But didn’t Faulkner also claim that…? etc. etc.” What everyone else heard: “HERE’S WHAT I KNOW! HERE’S ALSO WHAT I KNOW!”

I did hit a point where I realized what was going on: again, taking the Fear boat to Comfort Island. I once caught myself about to raise my hand during the Q&A portion of another student’s lecture, and thought: Wait, what do you know about sestinas? When I put the hand down, my body thrummed with anxiety. The way it will if you’re a smoker and you’re nowhere near a door? That’s always a good time to ask yourself why you really want something.

I see this in workshops, a lot. The student who can’t stop talking or explaining or referencing. The thing is, everyone else can see it, too. Your anxieties, as were mine, are hanging out for all to see.

How I stopped doing it myself was by limiting myself: Skip these two opportunities for hand-raising, I’d tell myself, and I’ll let you have the third. After a while, I found I was learning more. Because I was listening more. And by doing that, I was magically able to be a better participant, so that when the time was appropriate to say something, I had something actual-smart to say (SOMETIMES), versus manufactured-smart.

(Note: as a teacher, I now get my biggest charge out of starting a conversation, versus dominating or hijacking one. If I’ve done the most talking all class, I look at it as a failure on my part. I think this is healthier? Maybe?)

4. Know that you and the instructor cannot be buddies. Also one of my issues as a student. If you’re a person with a pathological need to be liked and respected by everyone, and if you quietly believe you’re the most talented student in that room, it will seem insane to you that the professor or workshop leader wouldn’t want to hang out and talk about stuff after class. This will be worsened if you do manage to find an instructor with no boundaries, because then you’ll assume every teacher is like that if only you can crack the code!

But this is not good. You’re asking your teacher to not be a teacher. You’re asking them to be unprofessional, at least for the special case that is you. You’re also letting them know that you have needs and expectations that somehow exceed those of the other students. But you don’t.

This is more complicated, by the way, in a graduate setting, or at conferences. Students and faculty hang out together all the time in these contexts. But there does still need to be an awareness on the part of the students that there is a boundary, and that just because you had a beer with Dr. Instruktor last night, you and Dr. Instruktor are not actual pals. (Plus, Dr. Instruktor is in a handball league and weeknights are terrible for him.)

(Note: Of course, all this goes for while you’re in a particular program or setting. I have former students I consider friends, and I gladly accept Facebook requests after a course has been completed. On the other hand, you may have teachers who will never, ever accept your Facebook requests. You will have to be okay with this.)

5. Be open to everything. This is the one most likely to be affected by ignoring all the previous advice. After all, our lease on Comfort Island, our terror of being challenged, our need to focus on external sources of validation — these things, ultimately, inhibit our ability to learn, especially in those moments where learning needs to sneak up and overtake us. Those crucial moments almost never happen when you’re sitting up straight with your notebook open and are looking at your instructor. They seem to happen when you’ve decided to just listen already to the thing your weird classmate is saying, or when the instructor is talking about wine and you realize grapes are exactly what’s missing from your thesis or your science project. (Listen, this could happen!) And the boring book you’re reading could hold lessons beneath the deadening prose. First challenge yourself to stay open to the opportunities. Then challenge yourself again to make something meaningful of them.

6. Never stop. It doesn’t end when the course is over, or when the degree is in your hand. It doesn’t stop when your book is published, and it doesn’t stop when you somehow become a teacher. If you stop being a student, if you stop asking to learn, you will begin to die inside and, gradually, you’ll become a lizard-y husk who just posts things on Facebook because the angry man on TV said they were true. And your genitals will fall off. Scared? GOOD. If you don’t want these things to happen, you know what to do.

Photo Credit: eye2eye via Compfight cc