Teaching, genius, time

Last semester I didn't bother to read my student evaluations.  For one, my university has a new and idiotic scan-tron system that completely negates my ability to judge the validity of the evals.   Now that the students no longer write down their thoughts, I have no idea whether the low score for "class was intellectually challenging" was because the texts were too easy or because the student happens to hate the course, his fellow classmates, and the institution in general.  

And yet, the prospect of evaluation nags at me because, like most of us, I really want my students to like me.  And fear me.  And find me approachable.  And be blown away by my intellect.  The contrary expectations for educators are almost as bad as those for women.  I think the mental hat-switching necessary to fulfill all these expectations contributes to my schizophrenic pedagogical personality.  I am a really weird teacher, and I mumble a lot.  My anxieties are compounded by the fact that I come from a line of illustrious teachers. Both my grandfather and mother have the ability to make earwax a scintillating topic of discussion, so why must I resort to bad jokes about Byon's sex life?

I've been teaching for quite a while now, ever since my second year of graduate school, when I was responsible for leading a discussion section of a lecture course on a topic I was mostly unfamiliar with.  We got absolutely no information/guidance on teaching, leading discussion, syllabi-writing, or anything.  So a few years later when I took the university-mandated "teaching course" for grad students, I felt more than a little contempt for the course's premise.  This dislike was shared by my classmates and, it seems, by academia in general.  What could an article teach me that semesters in a classroom couldn't?  Besides, another stereotype of teaching is that it's a gift.  

Now, years later, my opinions have changed.  For one, I'm startled by how many bad teachers there are in the academy.  Throughout this past semester I noticed my students often discussing the horrible teaching they encountered in their courses.  And these weren't petty complaints or grade-gripes-- many of them seem to have serious and legitimate concerns about shoddy, negligent, and very seasoned teachers.  As I've discovered, it is possible, though not advisable, to teach on autopilot.  It's even easier to just let the students sit around and discuss sex for fifty minutes.  I think I could really benefit from a refresher course of some sort.  

The instinctive-teacher model, however, is a more tricky subject.  I'm now sure that with enough diligence, one can be trained to be an effective and thorough instructor.  But I'm still afraid that great teaching is simply an innate skill.  As I look back on my years spent in the classroom, I'm not sure that I see the kind of growth that one might expect.  In fact, I sometimes feel like that first section on Spenser I taught was one of my best classes.  I have no way of knowing for sure.  I certainly can't rely on student evaluations to tell me anything of substance.  

Perhaps teaching is always a sisyphean process.