In Loco Parentis? Did I Foretell A Trend?

In Loco Parentis? 

Did I Foretell A Trend?

 

I belong to some pretty ‘fun’ social media groups for academics and lecturers. They discuss real issues; course design, delivery styles, student interaction, and student “issues”. My crazy insomnia keeps me up most nights, and these groups being a tad more ‘North American centric” give me plenty of entertaining fodder to keep me company in my sleepless mode.

 

As I reflect on their discussions (and they are good discussions) and my own lecturing experience (both online and off) over the past close to three decades, it draws me towards a single conclusion about the enhanced “neediness” of students, and not just because of the pandemic.

 

Friends and colleagues who teach way more than me also have commented on that particular trajectory. They regularly highlight issues and behaviours that, even ten years prior, would not have emerged in the classroom, and most certainly, not in the lecture hall.

 

But that’s ok; it’s all part of the territory; to adapt and refine our education strategy to help develop new cohorts of students.

 

So, I was certainly drawn to the following commentary over lunch, that compares the ‘new professor’ with the ‘new mom’ role; alluding to some very obvious parallels. Not so much about the students per se, but the very real skills we as lecturers (professors) require to handle our everyday teaching in the age of Zoom. And perhaps, not just for the ‘new’ professor too, eh?

 

The irony though, in 1999, I wrote a paper on this in relation to international students; exploring the role that we as lecturers absorb when students thousands of miles away from home enter our sphere.

 

Did I foretell a trend?

 

#TheThirdDegree #HigherEducation #TertiaryTeaching #TheNewProfessor

 

Being a new professor is a lot like being a mom (opinion) (insidehighered.com)