 It's been only a week since the fall semester started, and yet my "adventures" as a grad student are already in full throttle. Not only is the workload bigger with much harder and more intense courses, but the chores I'm responsible for have taken a new turn. One of the things I'm assigned to this term started just today: I'm acting as a teaching assistant in one of the New York On-Air courses that the Department of Communication and Design offers. The professor of this particular course lives and teaches in New York University, and he also teaches COMD undergraduates via videoconferencing. My job is to attend his lectures and handle basic administration, such as taking attendance, handing out syllabi, collecting and sending out the homework, etc., but I'm of course not responsible for grading anything or teaching any material.
I realize that it is not the most exciting job, but I do feel like it is going to teach me a lot. I want to be a professor some day, hopefully I will be, even if it is a million days later. Today was the first time I took a chance and looked at the other side of the mirror. I looked at a body of students from an administrative point of view and observed their favorite moments during the lecture, as well as the times when they weren't so happy.
The relationship between the teacher and the student is actually a strange one. For one thing, every teacher was once a student who was bored, frustrated and tired to death at one point. Because that is what we all do, we sometimes find the endless tasks unbearable. However having literally been in a student's shoes never changes a teacher's attitude towards the class. He does not reduce the amount of homework that he assigns, and he does not forgive his students for rarely attending his class. It is perfectly normal for him not to do so, because this is the way one learns.
Or is it, really? I have a 16-year-old brother who will take the university entrance exam two years from now. He goes to school full-time on weekdays, and he spends his weekends at the Turkish institution of "dershane." Whenever I get the opportunity, I try to convince him to study more than he imagines he could in the span of these two years. I tell him that he has to bear this pain of constant studying so that he can be happy in the future. But let me confess something: every time I give this strict piece of advice, I feel my heart breaking somewhere inside, and I doubt if I'm really telling him the right words. Surely, in a country like Turkey, you cannot possibly become an active, happy member of the society without a university diploma, I do not need to explain the rational links between a university degree, happiness and prosperity. But then, while I am in my own way trying to encourage him to work for this blurry future, I'm killing his lazy teenage mornings, his late football fun, and the light in his eyes. I'm sure he and hundreds of thousands of other (prospective) candidates are questioning what they are learning, and more importantly, why they are learning it.
This is just a portion of how deep I went down my thoughts while the students watched the professor on the screen, the professor watched the students from his office and I, from my sideways position, watched all of them. I might mention how one teaches and especially how one learns in future articles. But as of today, despite the fact that I am a determined student who loves what she's doing, I really wonder why one teaches and, again especially, why one learns.
By Damla Okay (COMD/V)
 |
