Lazy Teachers Are a Problem

Blaming social media only goes so far.

I’ll never forget the first time I taught in the classroom.

It was 2013, and the administration found themselves in a bind when an instructor pulled out just days before the start of the term.

I had been a teaching assistant for about 9 months at that point, but let’s be honest — I hadn’t done much more than smile a lot while taking roll and grading homework assignments.

To be clear, it’s not like I was undeserving of the teaching position. I was confident and qualified, but that’s easy when not much is expected of you. Any mistakes are shrugged off by the students, since, after all, you’re just a TA.

But not anymore. Instead, I was now responsible for a group of 20 adult students paying good money to hear me say words that will help them get licensed and have a productive career.

Basically, they had no patience for bullshit.

Luckily for them, I wasn’t the type to give it.

Teachers face a lot of challenges, which depend heavily on the age and learning style of their students.

Parents are demanding, technology is rewiring students brains, and resources differ based on things such as geography and funding.

The pressures of social media and artificial intelligence make matters significantly worse, and video games continue to be a thorn in the sides of educators everywhere.

The fact is, teaching is hard, and anyone who suggests otherwise is either ignorant or lying.

But something else equally important desperately needs to be said: most teachers are incredibly lazy.

The Marines have a saying that I live by, both professionally and personally — “it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it".

Despite not having much time to prepare, there was no chance in hell I’d teach that class without being prepared. The only problem was that I didn’t know how prepared I needed to be.

I was teaching in a Massage College, and the students came from diverse age groups and experience levels. Some of them hadn’t stepped foot in a classroom since High School, while others had Masters degrees and 20 years experience in a field they just couldn’t stomach anymore.

Put simply, there was no way to accurately gauge the knowledge base of the students. I didn’t know how much depth and context would be needed to supplement the lecture material, and since this was my first time teaching I didn’t have previous experience to lean on.

This is not a unique situation. Every educator experiences this, regardless of where they teach. It’s the moment you realize what challenges lay before you, and you decide how you’ll attempt to solve them.

In Fessler and Christensen’s widely accepted life cycle of an educator, this is what’s known as the “Enthusiastic Growth” stage. This is where teaching methods are developed based on the type of students being taught and the problems that will need to be addressed.

In my case, I decided to approach it as such — assume they already know the basic information, and come prepared to teach a masterclass.

This is a slippery slope.

The last thing you want to do is give them more information than they need, which would only confuse and frustrate them.

My goal wasn’t to flex my intellect and impress them with knowledge, I just wanted to be prepared for any question they could ask.

To do this, I came up with a simple strategy — for every new concept, I would create a list of 10 reasonable questions the students might ask. For every question I didn’t know the answer to, I would scour textbooks and the Internet to find the answer, and then come up with 3 more potential questions from there.

Before I knew it, I had an ever-growing list of questions and answers branching out of the lesson plan, which was both inspiring and daunting to look at. I hadn’t changed anything about the lesson plan, yet everything felt more vibrant and full of potential. By building out the conceptual landscape, I had developed an intimacy with the subject matter that I had never anticipated.

Put simply, I now had complete command over the material.

Again, this is nothing profound.

Understanding the ins and outs of a subject is required of a teacher, otherwise they aren’t providing anything more than what the textbook can give, and shouldn’t be in the position of teaching at all.

For most, they build the lesson plans themselves, which in theory should provide an even deeper sense of intimacy with the material than I had.

Yet you’d be hard-pressed to think of more than 5 teachers in your entire lifetime that had such a command over their material. This isn’t to say they didn’t have the knowledge, they just didn’t care to demonstrate that to their students. They were lazy.

Going back to Fessler’s lifecycle of a teacher, you could argue the educator is now in one (or all) of the last 4 stages of the cycle:

• Career Frustration

• Career Stability and Stagnation

• Twilight of Career

• End of Career

I never really bought this though. At least, not when it comes to command over material.

You could be the most frustrated and disillusioned teacher in the world and still give an incredible lecture for an hour or so, assuming you actually knew what you were talking about.

That’s because the classroom is like an alternate reality, where the troubles of the outside world drift away, leaving nothing but the purity of the job.

It’s an “educational flow state”, of sorts. A distraction-less place of focus and purpose that is independent of whatever issues may exist outside of the 4 walls and desks in front of you.

Obviously problems can transcend this “zone” from time-to-time, which is why the command over your material is so important. It’s something to lean on when life gets hard and you’re struggling with the other half of the equation — a commanding presence in the classroom.

I’m a firm believer in “practicing how you play”, happily talking to myself and “imaginary friends” for years.

To get ready for my first lecture, I wanted as authentic of an experience as I could get, so I built myself a makeshift classroom in my one bedroom apartment.

For two days, I paced in front of the wall as though it was a whiteboard, all while answering the questions of imaginary students sitting in my kitchen.

My broom became a wild-haired and inquisitive student, while my couch turned into the uninterested and judgmental group every classroom has.

I nodded, laughed, and always made sure to finish my answers by asking, “does that make sense?”

A commanding presence is just as important as a command over the material. If you don’t look like you belong, the students will assume that you don’t.

The problem is that too many teachers rely solely on this presence, and ignore the part about knowing the material intimately.

We all know this educator — they’re loud, direct, and don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. They’ve been through this before, and don’t have time for nonsense and detours.

While the class may go off without a hitch, no one enjoys the experience. It’s about as pleasurable as getting a rotten tooth pulled — necessary, but painful.

Many teachers recognize this, and decide to be the “cool” educator instead. You know the one — overly friendly with students, loose with the rules, and aims for likability over education every time.

Both teaching styles are two sides of the same lazy coin. Instead of challenging themselves, they take the easy road and collect the paycheck, sacrificing their integrity along the way.

As I answered the broom’s question for the 47th time, I knew that wasn’t going to be me. If students were going to hate my class, it wouldn’t be from a lack of effort.

When the day finally came, I stumbled over my words, made awkward jokes, and had sloppy hand writing that always seemed to slant down and to the right on the whiteboard.

I was sweaty, nervous, and the students stared back at me with eyes more befitting of sharks than humans.

It was easily the most stressed I had felt in years, yet I was bursting at the seams with accomplishment.

Why?

I didn’t struggle because I was unprepared, I struggled because I was uncomfortable doing something I had never done before, which was understandable and would go away with time.

I answered every single question that night, with most of them being ones I hadn’t prepared for.

The students were wonderful, and they were plenty forgiving of my nervousness. Several of them came after class and thanked me for being as prepared as I was.

For the next 11 weeks, I was a machine. The process got easier and easier each lesson, and by the time the course concluded, I was one of the most well respected instructors in the building.

To be clear, I worked with wonderfully talented and caring people, and I’m not claiming in any way to have somehow been better than them. I had a long way to go before my commanding presence would be where I wanted it, but the students knew they could count on me to have the information they needed.

As I began teaching more courses, I became addicted to the process. I would spend hours online and in libraries, investigating every question I could think of, and probing the depths of the scientific literature.

Yet I knew a plateau was coming. I didn’t learn everything I needed to know, but there’s only so much preparation you can do before it becomes fruitless. The funny thing is, that’s when teaching became truly fun.

I could now focus more on my presence and presentation, becoming the well-rounded teacher I always wanted to be. On bad days, I knew I could lean on my command over the material to get me through and still leave the students satisfied. On good days, I was knocking the lecture out of the park and watching students gasp in disbelief when the class was over.

All because I refused to be lazy. I swore to myself that no matter how rough things were in my life, I was going to give the students everything I had and more. The moment I couldn’t do that would be the moment I walked out of the classroom for good.

Teaching is a responsibility that too few take seriously.

Instead of taking accountability, most blame parents, technology, video games, and funding.

Some say kids and people are different these days, and proven methods don’t work with newer problems. How do you teach effectively in the age of ChatGPT, virtual reality, and iPads being given to children like it was a nanny?

I’m not going to pretend as though I have all the answers, but I do know one thing for sure — laziness isn’t an option.

Creativity in and around the classroom is needed more than ever these days. Students need to know that despite the uncertain times we’re in, their instructor is going to leave nothing at the door.

If you’re going to take on the responsibility of educating, do it with vigor, focus, and commitment. Because if you can’t do that, the students, parents, and world at large won’t shed a tear when ChatGPT replaces you.