Professors Presume That They Know How to Teach

I have learned that they don't.

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Recently, a professor not known to me asked for copies of the materials for some decision-forcing cases I had developed. I declined this request, politely explaining that I only shared case materials with people who had demonstrated the ability to use them in a manner that met my peculiar requirements. At the same time, I invited my correspondent to take part in sessions of an online group dedicated to the art of case teaching.

The professor responded to my decision by framing it as an insult. “Without knowing a single thing about me or my teaching,” he wrote, “you appear to have assumed that I either do not or cannot meet whatever quality standard you hold.” In other words, the professor took umbrage at my rejection of the presumption that persons employed to teach at universities have necessarily mastered the art of helping others learn.

Ironically, this presumption prevails in a world in which engagement with the art of teaching plays no role whatsoever in programs that prepare professors for their positions. Rather, junior academics learn to lecture, lead discussions, and correct papers by observing senior academics, few of whom have themselves mastered such skills. In doing this, moreover, young scholars imbibe both a deep disdain for students and an intense indifference to exercises other than the ones used in their own training.

The roots of this attitude run deep. Eight decades ago, Wallace Brett Donham, who had recently retired as dean of the Harvard Business School, wrote “young faculty men, rightly or wrongly - and in many cases rightly - believe that they are judged primarily by research and publication. They look on teaching jobs as ways of supporting themselves while they earn their doctor’s degrees.”¹

It is telling, though far from surprising, that, in responding to my note, the professor in question made no mention of my invitation to take part in a group dedicated to the art of case teaching. To do so, after all, would require him to admit that, notwithstanding his title and his degrees, he might have something to learn.

1. Wallace Brett Donham Education for Responsible Living: The Opportunity for Liberal-Arts Colleges (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1944) page 40