Although I took personal business time to attend a funeral service, students in my research writing class met without me. Later that evening, I received the following note:

You missed a marvelous class session today. I thought it was very productive and the bulk of the class stayed until the end of the class period despite you not being there.

I was neither surprised that the students had a very productive session without me nor that most of the students stayed until the end of the period. Why wouldn’t they? They were designing an interesting project in which they took a personal interest.

I cannot provide the details of the project on which they are working because I missed class. At this point, all I know is that two of their representatives met with someone recommended by the Dean of Students and that they then invited this person to attend class; the class I missed.

From the two sentence report I received, I know that the day was productive. I also know that when I finally get the details, I will be expected to do everything possible to support a project that I already know does not fit the specifics of what I had planned to teach this semester.

Several years ago, during a conference session on “The Less I Teach, the More My Students Learn,” one of my co-presenters explained that the class in which he had taken had done this and then they had done that and then they had done something else. He concluded by excitedly proclaiming, “And at this point, Dr. Berg hasn’t taught us a thing!” The audience laughed. They also realized that the student had obviously learned a great deal in a class in which I had not taught him anything; a class in which students were given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning.

Although I am fond of saying that “I try to teach as little as possible,” I am aware that the role of faculty members in the classroom is vital for student success. It is faculty members who create a culture of learning in our classrooms and provide students with the skills they need to be successful scholars. If we do not lay the groundwork, students would be unable to take responsibility for their own learning.

Unfortunately, the less we try to teach in the traditional sense, the harder we work. And extrinsic rewards for such work are rare. Fortunately, sympathetic joy allows us to participate in each others’ successes. For example, when I was recently telling a team of students that they would need to consider certain issues as they designed a survey, one of the students told me that they had already discussed those points. After all, he explained, “I have taken psychology.”

I rarely have the opportunity to hear a student explain what he or she learned in my class. But, if I listen to students talk among themselves while I am “not teaching them anything,” I am able to see them apply the knowledge they learned in other classes; classes in which my colleagues placed a value on student learning instead of teaching. And I have faith that my colleagues benefit from my non-teaching as I benefit from their focus on student success.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

The image is a hot link to The Story of Siddhartha: Education, the video created by Tabe Harold during the period when I didn’t teach him anything.