A tactile education

Today has been a good day. Today saw my first PhD student pass his viva with only minor corrections lasting under two hours. I am a mix of emotions, happy that he has passed, proud of what he, and in a smaller part we, achieved. At the same time I am sad knowing that this chapter of life is closing but as I left the pub, after quite a few hugs, Al’s final words of the day made me smile: ‘ Get used to this, there is a lot of this to come”.

This has got me to thinking about how both my students and I approach education.  I am trying to remember the last time I felt like this and I have to be honest, it has been a while. This is not good. With huge classes, people snapping at my feet with the next technological advance, which may or may not improve the educational experience, I ask you, when are we ‘tactile’ with our students? By that I do not mean introduce group hugging into the curriculum, I am far to stoic for that, but more when did undergraduate students and their associated academics embrace each other’s ideas and philosophies?

I miss knowing the people I am teaching and I want them to know me. I don’t want to know the details of their lives and what they had for breakfast but I do want to learn their motivations, their interests and ideas so we can better work together. This all sounds very leftie and that is not the case. I still want strict professional boundaries but perhaps every now and then we can dally into each other’s worlds a bit further than a grade. Is this really to much to ask? Have these days gone already?

I am worried that as we move thought this difficult educational climate, and the inevitable decrease in staff numbers throughout academia, this is only going to get worse. What will our student ratio be? Will we even have a University education that we recognise or will all Universities just end up turning into another ‘sixth form’ college. So I ask you, the next time a student achieves, give them a ‘hug’ as who knows what the future may hold.