[PART 1. INTRODUCING MY FRIEND]

This is a story about a lecturer. He’s a friend of mine I know very well, although we only talk occasionally, sometimes even once every so many years. We always say we should meet more often, and talk about our lives. But you know how it goes.

He was a promising student in social science, already a research assistant before graduation. He graduated with a thesis that was assessed as “excellent”, and was directly offered a PHD-position: No application needed. The beginning of a promising academic career.

Things went a bit differently. In the subsequent years he found out that both his ambitions and his talents were more in teaching than in research. I noticed him dedicating more and more time in preparing and improving his courses, whilst neglecting his research. For some time, he kept pretending he was combining the two. I already suspected he was lying to me and to himself.

[PART 2. FRIEND BECOMES PRINCIPLED LECTURER]

At one of our occasional appointments -some 0 years ago - he seemed to have made up his mind: He had opted for a career in teaching only. ‘Teaching is what I am good at, and teaching is what I really enjoy doing’, he said. I expressed my doubts: ‘But that will hamper your career in the academia. Research output is what really counts, you know’. He looked at me with confident smile: ‘Off course I know’, he said. ‘But I don’t care, because that’s a mistake.’

What followed was something of a lecture. He passionately talked about the responsibility of universities as educational institutions, about the expansion and changing role of higher education, alternative ways to combine research and teaching, innovative teaching methods, and so on. After having listened to him for almost half an hour, I said ‘Ok, ok, ok. You have obviously thought about these things. And I guess I agree. So, you and I agree. But still: you will remain ‘a lecturer’. You will surely congratulate yourself, but … What’s the reward?’

Again, he smiled at me confidently. ‘It is almost on a weekly basis that in I bump into a former student of mine, somewhere in this city. Usually they still remember me, and I remember them. And we have a small chat about their current careers. That’s the reward.’

[PART 3. THE DECLINE]

In following years, we only met occasionally and had some superficial exchanges. He certainly looked happy with his life. Always talking the latest course he designed, plans for a new curriculum, and making funny remarks like “I publish a lot: almost 50 Powerpoint-presentations this year”.

That is, up until some where last month. [HIER NOG ALINEA TOEVOEGEN: VRIEND LOOPT BEETJE TE KLAGEN EN ZUCHTEN. WE SPREKEN AF

[PART 4 THE STORY OF THE STUDENT]

‘How are you doing’ I asked him. ‘You seemed to be a bit stressed the other day. A bit unhappy even.

‘Oh, it’s better now’ he said. ‘I had this encounter this afternoon’ he said. ‘What happened’ I asked him.

‘Well, I told you about this course on Social Inequality that I just finished two weeks ago, and that I really felt I did a lousy job?

Well, the other day I saw some of my students on the Campus. They greeted me, so I stopped for a small chat. And although I was a bit anxious about their answer, I asked them how they liked the course. I was preparing to defend myself against complaints about the quality of the exam, or about the amount of literature they had to read, that I didn’t respond to some emails, or that I was bit late with grading their papers. One student however, really surprised me with his answer:

‘I want to tell you something. I have a daughter of six, and she was not doing very well at school. That made her feel really unhappy. We didn’t really know what to do about that. Now in one of your classes we discussed educational inequality. And you explained us that one of the causes of educational inequality was the fact that upper-white-middle class parents have a more assertive attitude: if their kids are not doing well at school, they will ask for an appointment, demanding the school to take some form of action to support their kids. Lower middle-class parents -or parents with a migrant background - lack the skills and confidence to do such a thing. Inspired by that I decided to put this theory into practice. I asked for appointment with the school, and I told them: “My daughter id not doing very well at school, and she doesn’t feel happy here. What are you going to do about that’? And you know: it worked. The school apologized, organized additional support classes for her, and she’s doing much better now’.

[PART 5. THE SPEECH]

‘Nice story’, I said. ‘Touching even’. ‘It’s more than just nice and touching’, he replied. ‘It is essential. This, I tell you is exactly what the social sciences are all about: not just analyzing the social world for the sake of science only. Our task is to offer ordinary people the tools to understand the social causes of their own lives, their worries and their troubles. And if possible to - with that knowledge - intervene and improve their lives. Is this not what the great Sociologist C.Wright Mills meant with ‘sociological imagination’?

The conversation now - once again - turned into something of a lecture, and he continued:

‘And is this not exactly why teaching is so important? Of course, we have to do research in order to improve our knowledge. But knowledge for who? If we all agree that dissemination of knowledge is essential, then I would say: Is not all teaching dissemination?

I noticed my friend’s voice started to raise:

‘And this should also be central -I say- in our teaching methods. We’re too much obsessed nowadays with learning outcomes, examination procedures, assessment forms, digital tools and so on. These are just a means to an end. Too often, we just tell students what they should learn, and fail to explain why they should learn that. No surprise then that students sometimes seems to just learn for test, and are only interested whether they pass or fail. This student actually passed the test with moderate a result; but that was not the most important thing to him. He actually learned something that was important to him. See?’

[PART 6. THE RESURRECTION]

I looked at him with a friendly smile. ‘Why are you preaching to me?’, I asked. ‘You do not have to convince me. I completely agree. And you should know I do. It was actually you who convinced me. Ten years ago remember, when we talked about your choice to dedicate your career to teaching only. It seems to me that you are trying convince yourself once again. Or better: that you needed this student for that.’

My friend took a zip of his drink, and remained silent for more than a minute (and I can tell you: knowing him that’s quite a long time).

‘You’re right’ he said. Teaching is great, but can also be tiring sometimes. Exhausting even. I tried to counter that by relying more on my routine, but that was obviously not the solution. In fact, it made me feel even more tired I think. The renewed energy I need comes from recognition and positive feedback, especially from students themselves. Again, I knew that. But I forgot it. And indeed, I needed this student to remember. Well, I guess I learned as much from him as he did from me.

‘You know what? I said. ‘On the 11^th of February there is the VU Education Day’. You should share this story there. Tell your colleagues in teaching the story about this student. But also tell the students what his story did to you.

‘Are you kiddin’, he asked. ‘No, I’m serious’, I replied. OK he said. Since then, we meet and talk every day. And we came today, to share you with you our story.

Feel good!