Who has the power -- professors, GTAs, or students?

After reading "Students' Use of Compliance Gaining Strategies with Graduate Teaching Assistants: Examining the Other End of the Power Spectrum," an article documenting a study conducted and written up by Tamara D. Golish, I feel pretty good about the perception of my own future power as a GTA. The findings in the study claim that students felt they have more power in a classroom ran by GTAs than one ran by professors, and that students perceived professors to have more legitimate power and more expert (meaning the power is based on a person’s competence in a particular area) than GTAs (22). Even so, students still considered GTAs to possess a great deal of authority in the classroom. Therefore, I am confident in entering the classroom because students can and will view me as a legitimate source of authority.

The article commented on a lot of things regarding the authority of professors, GTAs, and students within the classroom. For example:

“students’, rather than teachers’, perceptions

of power use are the important measurement

of power in the classroom” (13).

This is a pretty obvious statement because any person in power -- a king, a politician, a parent -- is only as powerful as the people they serve. Therefore, the power dynamic in the classroom is dependent upon the respect students have for the teacher, as well as the respect the teacher has for his/her student. Thinking this way, a GTA needs only to recognize the capability of the students to be an authority in writing and workshopping for the student to become an authority in each.

The focus of the article -- compliance-gaining -- is defined as “the communicative behavior in which an agent engages so as to elicit from a target some agent-selected behavior” (15). This method of teaching asks for active rather than reactive students--or students who are actively engaged in the learning process. Goodbye, Charlie Brown's teacher!

The article also points out issues with idealism in inexperienced teachers.

"Teacher training tends to portray the
classroom in a humanistic and idealistic
light. New teachers often enter the classroom
with unrealistic expectations, where
classroom management is merely creating
an environment where all students can learn
as individuals” but eventually, “these new
teachers tend to become more custodial over
time as they gain experience in the classroom
with student misbehaviors” (15-16).

The initial idealism leaves teachers frustrated as students exhibit apathy or disruptive behavior. May be a problem for GTAs who do not have the experience or training of other educators. As their authority as teacher is challenged, a GTA may begin to turn to custodial practices to emphasize their place in the classroom.

Like in other articles, Golish points out reasons that GTAs may feel they do not have as much credibility -- age, limiting factors like a lack of office, etc -- and that may instill in students a feeling that the teacher is not as legitimate as a full-time professor. However, Golish recognizes the possibility for these things to be both good and bad.

“Students may feel they have more power
with GTAs than professors because they
sense a level of ‘uncomfortableness’ some
GTAs might have with their role as an
authority, because GTAs are closer in age
to them than professors, or because GTAs
are perceived as more approachable than
professors” (16).

It is nice to hear that these "limiting factors" may actually be positives. As GTAs, we should use all the tools we have accessible to reach our students, including the fact that we are students as well!

Until later,
--M