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

Oh, me! What to do? The trouble with disruption!

Let's face it. If there is a classroom, there will be disruption. Jennifer Meta Robinson writes about instances that may cause and offers suggestions on how to handle disruption in her article "A Question of Authority: Dealing with Disruptive Students." Obviously, graduate teaching instructors face many disadvantages when they walk into the classroom. She elaborates on them as follows:

"Graduate-student instructors in particular
may face problems with disruptive students
because they may be perceived as less qualified.
As one graduate-student teacher said, 'Our
position as graduate students marks us as not
quite in the academy yet. That’s not the case;
to some, however, like our students, that may
seem to be the case'” (119-120).

Students receive the perception that TA's aren't quite as powerful as other professors for many reasons such as a lack of offices, telephones, and instructional support. Also, there is the small age gap between teacher and student and an overall sense of inexperience and nervousness. All of these things can lead to student disruption because, in their mind, the classroom has been disrupted when a person becomes teacher that doesn't seem to have the authority a student would expect.

“While some students have high thresholds
for disruptive behavior of both students and
instructor, others will hold culpable instructors
who permit distracting activity to continue” (120).

Disruption doesn't necessarily mean a person threw a piece of paper or that someone spoke out of turn. In fact, disruption can be the fault of the teacher. Teachers are disruptive when they seem distant or uncaring, when they surprise students with tests or grades, if they come late to class or cancel class all together. There needs to be a sense of continuity in the classroom, and failing to create this kind of atmosphere may cause a rift in the classroom environment.

For Robinson, “gender became an issue in [her] mind” because both of her examples of disruption came from “men [who] were at least six feet tall” that “easily outweighed” her (122). Unfortunately, the gender power struggle does apply in the classroom as research points out that “more female than male instructors seem to be faced with disruption” (123). Females, then, need to show a greater sense of self-awareness and self-confidence in order to descrease disruption in the classroom.

How can one handle disruption?

• Set course policies and expectations on the first day.
• Begin with and maintain “immediacy,” meaning learn names, interests, and meeting with students early to create an appearance (and actually create) an interest and openness.
• Encourage active learning
• Seek feedback.
• Avoid trauma during the semester – no surprises!
• Maintain high self-esteem

Hopefully, with these little tips, a TA can maintain. But noone should be surprised -- in fact we should all sort of expect -- to have little moments of disruption. Afterall, if there is no power struggle in the classroom, students are probably not looking at themselves as capable of having authority within the learning environment.

--Missy