#103-2008-04-25

Show Interest and Find Kindness
By W. Owen Thornton

To receive kindness sometimes you need to demonstrate worthiness of being a recipient of it.  As a mature student at university my experience is very similar to all of the younger students.  It is also very different.  I’m considering going to grad school.  I know I have the potential inside of me to achieve the grades required; I’ve seen glimpses of them: I’m just not getting them consistently enough.  To me, with the need to get impressive marks, an 80% is a pass.  Anything above that is pleasing to me.

So when I received a 76% on the first midterm of one course, I went to the Teaching Assistant (TA) doing the course marking and asked for help.  She was incredibly helpful.  The next exam received an 84% -- much improved!

The next thing I know, I was receiving a great act of human kindness.  Here’s what happened.  I walked over to my TA after the March Break to say hello and she said, “The big essay is due in a couple of weeks.  Are you going to submit a draft for me to look at in order for me to give you helpful feedback?”

Really I hadn’t even thought that degree of help was available, so I hadn’t even thought of asking for that much help.  I did what she asked of me, learned a great deal and when the dust settled, I’d increased my final grade from the original draft by 12% which placed me well above that elusive 80!

I’ve thought long and hard about what all this has meant to me.  Surely her asking me to submit something to her in advance was a great kindness to me.  I’ve asked myself several times why it was she asked me to submit something to her.  I believe there are two reasons.  One, after she helped me with my exam writing issue, I believe we established a rapport.  To me, when this happens, you walk across the room before class begins and you say hello.  This minor follow up – a human kindness action on my part – placed me in the right position for my TA to be able to ask me to hand in a draft.

But I think the greater reason why this offer was extended to me lies in a different direction.  By asking for help originally, this act did a great many things that led up to her asking for that essay draft. Most importantly it demonstrated to my TA that I was interested in the material – that I was willing to do what I needed to do to improve – to be a serious student.  While it was not my intent to ‘flatter’ my TA, by showing her I was interested in the same kinds of things as she is – philosophy – my request for help in her field honored her and all of the work she had done to that point to get as far along the doctoral process as she had travelled.  Showing genuine interest in something someone else is interested in is exceptionally complimentary.

I also believe that asking for help demonstrates a willingness to overcome the embarrassment of being wrong. It shows a willingness to risk appearing foolish because you’re not pretending you’re supposed to know everything. To be frank, I’m 46.  I can’t afford to keep my pride at the risk of not learning what I’m doing wrong so that I continue to get 76s. I won’t play the game that I think I’m supposed to know something when I don’t have a clue! I’m the student willing to take a risk … the one willing to expose himself as vulnerable so he can learn something.
 I’ve also learned from the good instructors that asking questions does not prove to them that you’re an idiot but that you’re wise enough to know when you don’t know something.

Therefore because I sought help and showed interest and built a relationships, I became the kind of person my TA would reach out towards in order to extend the invitation (available to everyone, by the way) to read a draft of my essay. 

And then the good feelings magnified.  Her act of human kindness made me feel special and cared about. I had become the kind of person whom others care about.  Now I felt flattered! So by willing to admit I needed help/advice, I overcame the embarrassment of being wrong or not knowing something.  The result placed me on someone else’s radar.

Ironically enough the day after I received my TAs help, another essay was returned to me.  I received a 94% grade on it.  What was it about? I said the single greatest failing university professors have today, in regards to undergrad students is a failing to be open for opportunities to mentor or to have mentoring moments with students. I admit mentoring is tough … tougher today than it was years ago.  There are more students per class, more classes and more pressure on the professors to publish … all which rob time from treating undergrads as people who might be apprentices.  Of course the greatest barrier to mentoring is finding chemistry between people.  That’s why my paper cited mentoring moments as a meaningful alternative to mentoring.

A mentoring moment is a moment of learning, a ‘divine ah-ha’ when both student and professor know that something meaningful and deep has happened between them.  These are the kinds of moments that create memories of fondness for a professor.  They can happen in a class, in hallway discussions or professor’s offices.  But we should be looking for them whenever we can.

I also said, in my paper that to be a recipient of a mentoring moment means being worthy of that moment.  Students too have duties and responsibilities to fulfill.  I must read the assigned material for the class, and come prepared with intelligent questions, or at least with an interested ear! I must demonstrate some degree of passion for the material, some awareness that I’m ‘getting it.’

So, when I asked for help on my exam writing techniques I was unaware that I was living out what I had previously written about.  I had done the work, and was curious as to how to improve.  It’s hard not to appreciate that kind of query from a student.  And seeing as you were prepared to review anyone’s paper in advance, asking a student you already knew was concerned with getting good grades if they were going to submit a draft in advance … that seemed … well … natural!

I have no illusions about our on-going relationship.  If a mentoring relationship developed it I would welcome it and I would be surprised: I don’t believe there’s quite enough chemistry there to make it full and to make it last.  Still I like my TA.  I will continue to like her and I hope I find myself in classes where she is either a TA or a full instructor.  And should that happen I will work hard for her and I will ask her what she needs from me, so that I can have the most vital learning experience I can.  While I might not become her protégé, I can foresee many other mentoring moments down the road.  I have someone on my side now and that feels good.

It’s been a bit weird or disconcerting going back to school so late in life, but my relationship with this TA and the mentoring moments she has given me?  Well, I wouldn’t trade them for the world. The help I received on my essay is much appreciated. Now I know who I have to be to create that kind of inspiring act of human kindness towards me, and I will continue to do the things to be worthy of those kinds of opportunities again.