We Teach What We Believe

W.T. Kemper Fellow Address, September 26, 2000

We teach what we believe. More than that, students learn what we believe. Not so much that they learn that WE believe certain things, but I think that students take away from our classes what we hold most deeply to be true about our subject matter and about our students. What we believe gets taught, whether we want it to or not.

I am a counseling psychologist, and vocational psychology is my area of study. If I believe that the role of work in people's lives is so important, so vital that I am willing to bring my life as a scientist and scholar to bear on the issue; if I believe that one's relationship to work is so critical that I spend my professional time intervening in people's lives to help them improve their relationship to work--then that is what my students learn from me.

If I believe my subject matter is trivial, and if I demonstrate that by my unwillingness to stay current in the literature or to investigate the area through scholarly and scientific study; if I choose not to invest myself in providing professional services to help people improve their relationship to work--then that is what my students learn from me.

If I believe that my students are capable learners, that they can get what I have to teach, and can run with it to do great things as scientists; if I believe my students are capable of learning the clinical skills that will allow them to intervene in people's lives as counselors and psychologists; if I believe my students are capable of great things--then my students will learn they are capable of great things.

If I believe my students are not very bright, that they are not motivated to work hard enough to master the content or the skills I have to teach; if I believe my students are not capable of performing at my level of scholarship or expertise--then my students will learn they are not capable of great things.

When things are not going well in my teaching, I need to look inside at what I am believing, about my subject matter and about my students. I may need to spend more time with either--reading in my area, carving out an investigation of something I really care about, or getting to know my

students again, finding out what they are so passionate about that they would make so many sacrifices to come to graduate school.

I am convinced that when my beliefs are great, my teaching is great. And when my beliefs are timid, or fearful, or contemptuous, my teaching is discreditable.

Excerpted from Krieshok, T. S. (1999). We teach what we believe. Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, 15 (2), 13-21.