Ah, the office hour. The very confusing not-mandatory-but-sort-of-mandatory thing that college professors often offer to show you how caring they are. They post them on their syllabi, barely nodding to the significance. But for some students, they make or break college success.
This year I am asking students to meet one on one with me each semester to mimic the awkward flow of office hour invitations students might receive in college. We can talk about what is going on in class, a paper they are writing, feedback they have received, how I can improve what I’m doing as a teacher, a college recommendation letter I am writing, etc. The point is not the thing we discuss, but the connection we can make in those 15-20 minutes.
- One student tells me about his very specific future plans. The class is going well. It’s the least of his worries.
- One student who cried the day before during an essay exams gives me a long story about the history of their anxiety and we talk through strategies and next steps. She is going to try again.
- One student brings me their college essay and we come up with a brilliant restructure plan and I fix the story in my head that she hates me and wants to argue with everything I say.
It is very, very easy to misunderstand a face that floats in a crowd of 20 or so other noisy students. It is very, very hard to not understand someone better after having a one on one conversation. How do you make space in your context to connect on that level with students?