The Teaching of Psychology in Autobiography: Perspectives from Exemplary Psychology Teachers Edited by Trisha A. Benson, Caroline Burke, Ana Amstadter, Ryan Sidey, Vincent Hevern, Barney Beins, & Bill Buskist.
31 Thirty-five Years of Teaching, and I'm Still Learning! Margaret A. Matlin SUNY Geneseo pp. 214-221

I currently hold the title of Distinguished Teaching Professor of Psychology at SUNY Geneseo, where I have been teaching since 1971. I earned my bachelor's degree in psychology from Stanford University in 1966. As an undergraduate, I was a research assistant for Leonard Horowitz, in the area of human memory. In 1969, I earned my PhD from the University of Michigan in experimental psychology. At Michigan, I worked with Robert Zajonc, and my dissertation explored the mere-exposure effect.

During my early years at SUNY Geneseo, I taught courses such as experimental psychology, statistics, sensation and perception, educational psychology, conflict resolution, peacemaking, and issues in feminism. In the past decade, my four standard courses have been cognitive psychology, psychology of women, introductory psychology, and child development.

My academic background had prepared me for research, but not for teaching. By the late 1970s, however, my identity shifted, and teaching became a passion. During the same period, I discovered a second academic passion-writing psychology textbooks. As I will discuss later, my textbooks include Human Experimental Psychology, Cognition, Sensation and Perception, The Psychology of Women, and an introductory textbook, Psychology.

I have been fortunate to receive several awards related to teaching. Three of these awards are connected with the American Psychological Association (APA): The Society for the Teaching of Psychology's (STP) Robert S. Daniel Award in the 4-year college/university division in 1985; the American Psychological Foundation Distinguished Teaching in Psychology Award in 1995; and the Society for the Psychology of Women's Heritage Award for Lifetime Contributions to Teaching in 2001. Three other awards are connected with the State University of New York: The SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 1977; the SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Award in 1987; and the SUNY Geneseo PATH Award (for promoting campus awareness about diversity issues) in 2001.

In 1994, the Educational Testing Service invited me to join the GRE Psychology Committee, a 6-person committee that constructs and reviews questions for the GRE Subject Test in Psychology. I served as Chair of this committee from 1998 to 2002. This responsibility encouraged me to develop expertise throughout diverse areas of psychology. Together with others in the Society for the Psychology of Women, I have also led many workshops on teaching courses in the psychology of women and gender. These workshops helped solidify my teaching goals and connected me with many inspired professors.

My Early Development as a Teacher

Many colleagues in the Society for the Teaching of Psychology received extensive training that prepared them for a lifetime of teaching. In contrast, I received no training whatsoever. However, I did have several wonderful teachers. My high school biology teacher, Harry K. Wong, later became an internationally known expert on pre-college teaching. Some psychology professors whom I especially admired were Leonard Horowitz and Eleanor Maccoby at Stanford and Art Melton and Dan Weintraub at Michigan. Bob Zajonc provided a superb role model of a psychologist whose expertise ranged widely through many areas of psychology.

At Michigan, I could have arranged to be a teaching assistant. However, this was during the Vietnam War. My husband, Arnie Matlin, is a pediatrician, and the "Doctor Draft" required every young physician to serve two years in the military. We knew that Arnie would begin military service in 1968, in his home town of Brooklyn, New York. The idea of a commuter marriage was not appealing, so I realized that I would need to complete all my course work for my PhD in two years.

We moved to New York City in the summer of 1968. By good fortune, we lived on Staten Island, right next to two colleges, Wagner College and Notre Dame of Staten Island. The faculty members at these colleges kindly awarded extra credit to psychology students who participated in my dissertation research. I gathered my data and wrote my dissertation during that first year in New York. I genuinely enjoyed both the research and the writing components of my dissertation. However, my only experience in teaching before I came to SUNY Geneseo was one lecture that I presented to the Wagner College students about the results of my research.

We lived in Staten Island for two years, and our elder daughter, Beth, was born in 1970. After Arnie completed his military service, we moved to Rochester, New York, so that he could finish his pediatric residency. In 1971, we both started jobs in Geneseo, about 40 minutes south of Rochester. Arnie accepted a position as the first pediatrician in this rural region, and I accepted a half-time teaching position at SUNY Geneseo. I had no special interest in teaching, but it seemed like something to do for a year or two. We also were expecting our second child, Sally, who was born in 1972.

I certainly was not born with a natural gift for teaching, and I was basically terrified during these initial years. I read my notes out loud to the students, making very little connection with them. As you might imagine, this form of teaching was unpleasant for both my students and me. I want to emphasize an important point to those who are not yet clear about their professional goals: Do not be too sure about what you can and cannot do, or what you do and do not like. You may be able to transform an unpleasant job into something more palatable, and perhaps even wonderful. Now, I cannot imagine a more enjoyable or rewarding profession than teaching psychology.

Gradually, I discovered that teaching was much more interesting if I encouraged discussion, provided relevant anecdotes, and invited students to apply the theory and research to their daily lives. I began full-time teaching in 1973. My self-confidence and my teaching skills grew as I noticed which techniques seemed to engage students' curiosity and enhance their learning. For example, I required the students in my experimental psychology course to keep a journal. These journals included observations from their everyday experiences that were related to experimental design. One student noted that Shakespeare used counterbalancing for the names of Rosenkranz and Guildenstern in Hamlet. Another student related signal detection theory to his experience of perceiving a ringing telephone (rather than a doorbell) when he was awaiting a phone call about a job prospect. When students wrote especially compelling anecdotes, I asked their permission to use them in future teaching and, later, in my textbooks.

Working at Defining Myself as a Teacher

By the late 1970s, I was genuinely enjoying teaching, and my first teaching award from SUNY helped me to define myself as a good teacher. During that period, I wrote an academic book with another psychologist, an experience that was very difficult. However, an unpleasant experience can still be informative. I learned that I really loved to write, especially on a large-scale project. At this point, I decided to take a major risk: I submitted a prospectus for a textbook called Human Experimental Psychology, and the publisher offered me a contract (Matlin, 1979).

I then began to write additional textbooks. Cognition is currently in its 6th edition, (Matlin, 2005), and it has been translated into French and Portuguese. A third textbook, Sensation and Perception, reached its 4th edition, and it was translated into Spanish. I was fortunate to have Hugh Foley, of Skidmore College, as the skilled coauthor of the last two editions of this book (e.g., Matlin & Foley, 1997). However, we both decided that we had too many commitments to begin a 5th edition.

During the late 1970s, I introduced a course in the psychology of women at SUNY Geneseo. This course became really important to me, especially because I saw how the information could encourage women to take their lives more seriously. So my next textbook seemed inevitable: The Psychology of Women. This textbook is now in its 5th edition (Matlin, 2004), and I am currently writing the 6th edition. This book has been translated into Chinese, and it is currently being translated into French.

In the late 1980s, I decided to write an introductory psychology textbook, especially because I had developed expertise in many areas within psychology. This project was appealing because it provided the opportunity to reach students who would never take another psychology course. In addition to the "science side" of psychology, I could also provide information about social-justice issues, such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ageism, and conflict resolution. I wrote three editions of this textbook (Matlin, 1999). This was an exhausting enterprise; my publisher and I decided not to pursue a 4th edition.

The major obstacle I have faced in my teaching is insufficient time. At SUNY Geneseo, we teach three courses each semester. Textbook writing is clearly time-consuming, especially when I had four textbooks that required new editions every three or four years. However, writing the textbooks clearly helped me become a better teacher. They provided a broad overview of the subjects I teach, and they also kept me informed about the latest research.

In addition, my husband and I have several important interests outside of our work. Our daughter Sally lives in California and works as the bilingual staff member for Marin Abused Women's Services. Our daughter Beth is a kindergarten teacher in inner-city Boston; she and her husband now have a truly delightful baby boy. We enjoy many trips each year to visit our extended family. Arnie and I also have intense interests in several areas, such as travel in Europe, foreign films, early Flemish painting, 16th-century majolica, Shakespeare, Portuguese fados, Italian operas,19th-century British novels, and unusual cuisines. Our life is definitely more than just our work; our family interactions and other interests help us maintain a sense of balance and joy.

The Examined Life of a Teacher

My principles of teaching have evolved since I first began to define myself as a teacher. For instance, I realize that "less is more," and I can teach more effectively if I select my topics carefully. After 35 years of teaching, my core principles are these: (a) encourage students to think like a psychologist, (b) psychology research has produced knowledge that can help students lead better lives, and (c) students need to adopt a social-justice perspective.

Critical thinking is one component of the "think like a psychologist" principle. My courses in introductory psychology and in child development include a unit on critical thinking, and we try to apply the principles throughout the semester.

In every course, I emphasize the importance of well-designed research. For instance, the students in my cognitive psychology class have had courses in statistics and research methods. However, according to the concept of situated learning, they may not be able to apply these important concepts in new situations. Thus, I have designed in-depth exercises that relate three research-methods topics to cognitive psychology: correlation and causation, confounding variables, and statistical interactions. In my Psychology of Women course, students design their own original studies, conduct the research, and then report the study in an APA-style paper.

My second core principle is to follow George Miller's (1969) call to "give psychology away." We psychologists are very fortunate to be teaching a subject that does have practical applications. Whenever possible, I try to point out how students can improve their lives by knowing more about psychology. In cognitive psychology, for instance, we discuss such topics as memory improvement, metacognition, writing strategies, and effective decision making.

My third core principle focuses on social justice. Fortunately, most of my students at SUNY Geneseo are planning careers in which they will help other people. Most of them appreciate the idea that diversity should be valued, and life should be fair for all humans. Unfortunately, however, my students' pre-college education emphasizes that the United States offers equal opportunities to everyone; they did not learn much about various forms of inequality. In all my current courses, I talk about gender, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation. I also address international issues. In 1990, our family founded a program for malnourished preschoolers in Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. We continue to fund this program, and we travel to Nicaragua regularly. This connection with an impoverished country helps me provide concrete information about real people whose lives deserve to be better.

My teaching has definitely changed throughout the course of my academic career. For example, I try harder now to draw connections between topics and between areas. In cognitive psychology, for instance, I emphasize that our cognitive "equipment" processes social information, and it therefore plays a role in the development of stereotypes. When we discuss decision making in cognitive psychology, I ask students to analyze some of the decision-making heuristics that led to the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately, my experience in writing textbooks forces me to search for themes and broad perspectives.

I also continue to search for general principles that can be applied throughout psychology. For instance, several years ago, I came across a list of four basic truths that apply to most of psychology. Amazingly, Berelson and Steiner had compiled this somewhat humorous list in 1964, and yet it still applies to so much of the research we describe to our students:

1. Some do, some don't.
2. It depends on how you measure it.
3. The differences aren't very great.
4. It's more complicated than that.

For me, the most rewarding aspect of teaching is watching how students can blossom when they are given information and encouragement. One of the most memorable moments occurred three years ago in my course in child development. The class that semester was unusually intelligent and eager to learn, and they frequently asked questions that focused on social justice. Jonathan Kozol, the author of Savage Inequalities (1991), had spoken the previous night at SUNY Geneseo, and most of the students had attended. The next morning, they clearly wanted to discuss why children in wealthy neighborhoods have so much better funding than inner-city children. The students were so eloquent-and so outraged. I can still recall one young man saying, "I just don't get it. Why doesn't our country care enough about children to give them all decent schools?"

Another rewarding aspect of teaching is tracing the development of individual students whom I have known for several years. What a pleasure to see a promising student write a thoughtful paper, present a superb lecture to the class, or ask an especially sophisticated question.

In contrast, one of my greatest frustrations in teaching is the handful of students who cannot be motivated to perform well, even though they seem to have the appropriate cognitive skills. I can reach some of them and help them to improve. Sadly, however, I now acknowledge that I cannot rescue all of them.

The other great frustration is that my students are typically not well informed about current events. For instance, at the beginning of the invasion of Afghanistan, many of the students in my psychology of women class knew little about the Taliban's treatment of women. Most of the students in this year's cognitive psychology class know little about the torture at Abu Ghraib. Once they hear about issues like these, most have the appropriate sense of outrage. However, it is clear that most of them do not choose to learn about the current state of the world.

Final Thoughts

I have called this paper, "Thirty-five Years of Teaching, and I'm Still Learning!" This title reflects the pleasure I experience in continuing to learn about the intricacies of psychological processes. I often share this excitement with my students by bringing in the latest issue of a journal to update them on a topic we have been discussing.

But I'm also still learning how to be a more effective teacher. I examine all the student comments from our faculty evaluation surveys because students can provide some genuinely useful information about my teaching. In addition, I read Teaching of Psychology with the goal of finding new perspectives and new teaching techniques. When I go to conferences, I pay special attention to the style of the speakers' presentations. I am also always searching for new anecdotes to illustrate important psychological processes. If a demonstration in my cognitive psychology course does not work out, or if an example in child development produces bewildered expressions, I will make a note to myself to change the material. What other profession-besides college teaching- allows a person to make a fresh, new start, twice a year?

Advice for New Teachers

The most important advice I can provide for new college professors is to be sure that you have a supportive spouse or partner who understands and values the work that you do. My husband Arnie is definitely my strongest supporter, and he has boosted my confidence at numerous times when I was worried about taking some academic risks.

I also recommend that new teachers join the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and attend the sessions on teaching at conventions. It is one of the most egalitarian groups I know, and you can easily make connections with people who teach the same courses and face the same problems. Another source of support may be your own department members. This year, for instance, the colleagues in my department are the strongest teaching faculty we have had in my 35 years at Geneseo.

In addition, I must emphasize that teaching may not come easily at first. However, keep analyzing your interactions and figure out how to find joy in your profession. Notice what you like to do and what other people praise you for doing. Also, take some moderate risks by volunteering for committees, proposing a new course, or undertaking a writing project. Always ask yourself, "What is the worst thing that could possibly happen?" Finally, keep learning. Learn from your unpleasant experiences, learn from the research in your discipline, and learn how to provide a better learning experience for your students.

References

Berelson, B., & Steiner, G. A. (1964). Human behavior: An inventory of scientific findings. Oxford, England: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. New York: Crown.

Matlin, M. W. (1979). Human experimental psychology. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Matlin, M. W. (1999). Psychology (3rd ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace & Company.

Matlin, M. W. (2004). The psychology of women (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Matlin, M. W. (2005). Cognition (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Matlin, M. W., & Foley, H. J. (1997). Sensation and perception (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Miller, G. A. (1969). Psychology as a means of promoting human welfare. American Psychologist, 24, 1063-1975

This page was first posted online on November 10, 2005 and was last updated on November 10, 2005

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