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.
44 It Started with the Root Feeders: A Teacher's Tale C. R. Snyder University of Kansas pp. 302-308

Toward the beginning of the summer of 1951, there was a train derailment a few blocks away from our house in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I was six years old, and I immediately took off with my Red Flyer wagon and my dog Blackie to view the wreck. When I got there, I saw railroad boxcars overturned, and their contents spewed all around. Huge piles of root feeders caught my attention, and I asked a railroad official if I could have them. "Sure kid," he replied, and with that I made trip after trip transporting the root feeders back to our three-room house. I carried about eight root feeders in my wagon each time, until I finally had about 250 piled in our small back yard.

A root feeder has a compartment resting at the top of a thin, two-foot long metal tube. A stick of fertilizer is placed in the compartment. A water hose is attached to the fertilizer compartment, and the root feeder then is pushed into the ground. When the water is turned on, the fertilizer dissolves and goes through the end of the tube to the roots of the bushes or plants.

Walking door to door, I sold the root feeders for $.75 each, along with a box of fertilizer for $.25. I spent the whole summer of '51 selling root feeders. On a Friday evening at the end of the summer, my dad had returned from a week on the road as a traveling salesman. Tired, he slumped into "his" favorite chair (for those who remember the television comedy "Archie Bunker," this chair was similar to Archie's chair). In walked my mom, exhausted from having taught school. She then plopped down into "her" favored chair.

This seemed like a good time to make my announcement: "Remember the root feeders and fertilizer plug? Well, I've sold all of them."

"What a salesman!" exhorted my dad.

He then asked his big question, "How much did you make?"

"Don't know," I responded, "I didn't keep track."

Clearly disappointed, my dad asked where the money had gone.

"Beyond the pop, baseball cards, and ice cream bars for me," I replied, "I used the rest to buy treats for my pals."

My mom broke into laughter. Trying to talk, the best she could do were some gurgling sounds. Eventually, though, she formed a sentence, "I told you that he would be a teacher! Teachers never pay much attention to money!"

She was correct, and some 50+ years later when I visit my dad, he still may ask about my income as a college teacher. He just shakes his head when I tell him what I am paid.

Just the Facts

I currently am the Wright Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Graduate Training Program in Clinical Psychology, The University of Kansas, Lawrence. I received my bachelor's degree in psychology at Southern Methodist University in 1967, and my masters and doctorate degrees in clinical psychology in 1968 and 1971, respectively, from Vanderbilt University. In 1971-1972, I was a postdoctoral fellow in medical psychology at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. In 1972, I took an assistant professor position in the Psychology Department at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and with good fortune, I was promoted to associate professor in 1977 and professor in 1980.

In chronological order, I have received the following teaching awards (all at the University of Kansas unless noted otherwise): Honor for the Outstanding Progressive Educator (the H. O. P. E. Award is elected by seniors) in 1991 and 2003; Louise Byrd Outstanding Graduate Educator Award, 1992; Dean's Scholar Mentor Award, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, 1995, 1997; Fellow, American Psychological Association (APA), Society for the Teaching of Psychology (Division 2), 1995; W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, 1997; Fowler Award for Outstanding Graduate Educator, APA, 2000; Byron T. Shutz Distinguished Teaching Award, 2001; Kansas Professor of the Year Award, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2001; Commencement Address Speaker, University of Kansas, 2001; Outstanding Psychology Teacher in State, Kansas Psychological Association, 2002; Fellow in Teaching, Templin Hall Honors Scholars, 2002-2003; Fellow Mentor, Madison & Lila Self Graduate Honors Program, 2002-2005; Teaching of Psychology Address, STP, APA Convention, 2003; Outstanding Mentor Award in Social Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 2003; Robert S. Daniel Teaching Excellence Award, STP, 2004; Byron A. Alexander Graduate Mentor Award, 2004, and; Commencement Address Speaker, Indiana Wesleyan University, 2005.

During my teaching career at Kansas, I have had the privilege of chairing four postdoctoral students, 40 doctoral students, approximately 50 masters students, and about 20 predoctoral psychology honors students. My signature undergraduate course is in individual differences. In this course alone, I have taught many thousands of students-including now the children of students who took this course three decades ago. My graduate teaching has centered on the interface of clinical and social psychology, and students from several APA-approved programs at the University of Kansas take my graduate course to fulfill the APA requirements for the social bases of behavior.

My Development as a Teacher

I knew that I wanted to be a professor when I started college. A first-semester freshman at Southern Methodist University, the beginning of college was going quite well until November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I had campaigned for President Kennedy, who had unleashed much promise and excitement among young people. This event devastated me, and I told my teachers that I was going to drop out of school. I was missing most of my classes anyway, and I could not pay attention when I did attend. I do not recall my instructor's names, but they talked me out of leaving college. Instead, they told me that I needed time to grieve, and they let me out of their classes for two weeks.

Because of their concerns and wisdom, I made it through this nightmarish initial college semester. Happily, I also made it through many more after that one. My teachers during my first college semester were wonderful role models, and it was because of them that I continued my plans to become a college teacher. They showed me that good instructors truly care about their students, and I never wavered about becoming a college teacher from that first semester onward.

Having completed my undergraduate education, I knew that graduate studies were needed in order to become a college professor. Unfortunately, however, I received no training in teaching during my graduate education, nor did I have any mentors to help me with my teaching at any time after I took an assistant professor position. I would hasten to add, however, that I did receive superb graduate school mentoring in scholarly and research matters. I regret my dearth of training as a teacher and, I have tried to give my own graduate students extensive feedback about their teaching in a variety of venues (e.g., small seminar presentations, classroom teaching, formal convention presentations, etc.).

Working with graduate students to help them develop their particular proficiencies is at the core of my positive psychology, strengths approach to mentoring (see Snyder 2002a, 2002b). The key to such mentoring, in my estimation, is a willingness to spend large amounts of time with one's graduate students (Snyder, 2005b).

As part of my graduate courses, I also require that students give a teaching presentation in front of the class. I then give detailed feedback (one to two pages, single spaced) to students about the process and content of each presentation. It is noteworthy that that these students are more likely to comment positively on this feedback than any other factor in my graduate course when they do teacher evaluations at the end of the semester.

When I was the Director of our Clinical Psychology Program, a position that I was honored to hold for 27 years, I initiated a yearly teaching award for the outstanding graduate student instructor. In fact, we conducted a fund-raising drive and secured over $10,000 for this teaching award. The award was named after two previous graduates-Mitch Handelsman and Lori Irving-who had gone on to careers as award-winning college instructors. We then used the yearly interest money to give a sizeable financial reward and a handsome plaque for this teaching award.

I personally have been extremely lucky to have wonderful graduate students who have flourished as teachers, winning awards both when they were here at Kansas or later at their university settings. With considerable pride, I mention the following award-winning instructors: Randee Shenkel, Mitch Handelsman, Rick Ingram, Cheryl Newburg, Lori Irving, David Feldman, and Kevin Rand.

In our Psychology Department at the University of Kansas, we also have implemented a feedback mentoring system for new assistant professors. I truly enjoy mentoring assistant professors and watching their improvements as instructors. Three of my faculty mentees, Shane Lopez, Steve Ilardi, and Virgil Adams have embraced difficult teaching venues and have won teaching awards. In fact, the seniors selected Professor Ilardi just this fall as the recipient of the HOPE Award (from some 1500 instructors at the University).

Much to my pleasure, my Psychology Department also has been giving stronger emphasis to teaching when we undertake deliberations of the faculty members in regard to promotions. For example, instructors are mandated to give teacher evaluations, and these ratings, along with statements of evaluation based on firsthand observations of teaching by colleagues, are required in such promotion decisions. I would hasten to praise the University administrators also, in that they have implemented numerous teaching awards (including monetary rewards) for faculty members.

Given that I did not have any formal training in teaching or teaching mentors, I was thrown into the fire as a new assistant professor. To compound matters, I was asked to teach a large course in the topic of individual differences, an area in which I previously had neither coursework nor much experience. Pertaining to the content of this course, I read every book and article I could get that was related to this topic. In regard to the course process, I started a process that I have continued for the last 33 years. Namely, I visited other professors who were known for being excellent teachers. I learned from every one of these master teachers, and I borrowed things that I thought would work for me as a person and for the contents of my individual differences course. Every college or university has superb instructors, and based on my experiences, my guess is that they would welcome visitors who want to learn from their skills.

Working at Defining Myself as a Teacher

My major teaching difficulty relates to the fact that I have to give grades. Accordingly, over the years I have used as many different approaches as I could imagine to handle grading. Unfortunately, no matter how I have conducted the grading, I believe that it has gotten in the way of my teaching in that it has undermined students' learning. That is to say, students seem to interpret the grades as the extrinsic reason why they are learning the material, rather than the joy and usefulness of learning being the reason for such learning.

I truly have never felt any sacrifices in making the various aspects of my career work together. In particular, my research and teaching go together hand in glove. Indeed, I think that students enjoy hearing about some of the latest findings that have come from our laboratory.

The Examined Life of a Teacher

My philosophy of teaching is based on four factors-care, trust, risk, and hope. Caring for the student's welfare is a guiding principle, and I try to remember this point when interacting with my students. In turn, trust represents my students' beliefs that they can count on me to watch out for their welfares. Likewise, without trust, I do not think that students will take risks and try new ideas. So, too, must I take risks and be willing to attempt new approaches-some of these even leading to mistakes from which I can learn (Snyder, 2002c). Finally, hope is the motivation that I endeavor to instill in my students. With hope, they can reach the goals in my course and in their lives more generally (see Snyder 2005c; Snyder & Shorey, 2002).

Over the last four decades, I have become more sympathetic with the traumatic events that students face. College often is not a tranquil existence. My students have undergone a variety of stressful events, including physical attacks, suicides and deaths of friends, siblings, and parents; physical illnesses; car accidents; rape; and psychological problems. When a student asks for special consideration after having undergone one of these stressors, I quickly agree. I think that interrogating such a student is very insensitive and I am not concerned that there may be occasional students who have lied to me about the traumatic events in their lives. Basically, it is not that students are asking to get out of the work in a course, but instead they typically only want a different time for an examination. Accordingly, I work with such students to reach graceful solutions to their stressful dilemmas (Snyder, 2005a).

The most rewarding part of teaching for me is watching a student become excited about the learning process. Given this observation, the most satisfying teaching arena is wherever such student excitement occurs-in classrooms, office visits, or any of the other arenas in which I interact with students. As I noted earlier, I find that the greatest teaching frustrations relate to the necessity of grades. To cope with the fact that grading can turn off the learning process, I try to establish as many learning opportunities in my classes as I can that are not linked to grades per say. Students are freer and more willing to take risks in such non-graded activities.

In order to improve my teaching, each semester I talk with former students who have just completed my courses. I ask these students about what could have improved the course, and their feedback not only helps in evaluating my teaching efforts, but it also improves my teaching. Although I strongly support the process of teacher evaluations, the reality is that such student evaluations are highly influenced by the grades received in course (Clair & Snyder, 1979; Snyder & Clair, 1972). If students truly sense that you are listening to their input, I have found that they give very helpful feedback. As I noted earlier, I also watch and talk with other teachers in order to see what discoveries they have made through their own teaching efforts.

Advice for New Teachers

For those individuals who are new to the teaching process, I suggest that you build on your strengths rather than trying to "fix" weaknesses or perhaps trying to copy someone else. Find what works for you and perfect those teaching skills. Once you have located what you do well, constantly rework your material so that you have enthusiasm for it. After all, if you do not have energy for your material, you cannot expect your students to manufacture such energy.

Final Thoughts

Don't become too enamored of the "facts." Much of the information that I learned in graduate school, for example, no longer holds today. Rather, focus on establishing classroom environments of hope where there is a spirit of inquiry. Your students will remember this hope and spirit long after they have forgotten the specific course content that you taught.

References

Clair, M. S., & Snyder, C. R. (1979). Effects of instructor-delivered sequential evaluation feedback upon students' subsequent classroom-related performance and instructor ratings. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 50-57.

Snyder, C. R. (2002a). Part 1-The graduate school stages of preparing for a position in clinical psychology. The Clinical Psychologist, 55, 19-25.

Snyder, C. R. (2002b). Part 2-The application, interview, and negotiation stages of obtaining a position in clinical psychology. The Clinical Psychologist, 56, 19-25.

Snyder, C. R. (2002c). Mistakes in teaching: What I have learned. Teaching Matters, 5, 4-8.

Snyder, C. R. (2005a). Instructors' graceful solutions: When bad things happen to good students. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.

Snyder, C. R. (2005b). Mentoring: The core of graduate teaching. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.

Snyder, C. R. (2005c). Teaching: The lessons of hope. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24, 72-83.

Snyder, C. R., & Clair, M. (1976). The effects of expected and obtained grades on teacher evaluation and attribution of performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 75-82.

Snyder, C. R., & Shorey, H. (2002). Hope in the classroom: The role of positive psychology in academic achievement and psychology curriculum. Psychology Teacher Network, 12, 1-9.

This page was first posted online on November 12, 2005 and was last updated on November 12, 2005

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