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.
47 Finding My Home Margaret Anne Bly Turner Edison College and Walden University pp. 319-324

My home is Edison College where I have taught psychology for 18 years. I also teach in the graduate school at Walden University. I earned a Bachelors Degree in biology from the University of the State of New York, a Masters Degree in psychosocial science from Pennsylvania State University (PSU), and a Doctorate in social psychology from Oklahoma State University (OSU). I have been fortunate to be awarded the Graduate Teacher of the Year award from OSU, the Two-Year College Teaching Excellence Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP; Division Two of the American Psychological Association [APA]), and the Psi Beta Sponsor of the Year.

My Early Development as a Teacher

Most of my childhood was spent in the hospital or at home with a tutor from various illnesses caused by a metabolic disorder. I learned to read early in life and discovered a love of books. Because I was usually isolated from playmates, I found my excitement in the words that I read. I became Nancy Drew as a young girl.

After being pronounced dead at 16, my life changed dramatically with each day becoming an important life event. The perspective was that there would be little time left to explore, and my reading increased because of my desire to learn every thing that I could. In my senior year of high school teachers and a close friend encouraged me to apply to the university. I saw little reason to do so. My parents were penniless, older, and sickly. I appeased my friends and filed the papers to go to the university. It was the second year of the federal loan program and I also applied for a loan. However, there was no money available. (I worked full-time typing labels at a photography mail order facility.) On the night before freshmen were to arrive on campus, the university called me and said that they had found money for me and I was to show up the next morning.

While on campus, I discovered the library had many books and recordings. However, by October, I was again dying. I lived again after dying a second time to some purpose unknown to me at the time. Feeling overwhelmed, despair set in. However, just five weeks later I married a young man who I met the night I was released from the university infirmary. For the next 12 years, there were few books and no classes to attend. Instead, I had two children who gave me an education equal to any in the classroom. I continued to read everything that the county library had on its shelves. What does this background have to do with defining myself as a teacher? In addition to having read a great deal before I started back to the university, I had developed a strong sense of authenticity and empathy for pain in others. Many of the students I taught had suffered, or are suffering from traumas in their lives. My personal experience has given me a sense of connection with my students that I could have never learned in any course.

Working on Defining Myself as a Teacher

At 29, I enrolled at Alvin Junior College, which was about an hour from my home in Texas. It was considered one of the top 10 two-year colleges in the country at the time. A teaching career was never on my list of plans. In fact, I had no plans for any career because I did not expect to live that long. However, I continued attending college. In biology class, a young man was my lab partner. We were both shy and spoke only to achieve completion of the lab project for the day. He was smart and a joy with whom to work. At the end of the semester, he told me that he was quitting college because he was a failure. He was taking Calculus, English Composition, Biology, Physics, and another equally demanding course. He determined he was a failure because he only had a 3.5 GPA. His desire was to be a forest ranger-his love of the outdoors and animals was intense-but he was giving up. I spoke to him about how hard his classes were. I assumed all was lost as we parted and my heart went out to him. The next semester I saw him on campus and ran over to say hello. I asked him what happened to bring him back this semester and he replied, "You happened." Seeing this young man and finding out that I had had an impact on his future set my path on to teaching college as a career. I did not know how long I had to live, but teaching in college was now a vision.

All of my reading finally paid off. I finished up my degree through CLEP testing and I earned a degree in biology with a minor in public health from the University of the State of New York. Prior to receiving my degree, I was accepted at PSU where I wanted to study community psychology. It was the closest degree I could find that was based on a public health model. At the same time I had a position with the local lung association as the public educator and there I learned to communicate with the public about lung disease.

The Examined Life of a Teacher

Although PSU did not have any training in teaching per se, it was there that I found the mentor who would change my life, Dr. Katherine Towns. She was authentic, personable, professional, brilliant, and successful. She shared more wisdom with me than I can recall. Now more than ever, I felt the passion to follow her model and to serve others in the profession. She passed to me the importance of serving the next generation so that they can reach their goals.

After completing my Masters degree at PSU, I was in my late 30s now and concerned about the cost to complete my educational goals, so I chose to attend OSU, which offered a paid teaching practicum. OSU placed me in front of two classes the first day of my doctoral work. In the teaching practicum, all the teaching assistants shared a syllabus that was based on a university-wide model to teach students to learn. We shared a portion of each test across all sections. Out of 25 questions, the teaching practicum students wrote 15 together and each of us wrote 10 questions of our own. We met each week in a seminar to discuss any course or classroom issues about which we wanted to know more.

What did I learn in Teaching Practicum? I had only one 3 hr course in psychology prior to teaching. So, I had to learn psychology while teaching! I also learned how to manage a classroom, have a sense of humor with my teaching, stimulate and encourage the students, and how to work in a psychology department.

I was asked to write a philosophy of teaching that I still have. I taped myself teaching and realized in horror that I would not listen to me for an hour! I was not a great speaker. My voice was high and squeaky. I found a colleague to help me improve my speaking abilities. I learned to lower my voice and breathe from my diaphragm.

I wished to learn how to help students reach their potential. I assisted students during my office hours and and tried to get them all the help that they needed. All of my hard work paid off: The students voted me the Graduate Student Teacher of the Year. I was astounded at this success, particularly because my health started to deteriorate again.

After completing my studies and finding it difficult to obtain a position in social psychology, I accepted an offer for a visiting assistant professor's position teaching management at OSU. The following year, I was offered a similar position at Utah State University. I enjoyed these visiting positions. However, my health was deteriorating again-I moved to Montana to see if I could recover again. I thought for sure that my teaching days were over. I went to work for the State of Montana for Medicaid. I set up case management teams in northwestern Montana and conducted nursing home assessments. Gradually, my health improved. A few of my former professors called to encourage me to go back to teaching.

About this time, I subscribed to The Chronicle of Higher Education. After two years completely removed from higher education, the time had come to return to teaching or give up on the profession that I felt was perfect for me. I found an advertisement in the Chronicle for a full-time teaching position at a two-year college in south Florida. I applied, determined that if I could not find a position where I could live with my health problems, then I would change my plans for a teaching career.

Shortly after I applied, I traveled to Hawaii for a meeting over Thanksgiving. When I returned home, I found a number of phone messages from the school asking me to call them immediately. I returned the call and booked a flight the next day. When I arrived on campus, I realized that this was a place where I could live. The atmosphere here was different from the schools I had either attended or interviewed for a faculty position-it was warmer and more supportive. I was offered the position before leaving for home. I had to return and start teaching by January 6-and I lived 3060 miles away!

The reality of a full-time position teaching psychology was not what I had anticipated. I had seven courses with six preparations. The psychologist who interviewed me went on sabbatical and never returned. There was no mentor available, and there was not enough time to examine my teaching to any meaningful extent. The greatest frustration was attempting to do a good job teaching so many courses. Fortunately, after a few years of very hard work highlighted by designing and redesigning my courses, my workload became stable.

I also established a chapter of Psi Beta, the psychology honor society for two-year colleges. This experience invigorated my teaching. Students eagerly participated. Many of the older students befriended and mentored the younger students (the average age of the students was about 29 then). In 1993, one of my students won first place in the Psi Beta Annual Research Competition. I eventually had 10 students enter the competition with eight placing in the top three awards.

The college supported trips to some college-level seminars such as the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development at The University of Texas at Austin. Interacting with other faculty in other schools doing the same kind of teaching that I was doing was exciting. I was now a member of a group of professionals who cared about teaching psychology in higher education.

About the same time that my student won the Psi Beta award, I received the STP award for teaching excellence in two-year colleges. I went to APA and met Bill McKeachie at an STP meeting. I was deeply inspired when I saw him surrounded by graduate students, patiently answering every question they asked. He showed no impatience while answering the same questions over and over again.

This experience had a profound effect on me. Every time I am tired or become impatient with students, I remember him. It was another turning point in my philosophy of teaching.

As I aged, and the college population became younger, the distance between the students and me seemed almost insurmountable at times. McKeachie's model reminds me that I am to teach, not to preach, and has led me to seek out experiences that assist me in keeping current with new generations of college students. For example, understanding how important communication across the generations is to learning, I became educated on the Smashing Pumpkins when they were famous. I used them in examples in class and the class lit up. Students became aware that there was a connection in the learning environment with their real experiences and that psychology is relevant to their lives. Although I am not an expert in the life experiences of my students, I try to maintain contact with the important events that form the context for their lives. The day after 9-11, I spent my classes asking the students to express their feelings about the attack. If I see that my examples are no longer relevant, I ask them to give me an example and listen carefully while they relate it to course material. Listening to my students is an important part of my philosophy of teaching.

I created a library on the teaching of psychology, started reading Teaching of Psychology, and attended as many conferences on teaching that I could. The Southeastern Teaching Conference in Atlanta each February is one of my favorites. After attending this conference for a couple of years, I asked Bill Hill, the conference coordinator, about presenting a talk. He invited me to give a presentation and it went well. I realized then that as a teacher at a two-year college, I had could experience the sorts of things that academic psychologists working at four-year colleges routinely do.

One day I received a call asking me to teach a Teaching of Psychology course for a distance university, Walden University. I accepted the offer and was flown to their home offices. I was able to teach and mentor graduate students and supervise doctoral dissertations. When my first doctoral student successfully completed her orals, I think that I was happier than she was.

Interactions with students, jobs in unrelated fields, and life have all been "tipping points" (Gladwell, 2000) in my academic career. Gladwell noted that certain occurrences change one's perspective. I recognized that experiences in my life were relevant to teaching and by using my experiences; connections could be made with students. Now I see all of life as a laboratory for learning how to teach more effectively.

Advice for New Teachers

All teachers of psychology can benefit from joining STP. STP provides a wealth of resources to assist both new and experienced teachers in their work. Find teaching mentors at your college. If there are no potential mentors in psychology, look for others in other departments. Attend every teaching seminar, conference, or other meeting related to college and university teaching. Also attend all research seminars, conferences, and other meetings to stay current in the latest research. Keeping current in the field is essential to being an effective teacher.

Final Thoughts

In reviewing my academic life, it may appear that it has been stymied by my underlying health issues. However, my health problems afforded me the time to do a great deal of studying and introspection. My personality was molded by caring health professionals who gave me a sense of serving others. It is amazing to me how many doors have been opened when I thought I was finished moving forward in my academic career. I have been blessed to have many great experiences in academics and the greatest students.

Reference

Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

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

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