Discouraged | Faculty Commons

Phillip A. Bishop
Coach Paul W. Bryant Professor of Education
Kinesiology Department, University of Alabama

Last semester was a disaster.

I taught a class for which I had written the textbook. I was very excited about the text and about the class. It’s a course on statistical and numerical literacy and application. Sounds fascinating and exciting, huh?

I have been teaching for almost 30 years. I have been teaching this particular course material for 24 years. But this group of 37 students thoroughly defeated me, though I used every trick I knew.

I tried being funny. I tried group work. I tried to engage them in issues of most interest to them. I tried interactive learning, tried to challenge them, tried competition, tried being controversial. I went to their sporting events and cheered for them. Nothing worked. Nothing.

Ready To Quit

Honestly, I was ready to quit. I was knocking myself out. I was giving them all I had. And, in return, they hated me and they hated the course, and I think they didn’t really care all that much for the wonderful textbook that I had written. What is normally the greatest job in the world was, at that time, the most discouraging job in the world.

Why bother? Why not give up? I certainly wouldn’t gain any big rewards for teaching an undergraduate class well. They wouldn’t even appreciate it.

Fortunately, I had Matt, and Bob, and Wes, and Bill, and Doug, and Diane, and Henry, and Mike, and the other Mike, and other Christians. I didn’t jump off a tall building or even quit my job. We commiserated and we joked, and I was reminded that this sort of thing happens to all of us at times.

And that class was not my only failure.

When Failure Cancels Successes

I fail at grant proposals. I fail at some competition, or I’m an also-ran for some recognition. I cannot even report a lot of tangible, measurable results from 24 years of Christian ministry on college campus (though that’s not really the proper metric). And like most academics, one failure feels like it cancels a half-dozen (actually more like a dozen) successes.

Well, my bosses in the academy won’t let me give up on academic efforts. My conscience won’t either. With the spiritual stuff, I can sear my conscience if I really try. I can convince myself to avoid even trying. But this cadre of Christian friends help keep me at the task. They help me start over again. They keep me going.

We need each other.

One of the great things about teaching is that each semester we get to try it anew. Old failures can be forgotten and we can try, try again. Not only can we try, but we can play a part in one another’s spiritual battles. We can encourage them. We can best do that close up where we can hear their stories, see their faces and share their defeats and victories too. We can remind each other that we get to start over spiritually, too.

We need our Christian colleagues to remind us that we get another chance and that we are not alone. Together we learn ways to be better, and to share our sufferings as well as our blessings.