What follows was written for an award application I turned in last week. In order to prove how awesome I am, they wanted to see a statement of my teaching philosophy, and I have no idea if this was the kind of thing they were looking for. At the very least, it was probably not something they've seen before.
Students are in the process of becoming who they will be for the rest of their lives. Although they sometimes don't realize who that is yet, I believe this means they should be shown the dignity of who they are and are becoming all the same. First and foremost, my students are adults. They have chosen to attend my classes, whether at the guidance of parents and councelors or at their own discretion. As a teacher, I want how I teach to be shaped by the goals the students have when they make this choice. As an economist, I know that these goals really fall into three broad categories: consumption, productivity, and signaling.
Students might be in my classes because they think it will be fun. Maybe they see economics coursework as part of the ``college experience.'' Perhaps they've noticed that economics comes up in every nightly news broadcast, or that every political and business decision has an economic element they'd like to know more about. In any case, some students come to my classes purely for their own enjoyment, information, and satisfaction; they've come to consume economics. What these students really want out of the course is real world examples, something that connects the abstract essence of economic thinking to the complex experience of life. They want me to be honest when I'm simplifying reality, and they want me to tell them when what we talk about is a good guide to understanding the world and when it's not.
Beyond their own enjoyment, students might actually come to college to learn something, to make themselves more productive. They want to improve their thinking skills so that they'll make better employees and better employers after they graduate. They are hoping that what they learn from me will help them get better, higher-paying jobs, and retain those jobs over time. These are the students who want to see how decisions are made, how to compare costs and benefits, and what sort of factors they need to consider when dealing with problems. They want to be able to look at a situation and understand not only which things they can see are really important, but also what important considerations may remain unseen. The theoretical building blocks of economics help these students translate bewildering real world problems into intellectually managable models. And of course, they need to translate the answers the models give back into real world solutions.
Finally, some students are already a cut above the rest. What these students really want is to be able to prove their skill, to signal to the job market their true abilities. They take economics courses because they're challenging. They hate grade inflation because it makes it harder for them to demonstrate their talent and effort. What these students need the most from me is honest grading and rigorous academic standards. They want me to expect a lot from them, because they know they have a lot to give. They want an A in Principles of Microeconomics to mean something.
Of course, the students I've outlined above are an abstraction from reality. Most students are motivated by a mixture of the three, and they may not even be sure which ones matter to them the most. I need to provide all of the benefits to all of my students, and let the individuals sort out which parts are most useful to them. Many students aren't thinking these things about my class as much as they are about their entire program of study, so I need to keep in mind what their backgrounds are like and where they plan to go after my course is over. But by beginning with these principles, I believe I can respect the interests and desires of my students and provide them with the education they are really looking for.
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