I often wear sunglasses on my walk from my parking spot on campus to my office. I recently realized that when I have them on, I am seeing but not really seeing. The shaded lenses provide a buffer from the world. I stroll by a rugby and ultimate frisbee field. The highest peak in the coastal range provides a backdrop, and the sidewalk is lined on both sides by oak and ginseng. But I find myself paying little attention to everything outside, sometimes retreating even further into my own thoughts, preparing for the day, planning class, organizing my mental to-do list. I am also protected from the world, those synthetic shields buffering me from what’s out there. It feels safe. I realized that for years I approached teaching like this too. It is nerve-wracking to stand in front of hundreds of students, and it feels easier to put up a protective force field. I now recognize that I wore a kind of sunglasses in class, too, a form of buffer mentality, and kept the class at bay by protecting my teacher identity. Perhaps many instructors do. Here is why we should not.
