On the Meaning of Office Hours

I haven't posted for a while because I've been overwhelmed by end of the term mayhem. However, today I have a few minutes, because I am in my office for office hours.

As usual I have no student visitors today. I think this is strangely enough the result of the fact that I make myself quite available to students agreeing to meet at alternative times or to answer most questions immediately after lecture ends. Nevertheless, I am forced to have office hours, because that's what people do.

I wonder if my students would feel different about office hours if they realized that it gives me hours of uninterrupted time to think about how lazy and unmotivated they are. I have students who are failing the class or should be, but are not because I am a softie and offer extra credit and other ways of improving ones course grade that are somewhat morally repugnant to me, but have nevertheless become part of my teaching repetoire. These students will email me and otherwise harangue me to let me know that they are working as hard as they can, yet they never come to office hours to see if I have anything to offer in terms of additional help.

I have always loved teaching and I am good teacher. I don't feel embarassed to say so because I've worked hard to get good at this and I continue to work on honing my skills. I have lots of space to improve, but I also have plenty of evidence that I am damn good at what I do. I have won teaching awards, I have letters written to me by students who have left my classes and felt the need to let me know that I was a good teacher and a positive influence.

Yet, this new job (this is my first year as an assistant professor) makes me question my abilities. It started with an assault on my desires to teach and has now becoming a nagging doubt about whether or not I have somehow lost a step in terms of teaching. I don't know, but I do know that I might not be thinking about this if some of students had the good sense to come to office hours.