On “Talking Down”

The other day, I went to a day-long workshop on how to be a better teaching assistant. And, unluckily for you, it got me thinking.

But before I explain what it got me thinking about, let me back up to undergrad for a second. A lot of the classes I took in the Drama department were discussion-based, and there were a couple courses in which I found that I was the student who always put her hand up. If I was the only one talking for a long time, one of the professors used what I’ve come to think of as a teaching trick: he’d stop the student-professor discussion, tell everyone to turn to the person beside them, and ask them to discuss the day’s topic for a few minutes.

Even as a student, I noticed that this worked: when he signalled again for quiet and we returned to the regular class discussion, more of my classmates had things to say. I tried it on my own tutorials when my students were unusually silent, and it nearly always prompted a higher rate of response from them, too.

But when one of the speakers at this workshop had us do it and then recommended it as a tool for our classroom use, I wasn’t thinking about how well it works for TAs. Instead, I was thinking about how much I hated it as a student.

Now, the point of this blog is not to go into the many reasons why I hated it, and whether they were right or wrong. (That’s fodder for a sequel!) I know there are plenty of ideologies of teaching, and plenty of opinions on what the purpose of universities should be.  No, the part of my sceptical reaction that I want to get into here is methodological: how do I implement teaching methods that I myself hated?

Not, “how can I live with myself if I do it”; I accept that others have different learning styles, and right now, as a TA, I’d like to have an inclusive classroom environment. But… okay, so for many years, I didn’t drink alcohol or coffee, because I didn’t like the taste of either. I was happy for other people to drink them if they so chose. But if I was ever asked to mix a drink or brew a pot… well, how was I supposed to know what a good cup of joe or margarita tastes like? They all tasted bad to me!

Similarly, when it comes to attitudes in the classroom, I wonder: how can I properly implement these strategies when I don’t like them? I should slow down; explain more; not assume anything: great. But how do I do that when to my ear, it all sounds condescending? Wouldn’t it be better if I did what I liked well instead of doing something I don’t like poorly?

At first, I thought: yeah, duh! But then I wondered: is this just an excuse not to try? And finally, I realized: 1) I really like colons; and 2) what am I doing sitting around wondering about this like I’ve never thought about it before? I’ve faced this exact problem about a billion times — in my writing.

When it comes to fiction, I know I’m particularly demanding with my exposition. No matter how clear I think I’m being, most critique partners and brave beta readers report back with a sense of utter confusion at worst and, at best, the feeling of getting yanked along by one hand while various pieces of information fly by. This is, of course, partially due to my skills (or lack thereof) at presenting my world-building in a clear fashion. But it’s also partially due to the fact that this is the way I prefer my exposition as a reader.

I love books like Hexwood, plays like Waiting for Godot, movies like Donnie Darko, and video games* like The World Ends With You, where you get plunged into an information and/or confusion overload and have to sort it all out for yourself, perhaps on second or third readthroughs, playthroughs, or viewings. I feel restless during stories like Inception and Twilight (yes, I just put those in the same category, deal with it) because they seemed to lay everything out for me, like I couldn’t digest it on my own.

So at first, when I got writing feedback about my exposition being too abstruse to follow, apart from the initial Whatever, I’m Smart, and You’re Stupid knee-jerk, I was uneasy. When I did what my colleagues and friends suggested, I felt like I was talking down to the reader. I felt like I’d written something that I myself would toss away in disgust, particularly since the genre I write in is mainly YA and MG fiction, and if I’m sensitive to condescension in exposition now, it’s nothing compared to how I felt about it as a child and teenager.

But then I realized something: if, in my head, I’m thinking about what I’m doing as “talking down” to the reader, I’ve already lost the battle. When I write an essay for my supervisor, type an entry for this blog, or sketch out a mathematical proof for an assignment, I don’t think, “Man, is everyone really going to make me spell out all the different parts of my argument like they’re little toddlers or something?”

Sure, I could take that attitude as I carefully read through my paper drafts to make sure that proposition A leads logically to conclusion B. But that would leave me with half an argument. And when I’m writing non-fiction, I don’t think of it that way; instead, I take pleasure in the solid construction of my thesis, noting with satisfaction how every fact and idea fits into the whole to make the shape I want.

Obviously, non-fiction writing is different from fiction writing in that it has different aims and sometimes uses different strategies. But the principle still holds: why can’t I enjoy watching the structure of this exposition unfold the way I enjoy putting together an essay? What if I just stop thinking of it in the way I hate and put it in the context of something I like? If, instead of think, “I’m talking down,” I think, “I’m building a great argument that world X works like Q, R, S, and T”?

And so I need to find a new way to think about what I’m doing in the tutorial room. There’s still a line, of course, between setting out a clear argument and making every single little point so explicit that your reader throws the paper across the room in frustration. And in all the media I’m talking about here, I’ll always need to navigate that line as carefully as I can based on feedback and reflection. But if I can latch on to the part of me that appreciates how and why an approach like “talk to your friends” works, maybe I can make it work for those who do enjoy it.

And once I’ve got over that hurdle, maybe I can make it also work for those who don’t.

* Exposition in video games is a bit different from exposition in traditional narratives, and it’s a topic I’d love to ponder some more some other time. Because there are two things you have to know: the regular story/how-things-work-in-this-fictional-world exposition and the tactile exposition of how to make whatever you’re controlling do what you want. But I think The World Ends With You is overwhelming in both ways; that’s why I picked it as an example.