The Picky Professor

This weekend I spent a few hours creating a Powerpoint for Sunday’s church service.  After finishing it, I emailed it to the music director and the graphic artist who usually creates the shows.  The music director suggested a couple of very simple changes.  The graphic artist suggested five.  I made the changes before church, saved the powerpoint to the flash drive, and went to church.

Before Sunday school started I hurried to the sanctuary to load the presentation on the computer used for services.  I quickly loaded it and added a missing slide.  Woo Hoo – time for Sunday school!  I love my class; I always receive so much love and inspiration from my fellow attendees.

Then the graphic artist (who is absolutely amazing, by the way) came in and wanted to show me some more changes I needed to make.  “Oh, I fixed those this morning before I left,” I proudly stated. . .only to find out there were MORE mistakes.  I was mortified, but willingly agreed to work with her to fix them.

The changes seemed minor to me – replacing hard returns with soft returns, a little spacing, changing a title to all caps, etc.  They all seemed very finicky to me. Nevertheless, when I viewed the Powerpoint afterwards, I was absolutely amazed at the differences those changes made.

I admit I didn’t really like having to do so many corrections–I am an excellent powerpoint creator AND an English professor.  It was humbling to sit in the chair and have someone else point out flaws and showed me how to fix them.  Even worse, by the time I was finished,  I’d missed my Sunday school class.

Then it hit me; this must be how MY students feel when I sit down with them and edit their essays!  While I have a very warm, caring personality, I am also extremely particular when it comes to good academic writing.  My goal is to make my students the very best college writers they can possibly be.

God had sent me a wonderful reminder of what it was like on the other side of the desk.  Our graphic artist is very warm and kind in all of her suggestions.  It never hurts to remember how vulnerable constructive criticism can make my students feel.  Here’s to giving my students positive, loving criticism on their work in the new year!