When I read that Harvard professor Howard Gardner conducted a five year study of college students and found that 45% of them have a transactional attitude towards their college education, it caught my attention. He states that our goal should be to cultivate a transformational attitude towards their education. Gardner explains that a transactional attitude is seeing college only as a means to get a career. In contrast, a transformational attitude is one that while earning their degree, their experience also becomes a means to ask and reflect about their beliefs and values. Though the discussion of the study focused on college students, it got me thinking about how we approach life. In short, why do we do what we do?
Much like our students though, we tend to have a transactional attitude towards our work, our creative process, and our lives. We sometimes look like we lost our spark and joy for learning, for living, for thriving. We don’t want to figure things out, we want the blueprint. And while the blueprint is sometimes useful, if we don’t allow time for the process and failures, how will we engage in transformative lessons to foster our creative process and strengthen our tacit knowledge?
Sometimes I think we have lost our way in our current capitalist economic system. It is like the balance has tipped completely overshadowing the intrinsic value of living to learn because it is joyful. Or doing our job for the sheer sense of worth. Those in charge seem to be concerned with profit at the expense of their most valuable assets; which are the people they hire. Thus, they want more work for less money. All along the value of the dollar decreases and its acquisition power weakens. Things are overall more expensive.
In the midst of this context, we might feel we lack the choice to love our job and give it all because we are not valued. Loyalty does not seem to be significantly rewarded, chipping away little by little at our joy for our job.
This week I had part one of the hardest conversations of my career with the administration. Specifically, compared to others in my area, I make 1/3 less while having the same degree and qualifications. Yes, there are two factors that would account for a percentage: one is time served and the other is rank. However, the difference is hardly justified by those factors. I am scheduled to have a second conversation soon and I will know more. Until then, I must wait.
My life’s value does not hinge on my job. However, I love what I do in such a way that no matter how bad a day I had or how bad I had slept that night, I enter the classroom, and I soar. I love talking to the students about the process of being a designer, the ups and downs, the inevitable creative blocks, and the tips to unlock ideas. I rejoice with their progress and ideas so much as if these were my projects.
I don’t work transactionally. I do have boundaries to protect my family time, my creative time, and research. Though all this time I had been aware in the back of my head of the discrepancy but I had not woken up to it. It was not until my husband wrote the numbers down that it hit me and it hit me hard.
One of my students recently told me “I don’t know what I’ll do if you leave.” I said that she will always have a place in my heart and in my life. We will always keep in touch. And my heart broke.
A transactional attitude towards life and work is probably an easier, efficient, and more effective way to go through life’s ups and downs. When you work with college students however, who are looking not just to learn but to also belong, to feel part of something to share with others who have the same interests, and want to feel that they matter, a transactional attitude helps no one. Relationships are symbiotic. Students change me as much as I change them as they progress in their pursuit of their degree. No one prepares you for the transformational and profound experience of being part of someone else’s growth. This is especially true in small cohorts and programs.
Why do I do what I do? Because there is nothing more meaningful to me than to share with others what I have learned. When I see a spark of joy in their eyes because something clicked, it makes my day. Every time. Yes, it is hard sometimes. Dealing with people is frequently messy and not linear. And yes, as time goes by, their memories of college and their experiences will ease and those moments will be replaced with other moments much more transformational. As it should be. But, while we are together in that classroom, I am committed to transforming their minds as much as they transform mine.
Love,
Alma