BY AARON BARLOW

Why are we professors so scared of having someone look over our shoulders?

Do we really believe that having someone peek into our classrooms—or sitting in through a class—is a threat? Is our academic freedom going to disappear simply because someone is watching?

When I was being interviewed by a dean for my first full-time academic job, the dean asked, “What would I hear from students in your classroom? Of course, I can’t listen in, but what would they be saying once they had left?”

“Can’t listen in? Of course you can! My classroom door is always open—unless we are making too much noise.” He was rather taken aback and muttered something about infringing on my academic freedom. I brushed that aside: “I’m not that easily intimidated.”

Though I got the job, I don’t think I ever saw that dean again. He really wasn’t concerned about what goes on in my classroom; he just wanted to know a little more about how I interact with students. That’s a legitimate concern and, of course, it has nothing to do with academic freedom.

Academic freedom does not protect one from scrutiny or criticism. It is not freedom to say whatever one wants without negative feedback or permission to teach however one will without anyone calling you on the carpet for it. When my father lost his job for contract grading in 1970, the action had nothing to do with academic freedom, egregious though it was. When I publicly criticize a right-wing scholar for a political essay masquerading as an academic one, there is no abrogation of his academic freedom, though he may claim there is. My father was not fired for the content of his classes; the right-wing professor was not stopped from publishing and my criticism does not threaten his job.

Over the years, I’ve invited quite a few people to my classrooms, most notably some of the right-wingers who complain so much about indoctrination and brainwashing on campus. These include David Horowitz, who seemed to hint, at one point, that he might drop by, though he never did. I’d love for them to come and watch—and even to tell me how, exactly, I am indoctrinating students into some leftist agenda. I love having others come in and help me improve my teaching—even though a sanctioned observer did once try to use the observation to threaten my job.

When I owned a store and café, I was involved with what my employees were doing–always. If there were a crowd, I would step behind the café counter and start making espresso drinks or dishing up desserts. I wouldn’t ask permission from the barista; I would just do it. There was no criticism implied and none taken, not even if I took over a task that I saw I could do better—though I did expect my employees to watch and learn (as I often learned from them). Our task was to serve customers as effectively as possible and we all knew it.

My attitude toward teaching is much the same (though I refuse to consider students “customers”).

I love for people to come into my classroom, even to step in and help if something goes awry. One class of mine went horribly wrong while I was being officially observed and I could have used assistance. There are also times, when I am observing, when I could help. But that’s not part of our academic etiquette: I’m supposed to ignore anyone observing me and be invisible when I am doing the observing.

After that class of mine that went completely off the rails, the observer and I discussed ways I could have handled it and he wanted to give me a rating higher than I deserved, recognizing that the situation had been unique. I wouldn’t let him, saying the observation was meant as a snapshot and the rating should reflect that. I had the right to write a response and I did, explaining just why the class had ended up as a disaster—and kept my job. But I still wish he could have stepped in and helped—and that I could, were the shoe on the other foot.

In academia, we evaluate only relative newcomers and generally don’t do that very often—which is a mistake. Sometimes, academic freedom completely aside, we use the powers of evaluation maliciously—which happened to me in that first instance I mentioned—which is part of why we get so protective of our rights. And which is why there are protections in many of our union contracts that ensure that we are not fired for false cause or singled out for special scrutiny (my father, unfortunately, did not have that protection).

Yet that is not all there is to it. Through our closed-door, protectionist mindset and our antiquated observation systems, we make a hash of professional development—and, as we are discovering right now, of continuity in the classroom in a crisis. As a profession, we don’t take criticism well, often feeling it is an attack on our employment (which it sometimes is) rather than an attempt to raise the level of our performance. We convince ourselves that we are already “good” teachers often on no more basis than “Excellent” observation reports by senior colleagues too timid to do more and Student Evaluation of Teaching results that, too often, we have manipulated (it is easy to do).

We also impede our ability to serve our students adequately during a crisis such as the one we are in the midst of today.

A great number of us really need personal assistance in the shift to online instruction but aren’t getting it, afraid to ask for help and nervous that someone might find that we really are doing poorly and judge us for it.

More important, though, any of us could fall ill at any time right now—and someone would have to take over for us. Doing so was comparatively easy when we were in physical classrooms and a colleague could pick up a syllabus from the department office and step in. It’s quite a bit more difficult online, especially with necessary security protections.

In the current climate of class privacy, most of us would struggle to get access to another’s class if that other were to drop away, ill. Nor would we likely be able to make sense of what was going on in the class, for online course management generally rests on more than one platform.

It would make sense for each of us professors to have at least one, if not two, colleagues involved in our classes. And this, for the students’ sake, shouldn’t be optional.

This benefits our students in more ways than one. If a colleague has been watching over our shoulder, that colleague can step in if we cannot continue. Also, if we allow it (and we should), our colleagues can help us improve our teaching—just as we can, theirs. This is not insignificant—and should have been part of our professional culture for generations.

Professional collaboration and support shouldn’t be seen as a contravention of academic freedom. No one coming into the classroom in this fashion should expect to be judging the other. They are not even to be helping, unless specifically asked.

Though excluding others is the mindset we have fallen into as a result of the misuse of observations, it is not a necessary one—nor is it useful.

Academic freedom remains critical to the success of our profession—even in times of great uncertainty and change. But we should not claim it where its protections are neither needed nor warranted.

Or where the claims can actually impede the education of our students.