The following post was written by our University of Windsor Visiting Teaching Fellow, James Paterson.

Myself, my wife and my two young children have been in your beautiful country less than a fortnight and what an incredible privilege it is to share a few personal thoughts about New Zealand and on teaching with you all. Canadians are special people; understated, friendly, humble, hardworking and enthusiastic, which are attributes that New Zealanders love and admire. New Zealanders adore these values because they reach out to people, they connect people and they add enormous value to families, friendships and communities.

On my first day on campus I was unsure of where or how to get to my office in the Centre of Teaching and Learning, which I now know is on the 2nd Floor of Lambton Tower. Not only was I jet lagged and sleep deprived from travelling some 20 plus hours with young children but my 11 year old daughter Ella, became very sick on arrival at Windsor so I spent from 10pm till 3am up at a local hospital’s Emergency department, waiting to see a doctor.

I asked a young Canadian lady for directions and at first she couldn’t fully understand my accent, but she was patient, she was friendly and courteous and once we understood each other, she smiled and said “follow me, I’ll show you”. For her, I doubt now that 12 days later, she would be able to even recall her act of kindness that she offered a lost and tired Kiwi, but for me it will be a memory of Canada and the type of people who work at the University of Windsor that I will likely take to my grave.

My point is when dealing with people, the little things matter and this is especially the case when people are put in new situations or new environments. Where they are unsure of what to do, with people they don’t know, with systems and process they are unaware of or at best are unfamiliar with. I think you’ll agree that some similarities might exist for students in Day 1 of one of your classes. It would be reasonable to expect students might be uncertain, anxious, nervous, wanting to just fit in with their peers or like me, arrive late to class because I was confused and unsure of the campus layout.

Maybe a good strategy on the first few sessions of a semester is to make students feel comfortable in class, by spending little if any time on content, and concentrate more of your efforts on building the foundations of a good learning space, by building student confidence, class cohesion and interpersonal relationships so that students are ready and committed to their learning. In New Zealand we call this process building student mana and building a sense of whanua. Translated this means enhancing a student’s personal pride and self-esteem, and creating a family of learners in the class, where learners collaborate and help each other rather than compete for grades against one another. Could I suggest also that as you think of differing ways to achieve this, don’t forget that the little things you do in these first few sessions, might be rather insignificant to you, but could be an entirely life changing moment for one or more of your students.

James Paterson

Visiting Teaching Fellow, University of Windsor

Visit the CTL Visiting Fellows site to learn more about James: http://odette.uwindsor.ca/ctl/paterson