When being scary is a good thing

Anatomy lab teaching assistant Abdullah Haroon says the job contributed to his personal growth and communication skills. Photo by Sarah Janes.


Abdullah Haroon is a winner of the 2019 McMaster Students Union teaching assistant merit awards for his work on HTHSCI 2F03/2FF3 – Anatomy and Physiology.

Back in November, anatomy teaching assistant Abdullah Haroon gently chided one of his students, asking why she wasn’t attending his lab hours very often. Her answer threw him for a loop: “You’re scary,” she said. “You ask me too many questions.”

“Initially, when I heard that, I felt a bit upset, a bit sad,” Haroon says. “I thought I was teaching well but if students find me scary then I’m not doing something right. I was thinking, ‘Oh no, I messed this up.’ But, no, when I talked to the professor, Alexander Ball, he said that it means I was doing a good job because I was challenging them. He pointed out you would rather have a student who thinks you are scary than a student who thinks you will just let them slip by and not learn anything.”

So, Haroon kept drawing people out, asking probing questions, and at the end of the year, the same student who had called him scary sent a message thanking him, emphasizing that she felt she wouldn’t have passed without his help.

While this is one of the most memorable experiences of his year as a teaching assistant, Haroon says he has continued to learn a lot about himself through the role.

“I think it just really sets you up in terms of your own growth. You realize how to talk with people. Having been a TA in this course really improved my communication skills. I became more confident in talking to people and connecting with students.”

Even though Haroon knew the course content intimately, occasionally he would get a question that would become a key teaching moment for himself as much as for his students.

“You’ll always end up getting a question where you don’t know the answer. One thing I have learned is to say, ‘Hey, I don’t know the answer to this, but how about we get together at the lab time and try to find out. Or I could meet you tomorrow and give you the answer.’ I’m trying to teach this to the students as well, that it is more intellectually honest if you say that you don’t know the answer and you’ll do the research and get back to them.”

Another responsibility for teaching assistants in the anatomy lab beyond helping to reinforce the course content is to set the right tone for students.

“We, as TAs, really have to watch out for the specimens and make sure they’re dealt with carefully, professionally, with the utmost respect,” says Haroon. “We demonstrate that, and we try to inculcate that same respect in our students as well. That’s a big part of the job. It is a great privilege that we have human specimens here, donated by the community.”

In the fall, Haroon is headed to Ottawa for medical school. Originally from Pakistan, he and his family moved to Oakville when he was in grade 11. While in his final year of the McMaster Health Science program this year, he was able to combine the teaching assistant job with a project connected to his birth country.

“I love teaching and my thesis was also around teaching,” he says. “I was part of a team at the McMaster Midwifery Research Center that is developing an e-textbook for midwives in Pakistan in English and Urdu. I thought this would be a good way to give back to my home country while studying here. I’m heading to medical school and I’m very happy that I got to do this international collaborative project with other health care professionals.”

“One thing I learned is that I do really enjoy teaching and that this is something that I definitely want to continue, even as a medical student or a medical professional,” says Haroon. “I want to make this part of my career.”

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