Well, the school year is rapidly approaching. Many parents out there are probably thinking that it can't come soon enough. Many students probably have the opposite reaction. I'm in the "I can't wait" camp--primarily because it will bring me back into the classroom and away from the icky temp work I've been doing this summer. I'm also hoping to finish my dissertation this year (but it'll probably be next summer), so I'll be putting myself on the academic job market. (Please, oh, please let there be decent jobs in cities--I can't do rural America anymore!)
As part of my job search, I'll be asked to submit a "philosophy of teaching" or some such thing. Beyond that, though, I thought it would be interesting to put some of my ideas out there for others to think about, to invite other folks out there to engage in a conversation about teaching (I'm fairly sure there are other teachers on the site). Plus, it's a good thing to talk about why we do what we do, and how we do it. Not all of this is fully formulated, so my apologies. I've been playing with these ideas in my head for several years (and on syllabi themselves), but I haven't really tried to tie everything together. I hope to refine my own ideas and learn from others in the process. So, here goes.
Transmitting (?) Knowledge
I view my role as a teacher as analogous to a tour guide. My role is to help students make their way through a new intellectual terrain. In part, my approach comes from Paolo Freire's work in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Like Freire, I reject the "banking model" of teaching, which posits students heads as empty, waiting for instructors to "deposit" knowledge in them. My goal isn't to feed my students information, but to help them "discover" it themselves. This requires a highly dialogic classroom (see below).
I view the learning process as collaborative. I know I learn from my students--indeed, I remember one class period where we developed a very strong model of the relationship between nationalism and patriarchy, highlighting connections I had not made to that point. The main point here, is that by treating my students as collaborators in the learning process, I do not set myself up as an-all knowing expert. While it's true that I have a broader knowledge base from which to draw than do my students, there are always things I won't know. There will be perspectives (and readings and facts and interpretations) that I don't have, but my students do. I must be open to those things, especially if I am asking them to be open to the information I bring into the classroom. One of the things I say on the first day of every class is: "Feel free to tell my I'm full of shit. However, you'd better be able to back it up with something more than, 'That's just what I think.'" My students have told me that this gives them a certain freedom to question me, their texts, and themselves.
Also, this approach requires me to "meet my students where they are." I don't mean that I "teach down." I would never do that--I'd rather "teach up", get them to reach a little. Instead, I mean that I try to draw upon what my students know (very indebted to Freire). So, I ask them to draw upon their life experiences (while also reminding them that their experiences are not universal). I try to use a mix of examples, some they will be familiar with, others completely foreign, to illustrate concepts. In one class, I used South Park to begin a discussion of sex education. By pointing out things they may not see in their everyday experiences, I've found they become open to whole new ways of experiencing--and viewing--the world.
Interaction and dialogue
It should come as no surprise that my classes rely heavily on conversation. Indeed, they rely almost exclusively on conversation I tend to throw what I call "mini-lecturettes" in the middle, making theoretical points, drawing in certain outside information, etc. into the discussion. Mainly, though, I come into class with a set of discussion questions that I use to start off conversations...and then I see where it goes. Some of my most productive class periods have been those where the discussion questions got thrown away and the class went in its own direction, like the nationalism/patriarchy model I mentioned above.
This approach works better in some classes than in others. Sometimes, you get a group of people that simply refuses to speak (I'm pretty good at letting them sit in silence...). Other times, it requires a rephrasing of the question. Sometimes, the class material doesn't really allow for as much dialogue as I'd like--for instance, I'm teaching research methods this fall, and since it's a class dealing with the development of technical skills, there is less room for free-wheeling conversation than there is in, say, a theory class. However, discussion remains at the core of my style.
Democracy in the classroom
This is the area where my politics, theoretical inclinations, and pedagogy intersect most directly. I'm a sociologist, a critical sociologist who's really interested in how power operates, particularly in ways that inhibit participitory democracy. I make this clear to my students. Largely, I do this to inform them of why I structure the classroom the way I do. I hope that, as I will discuss, in modeling participatory democratic practices, my students have more in-depth understandings of them. And, my hope is that they will take some of the lessons they learn and bring them to other settings.
Power is omnipresent. It is especially present in the classroom. Teachers have the power to determine the topics to be covered, the reading material, the form that classroom interaction takes (lecture v. discussion v. some combination, etc), the evaluation techniques used, final grades.... I give up some of this power. We discuss the power issues involved here...and how they relate to larger social themes, like how different forms of democratic practice (shall we say, the institutionalized rules) provide both constraints and opportunities in collective decision making.
In what ways do I give up power? Well, for starters, I have never come into the classroom with a completed syllabus. It's not that I'm lazy (though I can be at times). Instead, I want my students to help me develop it. I have some general and specific things I want to accomplish (for instance, in teaching Race and Ethnicity, I want students to come to a greater understanding of the mulitple mechanisms by which race and ethnicity are constructed). However, I also ask my students what they'd like to learn, what topics they're interested in. That way, I can bring in readings that address those concerns.
Additionally, my students help me to develop the evaluation techniques I will use. I don't simply want to test what they know, I want the assignments to be learning tools. So, I ask them what kinds of assignments help them learn. We work out a collective agreement as to how the class will be run. This happens, of course, within certain constraints I lay out at the beginning. Again, I make clear why those constraints are in place and how they relate to larger issues of power and democratic practice.
Does it work?
Well, I'd have to say it does. One student wrote me this past semester that after taking other sociology classes, she got depressed, but that mine gave her hope. I've had other students tell me how a certain class actually changed their lives. I'm not saying these are universal responses, but my evaluations do tend to be pretty good (quite above average--not bragging, just making a case for what I do).
I think part of the reason it works for me is that I came to this career as an organizer, and as someone who used to do workshops. Those roles tend to be more interactive. I've learned from a few of my own professors, but developed the style on my own. I know it won't work for everyone. Some people are gifted lectureres who can enthrall an audience. I'd, honestly, get bored listening to myself for 50 minutes. I'd rather chat.
Does it work as social change? I think so, at least on a fairly small level. My first in-depth conversation in class always revolves around the question "What does it mean to be a citizen?" The responses vary, but it serves to frame the rest of the class. And students remember it. There's nothing stranger (at least for this young professor) than having my students quoting my own words and emphases back at me. When they start, without my prompting, discussing notions of active citizenship 2/3 of the way through the semester, I know I've hit something. One student told me he started doing anti-sexual assault organizing in his fraternity as a result of our class discussions. I don't know how long these efforts continue, or if they try to extend the practices of participatory democracy to other settings. But, I'm convinced that my small-scale efforts at interupting the reproduction of anti-democratic practices does make a small difference. Maybe that's all I can hope for.
Please feel free to tell me I'm full of shit, but you'd better back it up. :)