[lit-ideas] Re: Potlach etc.

> I was about to write that we don't disagree, reasonable being the key
> word here, but I'm no longer sure that's entirely true.  Maybe we can
> settle on "mostly true."  I believe students need to read and to
> write and without prescribed amounts of work colleges turn into
> diploma mills.  The only quibble I have concerns the balance between
> "required" and "suggested" reading.

I was required to set required reading!  At London, I didn't use a textbook
(I listed several, with a very brief guide to the differences) and
didn't set compulsory readings week by week (but it was pretty
obvious what the major readings were).  The results were encouraging.
At York, where I was required to use just one textbook (hampering my
teaching of democratic thought immensely), and set required reading,
they were not.  (There were other differences.  The York teaching
format almost excluded essay writing; I like teaching by essay and
essay discussion in addition to formal classes, and the London students
seemed to learn more.)

 >I am in the privileged position of being free
> to teach what I want, how I want.

Ah yes... At London the contents of my courses  were
scrutinised -- in advance -- by the college
faculty and the university faculty, but that was a benign, and at the
university level, helpful, process.  (And I chose the courses, subject
slightly
to departmental needs, then put them forward for scrutiny.)
At York format and teaching manner were obsessively scrutinised (to hell
with quality of content, what size are the powerpoints?...)

All this may have been in part a preparation for the government's
Teaching Quality Assessment Exercise (I'd left by the time Pol was
TQAd, but was told about it and anyway had a fair idea): an assessment
of the quality of the paperwork a department produces about its
teaching methods.  Tell your students the moon is made of green
cheese but accompany that with a Professional Reading List?  *Fine*.

> I'll propose something a little different for freshpersons.

Some of our freshpersons can take your kind of approach but of course,
many can't. While I was at York, first year exams in the first week of the
summer term left time for an elective course, with no
lectures, that (the idea was) reflected a teacher's interests and
also set the students free to read and write.  By the end of my time
there, I was the only non-TA still teaching such a course.  It could
still on occasion be a pleasure, as a student took wing. (Those
courses are no longer run.)

When people are looking into things that genuinely
> interest them, they are quite likely to produce.

I agree. But the system I worked under at the end  militated against
that -- the brief summer term courses apart.

It really is true that British students do far less work than
US ones.  It's also true that -- if the Women's Studies' List is
any guide -- US teachers are far more free to choose their
teaching methods.  The combination of Research Assessment
Exercise tyranny -- 4 publications a year or a punitive teaching
load, tenure irrelevant -- TQA demands and, well, and all
the rest of it, leaves lecturers here with inadequate time,
often enough, for teaching and forces them into a straitjacket.
Not all, of course.

The story I linked to, about working hours and teaching hours,
may provide a wake-up call.  But I doubt it.  More likely
even more bureacratic nonsense will be imposed.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Ritchie" <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 2:22 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Potlach etc.


>
> On Sep 27, 2007, at 11:51 AM, Judith Evans wrote:
>
> >
> >> My daughter's professors are still in "ought to be able to" mode.
> >
> > I'm still in 'ought' but for a reasonable version of 'ought'.  But
> > then,
> > British
> > students now do need some 'ought'
>
> I was about to write that we don't disagree, reasonable being the key
> word here, but I'm no longer sure that's entirely true.  Maybe we can
> settle on "mostly true."  I believe students need to read and to
> write and without prescribed amounts of work colleges turn into
> diploma mills.  The only quibble I have concerns the balance between
> "required" and "suggested" reading.  I err now very much more on the
> side of "suggested."  I am in the privileged position of being free
> to teach what I want, how I want.  My seminars now take the form of
> an archeological dig.  I stake out some territory and explain why I
> think it's worth digging here.  We all read some things together to
> develop something of a common vocabulary.  And then we dig, which is
> to say that students follow their own curiosity into the reading
> list, or propose alternatives, and then report back to the group on
> what they find.  Thus we all learn.  At the end of the semester the
> question is, "What did you learn?"
>
> PNCA's president is currently pressing me to develop a proposal for a
> bachelors degree based on this model of teaching.  I'll do so, but it
> will take some reflection.  I think it works very well with upper
> division students who know that education is expensive and who want
> to make the most of their experience.  That's who I teach currently.
> I'll propose something a little different for freshpersons.
> Essentially I believe that almost anything we do to encourage
> students to find their own and personal curiosity about the world is
> educationally sound and that, conversely, actions that we take which
> result in diminished curiosity are bad.  I'm not unlike the
> protagonist in the "History Boys" in this respect.
>
>
> >
> > But I was
> >> actually thinking about those moments when everyone in the class has
> >> prepared something and the issue is, who shall speak first?  Do you
> >> pick the most eager student?  The recalcitrant one?  The one at the
> >> back of the room?  The one who is likely to start well?
> >
> > rare moments, yes?!
>
> Not so rare.  When people are looking into things that genuinely
> interest them, they are quite likely to produce.
>
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