Category Archives: Teaching

Connections, Teaching

The Community of Teaching

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“You know what community is,” Doops said, his voice rising with impatience. “It’s a bunch of folks getting along for some reason. Something holds them together. Generally something bad … Nobody needs nobody when they’re happy. But it just happens. We don’t make it. We don’t make community any more than we make souls. It’s created.” — Will D. Campbell, The Glad River

OK, this much I know:

1. Learning takes place better when there is community within the classroom (and sometimes out)

2. Will D. Campbell (and others) say that community can be created

3. Community, it seems to me, is best created when all constituents have a say, when they all feel invested in the process

4. How then can best can I create community? Students are NOT all equally interested/invested in every class. They’re NOT all equally skilled.

5. If — as I’ve been told — one of the best ways to create community is to foster daily dialogue in class, the (unspoken) assumption is that everybody in the class can contribute to the new topics and concepts and skill sets that few (if any) of them yet have in the average class.

6. And yes, I get it. That’s MY problem. To dis-assemble to the material in such a way so that everybody, including the kid who arrives late and sleeps in the back of the room during every stinkin’ class, has something pertinent to offer so that the other kids in the class are engaged.

7. But knowing what the problem/challenge is and morphing the material I know from 40 years experience into that kind of interactive give-and-take, the kind that leaves them with more useable information at the end of class than when they began seems to me to be a VERY tall order. And one that doesn’t necessarily involve technology — but might.

8. I clearly have a long way to go.

Teaching, Technology

You are the song

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Conductor Christian Thielemann
Conductor Christian Thielemann

Itay Talgram’s brilliant “How to Lead Like a Great Conductor” (TED) works on a couple of levels for an old dog like me. There is most certainly a joy that comes from enabling other people’s stories to be heard, at the same time, in a “classroom concert.” But I’ve rarely built that possibility into a lecture in the past. Perhaps it is ego — my rationale has always been that there’s simply too much material to cover and too little time for any “digressions.”  And, depending on the class, that may be true:

1. My Intro to Mass Comm class has 300 kids. Not a good setting for that sort of thing. Plus my evaluations have been (if I may be so immodest) really good

2. My small advanced writing/workshop classes. Most of the time, the kids do all of the heavy lifting of assessing and commenting on each other’s work … I only speak at the end if there is an additional point or two to be made. Again, the reviews have always been great.

3. My Magazine and Feature Writing class. I’ve been very disappointed with the response/production/engagement  in two of the last three semesters. So disappointed, in fact, that this is the class I’ve replaced with the ATL Fellowship. The evaluations have been good, but not as good as the others. More importantly, I’M not happy with how I’m teaching it. (Lecture with Power Points, no textbook, lots of writing, lots of personal stories of what NOT to do.) It has worked for 20 years. It ain’t working (in my mind) as well now.

So, if the “project” part of the ATL class is to both improve your own teaching AND share how that can be done (theoretically using the new technologies that DO engage kids now), then it seems logical that that’s the class I should target.

Well, drat.

I really want, as Talgram says, to be able to create the process and the conditions in this little world that maximize the potential for success in each student. The great directors, he seems to be saying, have somehow created the process/conditions in such a way that the musicians have just enough framework to allow them the freedom to “own” the music (save for that one hapless trumpet player) and guide themselves.

That’s a tall order. It appears I’ll need to revamp that class. But then, identifying the problem is part of the battle.

 I guess my goals are to now identify WHAT I can do to create a successful partnership, WHICH technologies will facilitate that, and HOW the HELL I’m going to be able to do that in such a way that I can share it as the ATL project at the end of the Spring semester.

I may start with baby steps, working on something a little easier at first.

Like World Peace.

Teaching, Technology

Changing the Sense of the Possible

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open-university-logoI was fascinated by Dr. Brenda Gourley’s talk ,”Dancing With History: A Cautionary Tale.” A number of her statements struck me, including her claim that it was academics who “most fiercely” resisted the changes suggested by the creation of an Open University. I don’t come from an academic background (as some of my “colleagues” in my previous department frequently reminded me. So when I did arrive in academia, I was pretty naive. I thought academics would be different than the comparable folks I knew in the military or business or politics. I thought that there would be this utopian, unified vision of helping humanity, mentoring students, working together. And, as a not-particularly-promising lad at Baylor in the early ’70s, that’s what I (thought) I saw taking place.

Boy, was I in for a shock! At every level, I saw (and continue to see) in-fighting, turf-wars, empire-building, back-stabbing, and just plain old meanness. I saw a lot more honor and respect growing up in the military. I don’t know that I was disillusioned — I was a working journalist, after all — but I was saddened and personally hurt. (As the old saying goes, “The reason academics fight so hard is because the stakes are so low.”)

Ultimately, what I was seeing was a reactionary response to an ever-changing world. (Which is kind of dumb, when you think about. Another old saying claims that human-kind has been in “a period of transition” since the Garden of Eden.) Of course, the courtly, fascinating, dynamic professors* of my days at Baylor and North Texas weren’t facing the level or speed of technological, social and economic change that today’s professors face.

Instead of embracing (or at least shaking hands) with this change, we dig in our heels and fight it. Fiercely. (BTW, my wife Mary addressed a lot of these issues in her book Beyond 2020.)

But Dr. Gourley said something early in her talk that reminded me it is actually human nature to respond this way in the midst of  this kind of change. A lot of us are expending a lot of our energy just to get by.

She said, “It’s challenging. Twenty, thirty years from now, it’ll be historic. Now it’s just challenging.”

I talk to folks who survived World War II or the ’60s and they remember the challenges the best. The knowledge that what they were living through was “historic” was a pretty low priority at the time. I was too young to participate in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements of the ’60s (A. We were in Japan. B. I couldn’t drive.) but in retrospect, they look like fascinatingly vital, exciting times to be alive. Historic, even.

I believe we’re in just such another “historic” time. Dr. Gourley’s eloquent summary of the State of the (Teaching) Art was a valuable reminder that maybe I need to get with the program more. Maybe I need to be more intentional about what’s going on (particularly from a technological standpoint) and look for more “modern” ways to engage this new student. I’ve caught myself, as a teacher, bemoaning the lack of writing skills this new generation possesses and assigning blame. Instead, I need to be using what’s already working at attracting their attention and harnassing it.

It’s a new culture. It’s a new economy. The “change back” theory says that people will usually prefer the familiar over the unfamiliar, even if the familiar was dysfunctional and damaging.  I don’t want to be guilty of that. I pledge to work harder in 2010 to (gently) embrace what’s already here and look forward what’s yet to come, both as a teacher AND as a citizen. Dr. Gourley called it a train. I don’t want to be left at the station and miss what could be a wild, wonderful ride.

* A shout-out to Bob Reid, Ralph Lynn, Rachel Moore, O.T. Hayward, Barry Klingman, David McHam, Mike Stricklin, Bullet Lowrey, Doug Starr …

Gospel, Story-telling, Teaching, Writing

A Little Love for King Saul …

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The Witch of Endor, the Ghost of Samuel and King Saul
The Witch of Endor, the Ghost of Samuel and King Saul

People who know me know I’ve been kicking around the idea to write a novel based on the life of King Saul, my favorite Old Testament character.

            A little love for King Saul, if you don’t mind. Remember: Here’s a guy who didn’t want the job as King of Israel. He spent his entire reign hounded by that weasel Samuel. He never personally profited from his position. He unified 12 feudin’, fussin’ tribes into a nation. He was heroic in battle.

            And he was a good dad.

            Really.

            Today, King David gets all of the good press. By if you line them up side by side, David’s sins dwarf Saul’s. (And Saul always genuinely repented.)

            And there’s the business of the children. But more on that later …

            When Samuel publicly announced to the Hebrew people that Saul had been chosen as their first king, they found hiding behind the luggage (1 Samuel 10:22). Afterwards, instead of demanding a lavish new tent or mansion, he simply went home.

            When the evil Nahash the Ammonite besieged the Hebrew people, messengers found their new king quietly farming with his oxen. (1 Samuel 11:5)

            Saul declined to mercilessly slaughter his defeated enemies. And when he triumphed in battle, he always shared the spoils with his people. Thus by example, King Saul slowly built a stable nation.

            Throughout it all, Saul remained modest and obedient, eschewing the trappings of wealth and power, always trying – despite his many failures – to do what’s right.

            Which brings us back to the dad business.

            We don’t know much about Mrs. Saul. But we know a lot about Saul’s son, Jonathan. Beautiful, loyal, courageous Jonathan. He’s one of the few characters in the entire O.T. who gets a free ride from the chroniclers. He’s always shown in a positive light. And we know David loved him.

            Saul, apparently alone among his kingly successors, managed to keep a good balance between work and family. When he was king, he was king. When he wasn’t protecting the entire nation of Israel against hordes of iron-wielding Philistines, he was back home farming and spending quality time with the kids.

            Jonathan doubtless noticed.

            We can guess from Jonathan’s life that Saul tried to provide a good example, as best he knew how.

            Even during Saul’s darkest days, when faced both with David’s rebellion and the external threats from a dozen powerful neighboring kingdom states, he behaved with moderation and restraint.

            God eventually chose David and so Saul’s reign came to a bloody end. But even then, Saul’s innate nobility and decency shone through. In the time of his country’s greatest trial, he consulted the Witch of Endor, desperately seeking advice on how to save his people. Not for his own benefit, mind you. He risked damnation to help his people. But even from beyond the grave, Samuel chose instead to taunt and humiliate him. (1 Samuel 28: 1-19).

            Some people need to just get over themselves.

            In the end, a massive force of Philistines overwhelmed the loyal soldiers who remained. On that awful day, King Saul stood virtually alone on Mount Gilboa with his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malchishu. He could have taken his sons and have fled with the royal treasury. And his sons could have slipped away the night before.

            But they didn’t. They remained steadfast and shared their father’s fate.

            There is more to the story, no doubt, more to Saul we just don’t know:

             The Bible says that Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, 14 and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse. (1 Chron 10:13-14)

        Um, doesn’t that seem a little extreme?

        Think what you will of King Saul, but he must have been a worthy, loving father for those closest to him to remain faithful unto death. How many kings of Israel will be able to say that in the centuries to come?

            And in that, if nothing else he is an example to us today: There is no difference between your life at work and your family life. You can’t be ruthless, corrupt, and dictatorial at the office and yet be gentle and loving at home and expect your friends and family not to be impacted by your example. You are called by God to be equally responsible in both.

There is no separation between the two.

There was no separation during the time of King Saul and there isn’t any such separation now.

It simply can’t be done.

           

New York Times, Teaching

What are we teaching?

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Perhaps you saw the article in The New York Times on 10/20/09: “Field Study: Just How Relevant is Political Science?” (C1) While the piece specifically addresses research, I believe it has a message for university teachers as well, one that is contained in this quote from Joseph Nye, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard:

“The danger is that political science is moving in the direction of saying more and more about less and less.”

Substitute the academic disciple of your choice for “political science” …

The underlying question here is directed only at me, and it is one I need to continually address — “Am I teaching what my students really need to know OR what I was taught 35 years ago that they need?”

Teaching, Writing

Why We Gather … and sometimes link

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“Will they explore a wider, more creative space through social interaction or through outside command? Though the answer should be obvious, consider the case of the heart surgeons from five hospitals in New England who spent 1999 observing each other’s practices and talking about their work. The result was a stunning 24 percent decline in mortality rates in bypass surgery, the equivalent of 74 saved lives, a result they could never have obtained through the traditional continuing education regimen of listening to lectures, reading articles, or even logging into artificial ‘knowledge management’ systems … as one biologist quips, ‘I link, therefore I am.'”

Thomas Petzinger, The New Pioneers (1999) … from the chapter titled, “Nobody’s as Smart as Everybody.”