Things I Have Learned So Far

Today was the last class period for two of my classes. I wanted to give my students a parting gift of wisdom, or the closest thing to it that I could muster.

Here is my list of "Things I Have Learned So Far"* -

1. Follow your passion. Do what gets you excited to get out of bed each day.
2. Be curious about the world.
3. Always bring something to read on a plane.
4. Cultivate only the habits that you are willing to have for the next 30 to 40 years.
5. Balance work and pleasure.
6. Learn to enjoy solitude and peace.
7. Don’t eat lunch at your desk.
8. Save 20% of what you earn, starting as soon as possible.
9. Be nice to everyone. But first, learn what they like or need before assuming that you are being kind to them.
10. Be positive. Try to find the positive at least some of the time.
11. Shopping is not a form of patriotism.
12. Walk as much as possible. You will enjoy the exercise, fresh air, and the perspective of the pedestrian.
13. Integrity (or your reputation) is easy to lose but hard to re-gain.
14. Have pride in your work, but be willing to admit when you have done average or below average work.
15. You should have an opinion but do listen to other people’s point of view and reconsider your opinions based on their perspective and new evidence.
16. Understand your roles (mother, son, employee, student, etc) in life and what they demand from you.
17. Have standards. Live up to them even when you think no one is watching.
18. Being likable can get you farther than being smart or talented .
19. Figure out how you want to live and then do a few things each day that helps you create that life.
20. Whenever possible, take the stairs.
21. Spend some time each day reading or thinking about ideas, morality, and spirituality.
22. Two phrases to avoid: “I don’t care” and “I’m bored.”
23. You are what you do, not what you believe.
24. Technology doesn’t always set you free or make your life easier.
25. When tired, get a good night’s rest.
26. Homework helps the student learn, not the teacher teach. If you don’t do it, you are not harming or hurting the teacher!
27. True freedom means making difficult or unpopular choices.
28. You will not be comfortable with other people until you are comfortable with yourself.
29. A sweater vest is not just an article of clothing, it is philosophical statement.
30. Guidebooks and lists about how to live a better life are usually wrong.

* Knowing these things does not mean that I actually do them . . . yet

Homework as an end in itself

Because I increasingly believe that college ought to be as much about instilling certain habits of mind as it is reaching levels of proficiency or knowledge, I find myself assigning and grading more homework assignments than ever before. I like written homework because it forces students to keep up with the reading and come to class prepared. Class discussions are better and students tend to say all or most of the interesting things that I was planning on saying. My job then is more about organizing their analysis and/or supplementing their comments with additional and background information.

Homework also allows me to provide some regular feedback about progress. While this feedback cannot be too detailed, I can save students from significant errors and give them lots of positive encouragement.

I have come to believe that regular homework might be more important than tests or papers. The one challenge with this is helping students understand that the homework is for them, not me. What I mean by this, is students occasionally want to turn in the homework late (after we have had class discussion), submit it by e-mail (rather than bring it to class), or turn it all in at once. In these conversations, they sometimes suggest that the most important thing about homework is that I get to grade it. I try to tell them that homework is their way to see if they are getting the gist of things and heading in the right direction. It also allows them to formulate their ideas so that class is more meaningful and their paper ideas can germinate longer.

In other words, homework is not really a "means" for me to grade their progess, but an end itself. Doing it, being prepared for class, askig questions by yourself, formulating your opinions before class discussion and creating good work habits is the "end." I have come to realize that by my grading it, I increas the likelihood of instilling the habit.

Analysis and Application vs. Critical Thinking

Students, faculty, administrators, critics of higher education, and its proponents all seem to be questioning everything about higher education from its cost and public funding to the future of tenure and shift toward more professional majors. While many things underlie these debates, one unspoken issue is whether universities should be teaching students to become skilled in applying or analyzing a fairly narrow range of issues or problems that relate to a particular field (sometimes called a major) or become good communicators, critical thinkers, and engaged citizens (what Andrew Mills calls the swiss army approach to education - see http://faculty.otterbein.edu/Amills/MillsCollegeEssay.html).



Of course, by framing things in this way, I have created a false binary. The reality is more complex than this simplistic either/or. However, the public dialogue seems to also rely on this binary when approaching the question of the purpose of higher education, mostly because the graduates skilled in certain kinds of analysis or application possess identifiable and relatively easy to market skills.



Consider professional majors, such as accounting, architecture, or education. These majors claim to provide students with the ability to apply basic principles in those fields. While many folks have tried to get these fields to focus on communication, citizenship, and critical thinking, the meat and potatoes classes in these majors are focused on how to solve concrete problems facing practitioners and function as members of the profession. Moreover, based on what I have heard from my traditional-aged students is that they like this kind of "hands on" focus. To succeed in these programs, students need to learn how to analyze problems and how to apply. From my own experience in law school, developing the ability to "think like a lawyer" was probably the most difficult academic task I ever experienced and made graduate school relatively "easy" by comparision to law school.



Yet, this is not the same thing as becoming a critical thinker. A critical thinker goes beyond analysis or application and interrogates the existing categories, structures, paradigms, and procedures. (I don't want to rehash all the great stuff about critical thinking at criticalthinking.org/. Their stuff is great - you should check it out). A critical thinker respects the immense value of being able to apply a concept or engage in a specific kind of analysis, but also explores the limits of a given paradigm or approach. Critical thinking considers the approach's assumptions and consequences. It looks for what gets omitted or neglected. It also asks questions about who benefits from the standard approach.



My own journey to a Ph.D. in American Studies, I think, reflects my allegiance to a broad area of inquiry over a specific disciplinary allegiance. In other words, by choosing an interdisciplinary program, I explicitly rejected the idea that only one method, discipline, or paradigm can produce adequate knowledge. For better or worse, this has left me a "jack of many trades but master of none." I realize that not everyone shares my assumptions or my values, so I hesitate to foist it upon the masses.



That being said, I find it odd that many partisans in the debates about higher education want higher education to become an either/or kind of place where students either analysis/application or critical thinking. From my point of view, the application/analysis seems to be winning this debate, but I think at a huge cost. I am not sure that we can afford to focus only analysts or folks specializing in application. On the other hand, focusing on critical thinking or citizenship without some sort of specialized skill or knowledge does not produce the kind of creativity, entreprenurial sprirt, or engage citizens we need. It seems like we need to create institutions of higher education that can do both and do both well.

For students, I think this means coming to grips with the fact that college is both about learning employable skills and the awareness about their limitations and/or flaws. As I tell my students, high school is about identifying the difference between "black" and "white," while college is about navigativing in the "grey area."

For professors, administrators, and pundits, embracing the difference between analysis and critical thinking and valuing both is probably the only way to strengthen our institutions and help students achieve their goals.

Finding the Right Mentors

A few weeks ago, my graduate department held a party for a retiring faculty member, who just happened to be one of my mentors. What is interesting is that I never took a class from him but he was one of the biggest influences on my career. He taught me about higher education, administration, research, and teaching. There is not a week that does not go by where I don't rely on some morsel of wisdom he shared with me. I had also had the good fortune of having another 3 or 4 other faculty from PhD department who helped in significant ways as well. (For what it is worth, I graduated with law school without having any faculty mentors on the law faculty. I did manage to find one in the English Department even though I was in law school but that is a long story)

I write this post for two reasons. First, it seems like the national conversation about teaching and higher education seem to forget advising and mentoring as a key element of teaching. I realize that part of this is because mentoring doesn't really fit the requirements for tenure at most R1 institutions. On the other hand, I think that we, as a country, will continue to "waste" money in higher education if we keep thinking that the all that matters about college degrees is "value added learning". I am particularly concerned that all the talk about reducing costs in higher education will make it more difficult for other student to find the kind of role models and mentors they need for professional and personal success. This, at least from my point of view, is where the turn to adjuncts hurts the most.

This leads me to my second reason for sharing this. I want to encourage all my current students to find not one but a couple of mentors. Obviously, not every faculty member wants to become a mentor or has the ability. While it may take time to do this and get used to having a mentor, the benefits are simply huge. Mentoring, however, is a two-way street. The "mentoree" needs to do his/her homework about faculty and take the time to cultivate these relationships. It is not easy but a key part of having a successful college career. Certainly, a mentor can write letters of reference, help you pick classes, and aid in finding internships. The biggest benefit, however, is the wisdom and guidance you will receive.

The Place of the Lecture in Higher Education

A recent article in the Chronicle (http://chronicle.com/article/More-Professors-Could-Share/64521/#comments) discusses whether professors or institutions should record lectures and make them available online.

Hidden in the conversation about who owns it, public access, and how students might use and benefit from such recordings is a key assumption about the nature of teaching and learning. While it is unstated, it appears that the article and the debate assume that higher education is primarily about knowledge transfer, ostensibly from faculty to student. Based on this assumption, the lecture is one method for facilitating that transfer. Further relying on this assumption, the next question is whether we need universities at all if students can simply "listen" to the lectures on their own.

Despite the framing of the issue around new technology, this is really part of an ongoing debate about the nature learning. Are teachers engaged in a form of banking in which we deposit knowledge into brains that will be accessed at a later date or are we more like fitness coaches who are helping people develop "healthy habits of the mind"?

As I get older, I am realizing that I view teaching through the lens of creating good intellectual habits. I just don't have much faith in the banking theory of education, especially as knowledge expands and changes. Moreover, the internet is really good at reminding us of names, dates, and definitions. On the other hand, the internet is not so good at helping us figure out how to evaluate information or apply that information to discrete contexts. This is where you need to talk to an actual human being and engage in a conversation. This is where "hands on" and experiential learning kick in. This is also why students need classes to jumpstart the processes of reflection and analysis. I guess this is why I don't really lecture, but try to hold discussions with my classes. As my friend, Chris Panza, says, education is not so much about knowledge but relationships and wisdom.

From what I can tell, much of the conversation around online lectures relies on the banking theory of education. So, I really don't have much of a problem with posting online lectures, but I don't think that is really a substitute for higher education though either.

Right now, there are tons of books in libraries that possess more information than I ever could ever relate to my students. However, they are not a substitute for actual classes even if the books could be made more widely accessible. The information is not enough. Online lectures, while probably better than many books, still are not engaging, experiential, or conversational enough to serve as the primary basis for teaching and learning for most students.

Oddly, after reading the article and thinking for a bit, I remembered why I don't lecture so much. I just don't believe in information transfer as the key element of learning. The key is dialogue and feedback. All this talk about online lectures speed up and/or increase the productivity of information dissemination, but it does not really revolutionize how individual feedback and guidance is handled. When someone figures out how to dramatically improve the productivity of my grading and working with students on formulating and editing papers, then we will have a real revolution in education!

Reading with a Pen?

Classes begin today at Drury (Hooray! I think I am probably the only person excited to jump back into things)

Once again, one of my goals this semester is to help students become better readers and note-takers. Perhaps, goal is too strong of a word as I "want" to teach this skill but it tends to get lost in the shuffle.

So, I want to offer a few suggestions for students about how to think about reading:

1. Reading should be an active process, not a passive one. You need a pen or a computer to really read!
2. Reading does not begin when your eye glances at the page but when you begin engaging with the text and asking questions.
3. The first question should probably be "what is the main idea." When you locate a possible answer to this question, you should underline it, copy it into your notebook, or type into your computer. Also, you need to label it as a possible thesis. When you finished your first run through the reading assignment, you should review all the possible thesis and try to figure out which one is correct. If you could not find a sentence that contained the main idea, then your job is to write the thesis statement of the piece in your own words.
4. Once you have figured out the main idea, then consider what is the issue or problem the writer is discussing. Evaluate the strength of the connection between the problem or issue and the proposed solution or answer. Also note if this problem is a specialized one, requiring expert or specific knowledge.
5. The second task of the reader is to identify the main evidence or reasoning supporting the thesis or main claim. Once this evidence or reasoning is identified, students should evaluate the relevance, quality, and quantity of this evidence. In most essays, there is a lot of evidence. Your job is to really think through the meaning of this evidence. Like in #3, underline, copy, or type the most important and valuable evidence.
6. The third task of the reader is to determine if the writer recognizes alternative views. Does the acknolwedge that there is an ongoing debate about this topic or issue? Are you persuaded that the writer has complete command of the history of this debate or issue? Has the writer accurately characterized any alternative views or past scholarship on this question? Does the reading address the main concerns or points made within these alternative views? Are there any missing pieces of evidence or reasoning that you wished the author would have discussed? Frequently, it is in this "task" where you can find good paper topics and great questions for class discussion.
7. As you read, write down whatever other questions or concerns you have and jot down the kind of evidence you think is missing.
8. When you have finished "reading," review your notes or underlines regarding the main idea, evidence, and alternative views. Organize your notes or underlines so that you can quickly find these items for your class discussion.
9. Go back and look for any sentences that really nail the argument, stick out to you, seem wrong, or make you angry or frustrated. Save those quotations for possible use in a future paper or quiz.
10. Bring your notes or book to class for easy reference! (Hint: Nothing frustrates a teacher more than students who don't have a book or have no "evidence" that a student has thought about he or she has read).

Anyone who has other ideas or suggestions for how to read, please share them! I will be sure to pass them along to my students!