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...Home > Services > Newsletter > Lizard Index > 1994-1995 Issues > On Teaching

On Teaching

I did not set out to make our Freshman Seminar the hardest class taught at the University of Oregon; I set out to make our seminar the most interesting, insightful, enjoyable class ever taught at the University of Oregon. It just turned out to be the hardest class.

I still can't understand why so many do so well in it.

When I designed our class, I asked myself what would make it the most interesting, insightful, enjoyable class ever. I recalled my days as a student: My most interesting, insightful, enjoyable classes were when I got to talk a lot. My least interesting, insightful, and enjoyable classes were when my teachers recited things, or entertained me, or stoked their egos, i.e., when they talked a lot.

Let's hereby resolve not to talk a lot. No lectures.

Let's resolve that if students need to know something, we'll write it down and distribute it. No lectures. No presentations. Strangely, this makes some of my favorite lectures suddenly unimportant. And I'm surprised how well students discuss real issues without having read the materials I thought they needed to read to know what they needed to know to discuss the issues!

I am also surprised how many students read those lectures anyway. But only after we had the discussion. Go figure. But when I don't lecture, I`m not the center of attention! And I don't get nearly the amount of appreciative laughter at my dumb jokes! Why did I become a teacher if not for that power?

The quality of our discussions hinges on the quality of the questions we ask. Three high quality questions equal five highly informative lectures.

Whenever I think that I want my students to learn some information, I almost always fail; whenever I want my students to debate about something truly interesting and intellectually stimulating, they almost always succeed.

And they end up learning information, too. Why is that?

Discussion. "Students interacting with one another, rubbing their minds together until sparks fly and ignite something." A discussion is not me playing discourse cop or showing off how much I know.

The hotter the fire, the more eager freshmen are to read texts that they otherwise do not want to read. The texts somehow become more interesting after a discussion.

Killing discussions is an art form. I can kill a discussion by asking a question to which I know the answer.

I can kill a discussion by asking a really good question only once, getting one student to answer it, and then asking the same student a different question. I do better when I ask different students the same good question. (Why do their answers differ so much?)

I can kill a discussion by not wanting a question answered. I do better when I wait for six seconds after I ask a question. If no one has answered yet, I rephrase the question more concretely and wait (fidgeting not allowed) for sixteen seconds. (I owe this insight to Don Taylor.)

I can kill discussions by giving my own opinion. If I want to express my opinion, I write it out. (Strange how few of those opinions deserve writing out.) If someone asks me my opinion, I always admit I have one, but I tell them that it's not my job to have answers to their questions; it's my job to provide them with questions to answer. I'd be happy to give them my opinion after the class is over. (Strange how infrequently people come to ask me my opinion after finals week.)

I can kill discussions by trying to impress my students or by flaunting what little sophistication and erudition I have. I do better when I'm concrete and honest. I never got anywhere asking about Bernard of Clairvaux's twelfth century reinterpretation of the annunciation to counter Islamic criticisms of Christianity. But when I asked why I should practice safe sex if God didn't, everyone got very interested in Bernard, the twelfth century, God and the annunciation.

When students say things that I think false or evil, I ask them to restate the position more clearly and concretely, because I must have misunderstood. If it still seems a mistake to me and not to the student, then I ask other students whether they agree.

When students say things I think clearly and obviously correct, I ask what evidence they have for such an assertion. If a discussion would benefit from some knowledge I have, some distinction I could make that would advance the whole undertaking, it is very important for me to KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT.

If I'm patient, some other student will come up with the same distinction or the same point. If I'm impatient, I steal that student's glory.

And if I keep my mouth shut, students often come up with whole other distinctions or points than the one about which I was thinking, and I learn something.

The aim of an education (as opposed to schooling or training) is to have better judgment. Education is not the acquisition, storage and retrieval of information; education is not being able to recite the answers other people have given to problems. Education is learning to figure it out for yourself.

To learn judgment, students must exercise it. To learn how to figure things out, students have to figure things out. Students don't learn to do that when I do their work.

When students exercise judgment, they sometimes make errors. The only people who haven't fallen off a horse much are those who haven't ridden much. Making errors is an opportunity to rejoice.

Lizard 23 Fall 94

 

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