I Teach
This blog is a place for me to debrief myself after my classes. It will serve both as a place for venting and as an archive for what worked and didn't work for me. I welcome outsider comments about teaching techniques or anything else.Tuesday, November 29, 2005
What Happened?
Well so much for the last month, huh? Today was the first day back from Thanksgiving break and I had prepared all this stuff about gender stratification, but the kids actually turned the whole class into a discussion of family structure and ritual/tradition in the U.S. It was really good and they were really engaged. I think it helped that I had given them a lot of structure in the form of a short writing assignment to do over the break thinking about these issues. Then when I led them in a discussion about what the dominant Thanksgiving norms are and what values those norms reinforce and reflect (i.e. the norm of spending Thanksgiving with your family reinforces the vaule of staying in contact with people who share the same lineage as you, and football and overeating reinforce the value of consumption), they were ready with evidence from their own experiences.
I'm fully convinced now that two types of classes are the most effective. First, when the students can speak from their own experiences. This requires a lot of management on the part of the instructor to make sure that the class doesn't devolve into just an anecdote sharing session, but if directed effectively can be really, really useuful. Second, the students seem to get a lot out of hearing other people's perspectives. Whenever I have had someone or some video present the viewpoint of a person who actually lived through the social problem we are discussing the students have been all ears. They certainly listen more than when I tell them. And that's what I find most interesting.
As sociologists we often have a hard time distinguishing ourselves from journalists to the general public. And sometimes I wonder if my skills wouldn't be better served as a journalist. But these students reinforce my belief in sociology. They don't want me to (re)present other peoples lives to them. They turn to me not for stories, but for explanation. They want me to help them make sense of their own and other people's lives, not just tell them about those lives. This makes me feel like I'm engaged in a worthwhile endeavor. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's weird teaching a social problems course at this university. Where I came from it would be all "Damn the Man," but these kids are the man, or at least they will be soon, and so the class takes on a whole different dimension. They are so interested in making sure we see what's good about things in the world, even in the midst of a social problems course. So it's been a struggle at times to convince them of the extent and depth of the problems, if not the existence.
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I'm fully convinced now that two types of classes are the most effective. First, when the students can speak from their own experiences. This requires a lot of management on the part of the instructor to make sure that the class doesn't devolve into just an anecdote sharing session, but if directed effectively can be really, really useuful. Second, the students seem to get a lot out of hearing other people's perspectives. Whenever I have had someone or some video present the viewpoint of a person who actually lived through the social problem we are discussing the students have been all ears. They certainly listen more than when I tell them. And that's what I find most interesting.
As sociologists we often have a hard time distinguishing ourselves from journalists to the general public. And sometimes I wonder if my skills wouldn't be better served as a journalist. But these students reinforce my belief in sociology. They don't want me to (re)present other peoples lives to them. They turn to me not for stories, but for explanation. They want me to help them make sense of their own and other people's lives, not just tell them about those lives. This makes me feel like I'm engaged in a worthwhile endeavor. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's weird teaching a social problems course at this university. Where I came from it would be all "Damn the Man," but these kids are the man, or at least they will be soon, and so the class takes on a whole different dimension. They are so interested in making sure we see what's good about things in the world, even in the midst of a social problems course. So it's been a struggle at times to convince them of the extent and depth of the problems, if not the existence.
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