Depth vs. Coverage; or I'm behind again and how did this happen?

I've only been perfecting my trade for fourteen years here at CBC, so it should be no surprise that I find myself, once again, nearly through the quarter and behind where I should be.  How does this happen every quarter?

Here are some of the issues at play:

1. Depth vs. Coverage: The first is the age-old conundrum of history teachers everywhere--how does one balance in-depth analysis with broad coverage?  If you are determined to talk about EVERYTHING, then you will talk about NOTHING in depth.  Conversely, if you wish to enthrall (fun note: also means to enslave) your students with a particular topic's subtle intricacies and confounding ironies, then you will get behind and be forced to jettison large portions of the historical record.  That's what the dustbin of history is for, after all.

Obviously, there is a middle ground here, as with everything, and the goal is always balance.  But it can be hard to do, especially if you really want your students to "get it" and understand a particular topic well.  There is always a trade off, especially in history teaching, because your choices are nearly limitless.  That unit on feminism, complete with a day discussing documents by Steinem and Schlafly, is going to come at the expense of Nixon's foreign policy or Carter's domestic policy (please let it be Carter's domestic policy!).  And never mind the Red Power Movement, the Brown Berets, the Grey Panthers (militant old fogies), or the Pink Panthers (the Gay analog to the Black Panther Party).  It ain't happening, bro.

2. Discussion vs. Lecture: Another facet of this epic conflict involves teaching choices.  If you lecture in a unilateral (dictatorial) fashion (my favorite style, best when done in jack boots, because what do students know anyway, until you tell them!), you can march through a lot of material very quickly.  It just feels good to check off the list of topics covered each day.  It gives you a profound sense of accomplishment, kind of like conquering small countries.  On the other hand, if you ask your students to read documents on a specific topic and discuss those documents in class, you could spend an entire week on just one theme.  And that's fun too!

3. What do students really need to know?  A lot of this boils down to what you believe students really need to know--and what your goals are as a teacher.  If you believe that students need to be introduced to the "facts" of history and it's your job to give them those facts, then lecture away and sleep peacefully at night knowing that nothing is being left out.  By God, those students are not going to leave MY class without learning about Ogden vs. Gibbons or the Tariff of 1828 (yes, guilty as charged, I have indeed lectured about both those topics). 

But if you believe that your job is to teach students how to "think critically" about history (and information generally) because they'll soon forget the "facts" anyway, then you should spend more time on fewer topics, allowing students the time to really sink their teeth into the subject matter.

4. Buddhist (Eastern) approach vs. Western goal-oriented approach: This Herculean struggle can also be seen in the light of East v. West.   If you want to take the Western approach and make progress, then forge ahead in linear lecture mode,  progressively laying claim to ever larger swathes of historical territory.  This approach is largely about conquest--mapping and making order of a disorderly and unwieldy human past for your students.  This approach requires a firm hand on the wheel , a clear destination, a steady course.

If you want to take the Buddhist approach, then take each class as it comes.  Live in the moment.  Enjoy the now.  The question is not, did we get through enough material to stay on schedule (see Western approach above), but rather, was today's discussion illuminating and useful in itself?   Who cares if you spent four days discussing the Constitution, making it so that you'll never get to the Civil War unless you jettison the entire Jacksonian Era:  as long as students got to think about and discuss important issues (something that takes time), it was worth it.

There is also the Pure Land Buddhist approach, which entails having your students meditate and visualize, while occasionally whacking them with sticks in hopes that they obtain enlightenment.

Really, you know, just pick an approach and go with it, man.  It's all good. *

*I'm lying.

Getting Students to Talk; or Why I am a Failure....

John Houseman in the 1973 film "The Paper Chase" playing the domineering Harvard law professor who used the Socratic method to traumatize his students.

I begin each school year with overly ambitious and idealistic notions about what I'm going to achieve--new assignments; new teaching strategies, new approaches to the content, etc...

At the top of my list is usually student engagement, which translates, in my world, to this question: how do I get my students to talk?  It might not be a good metric, but I tend to measure "engagement" by how actively students take part in class discussions.   Perhaps getting students to talk is overrated (I mean, who is to say that students who do not talk are not engaged?).  But I am a creature of my own socialization, and what professor does not occasionally conjure up the utopian dream of college teaching: You are standing in front of the room, posing questions, raising issues, challenging conventional wisdom, provoking thought.  Your students are eager to engage in dialogue.  Their hands thrust upward.  You ask.  They answer.  This dialectic drives the class forward, leading everyone to new understandings.  Time flies.  Minds are on fire.

Ok, so this is just a self-indulgent dream--a "Paper Chase" fantasy (without the psychological intimidation).

But I live in the real world.  I'm not a skilled practitioner of the Socratic method (like John Houseman's character, above), nor are my students Hollywood versions of Harvard law students (and that is not to say that many of them could not someday be real, rather than imagined, Harvard law students).

But for now they are first and second year college students, hesitant, and perhaps unprepared, to engage in class discussion.  And my impromptu questions, although perhaps better now than they were fourteen years ago, are not always inviting, or self-evident, entrees into a class discussion.

Moreover, many students do not appreciate being asked questions and having to react on the spot to obscure historical questions (like, for instance, a point that you explained the previous day).  CBC librarian extraordinaire Drew Procter (iron law: ALWAYS be nice to librarians because they are most powerful people on campus) sent me a link to an article about a professor--a "master teacher" according to his fellow professors--who lost his job because he used the Socratic method as his primary teaching strategy.  Needless to say, the students did NOT like it.  It was obnoxious to them that he kept asking all these questions rather than simply telling them the answers!  I mean, what audacity!  Students demand the right to simply be told what they need to know, rather than having to suffer the indignity of being asked a million questions about things they don't know. 

The article speculates that the Socratic method is not popular among students "because we are in a test-based education system. Students can be increasingly impatient where the answer is not clear and when the professor is not giving it to them immediately." 

Fair enough.

But what about my Utopian visions of college class discussions?  How do I get my students to participate?

Well, to be honest, mostly I do not.  I hector and cajole and coerce my students.  I ask them to "come to class prepared to talk about such and such."  I give them documents to read and papers to write so that they will arrive in class prepared to talk.  I tell them to write something down and then ask them about it.  I assign student participation scores.  I ask them questions cold.  I swing from the chandeliers and light fires in class.

None of this moves them to speak.

Mostly, I stand in front of them answering my own questions: "What caused the Civil War?  Well, let me tell you.  Do you have an hour?"

Mostly, I'm like the economics teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off": "In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics."

So what is the secret?  Why am I such a failure at getting students to talk? After fourteen years of teaching, just what am I missing, besides a classroom filled with Hollywood actors playing Harvard students? (It is a fact, by the way, that Harvard students are not half as smart or witty as Hollywood actors playing Harvard students).

It's alright.  Don't feel sorry for me.  I'm not asking for your pity.  Just your money.  Please send check or money-orders made directly to Dr. Gottlieb, who will be pulling my molar and tucking my gums tomorrow

Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community

The "Quote of the Week" for the October 4, 2011 "Hawk Newsletter" ("brought to you by the ASCBC") reads as follows:

"If the dream is big enough, the facts don't count."--Unknown

Quote of the Week?  Really?  But what does it mean?  Does it mean that if we insulate ourselves in big fantasies that "reality" doesn't matter?  It clearly suggests that dreams, fictions, fantasies, visions, etc…, are more important than fact-based reality; that the subjective "reality" we create from our dreams is more important than the "factual" reality of the objective world we inhabit.

The quote reminds me of Karl Rove's infamous statement to writer Ron Suskind that journalists and others who write about and try to discern "the facts" are part of what Rove sneeringly described as the "reality-based community," as opposed to those--like the administration of George W. Bush, for which Rove worked--that were actually creating their own reality: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Rove was differentiating historical agents (like the Bush administration) from those who simply record history (journalists, historians, etc…), while the ASCBC Quote of the Week was simply a tidbit meant to inspire us to follow our dreams (I think).  But they both convey the essential idea--so powerful in our society-- that the subjective reality we create is more important than so called "objective reality."  If the dream is big enough, the facts don't matter.

Ok, so I came of age in the "postmodern" world, so I should have no problem with the idea that reality itself is largely subjective and "socially constructed."  Since there is no "objective reality" we should all get to work constructing our own realities.  In a sense, this is what is happening in America right now: the Tea Party has its own reality; OWS has it's own reality; FOX news, MSNBC, the Democrats, the Republicans--they all generate their own realities by constructing their own "narratives."  Each person, each group, can create their own storyline without regard for "the facts."  If the dream is big enough, the facts don't matter. 

Even reporters and members of the "reality-based community" have largely conceded.  Political coverage rarely involves challenging politicians and talking-heads when their version of reality contradicts "the facts."  Instead, most reporters simply report the different narratives: "in response to the charges of A, B claimed that…." 

Most of us spend more time living in our dreams than trying to discover "the facts."   And when we decide to find "the facts," we usually tune into the appropriate channels that provide us the fodder we need to support our worldviews.  Studies have shown that people, when presented with information, remember the facts that correspond with their preconceived views and largely forget contradictory and inconvenient information.

Why am I thinking about this?  Well, for one, I teach history, which involves facts sometimes.  I mean, I’m not a huge "fact guy."  I despise trivia, but only because it's trivial.  But facts really do matter.  Context matters.

Example: Today we were talking about the Constitution in one of my classes.  There has been a lot of misinformation about the Constitution.  Certain political movements (to remain unnamed) have tried to raise civic literacy about the Constitution.  I appreciate that.  But sometimes I wonder if those people are reading history about the origins of the Constitution  or if they are reading the Constitution itself?

Example: Many people think that we had the Boston Tea Party and then we declared independence and then we created the Constitution.  Well, this is kind of true--things happened in that order: 1773, 1776, 1787.  Looked at in this light, the Constitution was created by the "Founding Fathers" as a template for limited government, individual liberties, and states' rights.

I agree, if only we substitute "The Articles of Confederation" (our first constitution, created by the Continental Congress in 1777) for "the Constitution."  That was truly a document born of the revolutionary spirit of 1776.  It created a national government that did not have the power to tax, regulate trade, or raise a standing army (only the states could draft troops).  There was no executive branch--no president or monarch.  No system of federal courts.  All power rested squarely with the states.

Fast forward ten years.  The young nation is mired in debt and economic depression (sound familiar?).  Rebellions emerge in the countryside.  Europeans smugly assume that this fledgling republican experiment will soon implode.  The Continental Congress makes plans for delegates to meet in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787.  The ostensible purpose: revise the Articles of Confederation.  Disturbed by civic unrest and economic turmoil, George Washington makes plans to attend, lending legitimacy to the convention.

Of the only 55 delegates to attend the convention (only 39 of which sign the document), the majority are young men, unknown among the original revolutionaries.  Their defining experience is not the Stamp Act crisis or the Boston Tea Party.  They were kids back then.  They came of age during the Revolutionary War.  Men like Alexander Hamilton--born in the mid 1750s (1755 or 1757; there's a fact we don't know)--became young nationalists as they fought for an emergent nation.  As members of the Continental Army, they began to think continentally rather than provincially--they were no longer primarily Virginians and New Yorkers, but Americans.

The point I'm making: they constructed a new constitution that created a powerful national government (sneakily called the "federal" government to suggest that this was still a federation of states rather than a "consolidated" government, which states' rights advocates feared).  That new national government now had the powers to levy taxes, raise and keep a standing army, and "to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into the Execution the foregoing Powers," which included, among other things, the power to "regulate commerce" and the broad mandate to "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States."

So was the Constitution really a template for limited government, individual liberties, and states' rights, as some would have us believe?  Well, it's debatable, to be sure.  The people who created it did not see it in those terms.  For them, so-called Federalists (again, sneaky, because the name implies that they promote a confederation of states rather than a stronger national government, and sneaky also because it forces your opponents, who are truly federalists, to take the name Anti-Federalists) it was clearly about expanding the powers of the federal government.  For their opponents (and there were many), so-called Anti-Federalists, the Constitution was also a template for a more powerful central government--and that's why they resisted it as long as they could and finally demanded a Bill of Rights in exchange for their support.

My point?  Hell, I'm not sure of my point any more.  I like history?  No.  I mean, yes, but no, that's not the point.

Oh yeah.  Context matters.  Facts matter.

On this example about the Constitution: If we study history and understand the driving forces behind the creation of the Constitution, we recognize, whether we like it not, that it was a document that greatly empowered the federal government.  Like it or not, the Constitution gave the federal government a lot of power to do all kinds of objectionable things, depending on your perspective: fight undeclared wars (because the "President shall be Commander in Chief"), create agencies like the CIA to spy and topple foreign governments (to provide for the "Common Defense"); create a national health care system (necessary to promote the "General Welfare" and "regulate commerce), etc…..  Again, depending on your perspective, these things might be bad policy, but that does not mean they are unconstitutional.  

My point again (just to remind myself):   We can conjure up alternative histories and make up our own dream realities or we can pay attention to certain known "facts" and develop a more nuanced view of the past and present.  It could help.

I'm not saying it is simple or easy or self-evident.  The Constitution (and history itself) is NOT self-evident.  It is subject to differing interpretations, and this has been the case from the very beginning.

But realizing this "fact" alone can help us resist the dream realities of people and organizations that want us to accept their own simplistic and self-interested view of the past and present, no matter what the facts.

So dream big and follow those dreams, baby!  But don't think for a moment that the "fact's don't count."

Become a proud member of the "reality-based community"!

Giving Talk at Mrs. Vermeul's Class

Today at 9:00am I'm visiting Mrs. Vermeul's fifth grade class at Jefferson Elementary to talk about writing.  Somehow this class found out that I wrote a book!  Perhaps it had something to do with one of the students in Mrs. Vermeul's class, Grace Olivia Arnold, a budding author herself.

I'm not used to "teaching" fifth graders.  My students are a bit older.  So what do I tell them about writing?  I don't really even consider myself a "writer," even though I've written a book, some scholarly articles, and a few editorials.  I consider myself a historian, or more accurately a history teacher, who writes things.  But I don't even write much anymore--I just blog, apparently.  I'm reminded of Truman Capote's famous line, "That's not writing, that's typing...."  It could equally be applied to today's blogosphere: "That's not writing, that's blogging!"

So here's what I think I'll say:

1) Start small: Books don't begin as books.  They begin as sentences that turn into paragraphs that turn into sections that turn into chapters that eventually turn into books.  One idea at a time.  One sentence at a time.

2) Scribble notes: Scribble down whatever comes into your mind.  Don't worry about organizing things until later.  Gradually your scribbled notes will be able to be organized into some kind of coherence.  Then you can begin to gather your notes (be they note cards or clumps of digital data) into categories, and then you can begin to write.

3) Write and rewrite:  Everything can be revised later.

4) Write what you know: This is horrible advice for advanced writing students working on their MFAs--it makes American novels insular and navel-gazing (got that critique from an NPR story a few weeks back and I think it's dead on).   But this is great advice for junior writers, like Mrs. Vermeul's class and myself.  We need to start with something we know and move on from there.

5) Find your voice: I guess this is similar to above, but with an emphasis on not being self-conscious about what you write.  Take people's advice and suggestions if it is helpful, but don't worry about how others judge you or your writing.  Writing (and a lot of other things in life) is really about finding your voice.  This takes a lifetime, so you never have to worry about being bored!

But I'm a little worried about Mrs. Vermeul's class being bored.  We'll see what happens.

Untitled Rant #194; or Caring About Things; or Why I threw my Pen Against the Wall on Monday

I was a little bit edgy (angry?) this week.  Was it because of the lunar cycle?  Because of this sore throat? Bad digestion?

Why did I throw my pen against the wall in class on Monday? And other things that I found in my pocket? Was it just to underscore the point that concepts like "democracy" are not ho-hum abstractions but rather real things that people fight and die for? Was it just because students did not know what had happened in Tahrir Square or what is happening today in Syria, where a "grassroots" (another word no one knew) popular movement is struggling for democracy against a ruthless, tyrannical regime?

It's not just frustration with my students.  I don't expect that they know anything when they enter class.  I just get frustrated with how somnolent we are as a society.  I get frustrated with just how much we take for granted.  How much we forget.  While others risk their lives for "democracy," we--Americans--seem to have forgotten that those values we hold so dear are achieved and maintained only through hard work--and I don't just mean "action" and armed struggle.  Those values--democracy, equality, freedom--are maintained by a vigilant, well-informed, rationale, critical-minded citizenry. (Enter history teachers with superhero capes! Or not.) 

We are lethargic and sleepy as a society.  We have other things to do.  We are distracted by the bright lights of the mall and the magnetic images on our smart screens, but we forget that we have to work for things, to figure things out, to apply our minds, to make sense of the world we inhabit.

Democracy, Capitalism, Popular Sovereignty, Republicanism, Classical Liberalism, Socialism.

What do these things mean?  Most of my students do not know.  Most Americans don't even know.  And that bothers me.  Our smart phones can tell us the definitions of these words, but we can only understand them by thinking and paying attention.

Speaking of the perils of the "military-industrial complex," Eisenhower warned that "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry" can ensure that  we do not become a society controlled by "the huge industrial and military machinery of defense."  According to Ike, only an informed citizenry can ensure that "security and liberty may prosper together."

I know it's hokey, but I actually take seriously Ike's admonition that we citizens must be "alert and knowledgeable."  That's why I love my job--I get to become an apostle for alertness and knowledge.  I get to wake students up to the fact that the ideas of the American Revolution or the lessons of the Vietnam War are still valid and relevant today.

But do you see that the reason why I love my job, and take it so seriously, is also the reason why I become frustrated sometimes?  I can hector and cajole my students; I can test their socks off; I can flunk people till the cows come home, I can lecture until hell freezes over, but I can't instill in them the desire to be alert citizens and critical thinkers.  They have to want it. 

And why should they want it? Society does not reward or value informed citizenship.  There is no pay off for learning history.  In fact, learning history seemingly leads to low pay, depression, and constant anxiety.  There is something to that old adage "Ignorance is bliss."

Of course I don't really believe that (although sometimes I do yearn to be peacefully and innocently ignorant like a child--but don't we all on occasion?).  My entire life is dedicated to the proposition that there are rewards to learning history (beyond the celebrity and the smart chicks--that's a joke, to be clear).  The rewards involve trying to understand the world for yourself.   It's about independence of mind.  It's about freedom.  It's about empathy and compassion.  It's about caring.  Do you care what is happening in the world and why?  Do you care why we "lost" Vietnam and why we are "losing" Afghanistan? Do you care about the blood and treasure spent on military adventures around the world, then and today?  Or do you just want to go shopping?

Shopping is fun and caring is wearisome.

And maybe it's not just the structure of society that I'm bucking against.  Perhaps our brains are not geared for abstract, critical reasoning (especially the brains of 18-year-olds at 8:00am!).  Scientists tells us that the emotional, fear-mongering parts of our brains easily overpower the cool, rational parts of our brains.  And this goes way back: our brains developed for hundreds of thousands of years before there were books and universities and policy think tanks.  It was a lot of "fight or flight" and not a lot of "to be or not to be."  I mean,  books have existed for only a short percentage of human history.  But now we expect our students to overcome their biological heritage and buck against popular culture and become passionate little scholars. 

Maybe I should just give up on this pie in the sky stuff about helping to foster an "alert and knowledgeable" citizenry. 

Maybe I should just throw up my hands and say, as one of my friends says, "Teaching is dead; let's go have hot chocolate!"

Maybe I should just have fun and concede that I am part of the "edutainment" industry.

Maybe I should heed the words sent to me by another friend, who reminded me of the advice given by Dr. Detroit (played by Dan Akroyd) to a grad student: "Just give 'em all Bs. The good students will think you are tough and the bad students will think you are generous."

So these are my two choices (because in my bi-polar world there are always only two choices, and, of course, no middle ground): Relax or continue the existential struggle.  Enjoy life or lose sleep.  Take a chill pill or rage against the machine.

 

You already know which side I'll choose.

Midterm Existential Crisis

Midterm season always sends me into an existential crisis: What is the goal of college teaching? What are we doing here?

Are we providing students with knowledge that enlightens and empowers them? Are we giving them skills to help them make their way in a global capitalist economy?  Or are we simply sorting out the smarter students from the less intelligent ones so that universities and employers know who to admit and hire?

I'd like to believe that college teaching is about opening student's minds, getting them to think and make sense of the world, introducing them to ideas and concepts that might change their lives--that will make them better citizens, that will allow them to live more inquiring and independent lives.  On a more practical level, I'd like to believe that we are giving them skills that will help them along the way: in the case of history, this means reading, writing, listening, thinking, sifting, and sorting--necessary skills in our information economy.

And yet, I must ask, are midterm examinations the best mechanism to promote these noble aims?  Some argue that testing has nothing to do with learning: a test simply offers a snapshot of performance on a given day but does not truly capture the ability of a student to learn and succeed.  Competency-based programs, like Western Governors' University (which I discussed in my very first blog), do not have tests, or at least conventional tests where a student's grade is determined by a series of in-class examinations.  For one, WGU is an online university.  Secondly, students take and re-take "tests" until they show competency--it's about learning the material and mastering the skills, not performing on a given day.

Roger Schank, an education radical who is a critic of traditional teaching methods, argues that  "Learning is doing, not listening or taking tests."  I couldn't agree more with him.  Real learning in history takes place when students DO things--when they read, when they write, when they discuss, when they bend their minds, grab their pencils and produce something.

Thinking this way, a midterm exam appears to be a relic of a traditional educational system (the Academic Industrial Complex!!!) that is largely geared towards sorting students into the proper categories for the gatekeepers in business and academia.

So many questions: Do tests really motivate learning? And what justifies the concept of grading itself, where the totality of a student's intelligence is conveyed by a singular numeric value?  Alternatively, can you get students to DO things without testing and grading them? 

These are important philosophical--and practical--questions.  And yet, my daily reality is that I am required to give grades in a decimal form.  At a school like Columbia Basin College, where we have 45 students in every section of history, examinations are still an important vehicle for assessing and evaluating student learning.  When you read an essay exam, it's pretty easy to see who can master a body of material; who can understand concepts; who can make causal connections; who can choose relevant specifics to support general points; who can think critically.  And maybe I'm old school, but a good old-fashioned test is also a way of measuring a student's determination, desire, and time-management skills.  But isn't that sorting rather than enlightening?

The world is imperfect and complex.  Institutional realities confine us and restrict our freedom and creativity.  And yet, in our society (not an anarchist's utopia), we have to exist within these complex institutions and figure out ways to make our work and our lives meaningful and useful.  We can't just go through the motions; we have to question and challenge and change.  But we can't just throw Molotov cocktails either.

The key is balance.  As I discussed in an earlier blog with regard to lesson plans, the best system of evaluation is diverse.  In my classes, we have essay tests, online quizzes, writing assignments, class participation, extra credit.  There are a lot of ways to succeed or fail.  There are lot of things to learn…or not.  Depends on what grade you're looking for….  :)

Teaching (and Learning) History with Video?

For me, movies used to provide a much needed break from the lecture routine.   It wasn't really about teaching (or learning) history--it was about survival.   After weeks of pounding away, you grabbed a movie (preferably one that  corresponded roughly to  the subject matter you were covering in class), plunked it into the VCR,  turned off the lights, and gave yourself and your students an hour-long rest from the drudgery.  In my first years of teaching, I showed movies when I was at the end of my rope, when I really needed a break--a day without any preparation for class.  Knowing that movies were a superfluous luxury, they were to be used sparingly.  They were a necessary (and fun and interesting) add-on, but an add-on nonetheless, not integral to the real grist of the course.

My ideas about and use of movies in the classroom have changed.  For one, I no longer need movies to save me.  Teaching is no longer about survival; about making it through the quarter.  I enjoy walking into my classrooms and, as my students know, I have plenty of material to fill every minute without movies.  At the same time, however, modern technologies such as DVDs, computers, the internet, and "smart classrooms" allow for a more integrated use of  videos in the classroom.  Nowadays, without too much time spent messing with equipment, I can easily show a short clip that underscores and illuminates a particular point.  Two minutes; five minutes; twenty minutes.  This is a far cry from my first class taught as a "professor."  I was an adjunct instructor at UCLA in 1997 teaching the History of California, a huge survey class filled with over 350 students.  In order to show a movie, I had to schedule it at least a week beforehand with the university's AV department who brought a projector  to the classroom and showed the film.  No YouTube clips back then.  Films don't have to take up the entire class anymore.  But they certainly add to the texture of the subject matter in a way that I cannot duplicate.   

This week in History 148 I showed part of the PBS documentary called "Rock and Roll" and part of the "Eyes on the Prize" series that documents the Civil Rights Movement.  I no longer see these films as superfluous.  How else can I give students the best sense of the  revolutionary impact of Rock and Roll or the courageous conflicts of the early Civil Rights movement?  Would they get the feel for the integration of Little Rock High School in 1957 without seeing some of that controversy through video?  Could I just stand up and talk about the revolutionary pulse of Rock and Roll without showing them some footage of Little Richard or Elvis?

Of course, the use of video begs the question of what you are trying to achieve in the classroom.  Certainly, videos are a more "passive" form of learning than discussion or even the lecture/note-taking mode.  The lights are dimmed.  The students lock on to the images and do not take as many notes.  The images wash over them and overpower the text and narrative of the film.  The details of a film that is viewed only once are easily forgotten.  I remember a film class that I took in college where we had to watch each film a minimum of three times.  So what is the benefit of a movie if the students simply relax, enjoy, and forget most of what they see?  This is college, not Friday night at the movies.  I understand that critique--and I think that too much video sans rigorous discussion could easily dumb things down: History Class as History Channel (although as far as I can tell there is NO history on the History Channel anymore).

But if you're simply trying to highlight a point you've already made in class and in the readings; or if you're trying to give students "a feel" for an era, to make the past more palpable to them, then I don't think there's anything better than a good Ken Burns documentary (yes, even if he plays fast and loose at times) or a video clip about the Tet Offensive.  My Native American Cultures class watches a lot of films, including the recent PBS documentary, "We Shall Remain," which shifts between talking heads and dramatic reenactments.  I've cut out a lot of lecture (some of which I now post online) to make room for those films, which we also discuss online.  I love it, and I think the students do as well.  But are they learning?  Are the films rigorous enough?  Should I be suspicious of the fact that students love films so much?  Am I doing my job when I turn on the projector?

"When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Will Appear."

I love this quote.  It is a Buddhist Koan quoted by naturalist Sy Montgomery in a commencement address he gave in 2010.  I ran across it in a New York Times article.

I love it because it conveys an essential, but often overlooked, truth about teaching: that students will learn only when they are ready to learn.  When they are ready to learn, they can learn anything, anywhere, from anybody.

Teachers might not like to acknowledge the fact that students bear the primary the responsibility for their own learning because it suggests that teachers, in a sense, are expendable.  But that's not the point.  The point is that teachers are responsible for creating an environment in which learning can happen, but  students are fundamentally responsible for their own learning.  It can be no other way: teachers can't get inside a student's brain and begin turning the gears, setting off neuro-synaptic explosions, building dendrite information highways.  Only students themselves can colonize the unmapped territories of their own brains through determined effort and enterprise. 

This is comforting to me when I begin to feel primarily responsible for student learning (or not learning).  This is one of the underlying (and unintended?) messages of our "assessment culture" in higher education:   the success or failure of students hinges upon the professor rather than the determined efforts of the students themselves.  When we analyze and assess our classes, we measure student outcomes to see if we are achieving our goals (I want 100% of my students to be able to do this by the end of the course!) but we do not factor student effort into the equation:  How many hours of homework did they do?  Did they make a determined effort to engage the subject matter?

Even if we set a goal of increasing student effort, the burden falls on our shoulders: how do we design a class that motivates, encourages, and enforces student effort and "active learning"?  How do create an intricate system of rewards and punishments to coerce them into learning?  Once again, it's about us, not the student.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm all for continually evaluating and reevaluating my teaching strategies and methods.  I am constantly doing this--even now, in this blog.  But unless my students are making a similar determined effort, is learning going to happen, no matter what I do?

A little context for this rant against "assessment culture."  It is the end of week 3--the grading is already piling up (thus the lack of blog posts).  The sky is grey.  The students are starting to experience the first signs of fatigue, and so am I.  We can discuss "What is History" until Thanksgiving, but  I need to cover some ground before the midterm.  This calls for lecture mode!  But wait, I shouldn't be just standing up here lecturing!  Bad professor!  The students need to be engaged in "active" learning and lecture is a "passive" mode of learning (I don't agree but that is the current prevailing wisdom among the people who actually majored in education, which I did not).

So throughout the week I tried to spur student participation (active learning?)  in various ways:  I asked students to come to class having read documents which we discussed in class;  I asked them to write things down in class which we then discussed, etc….

I created an environment where students could think, engage, and participate.  But was it any more effective or illuminating than my lectures (which are also participatory, by the way)?  Did the students who actually DID the reading benefit from hearing the comments of the majority of students who DID NOT do the reading?  Was it my fault that most of the students DID NOT do the reading?  Should I have threatened a quiz to increase student participation?

Well, I ended the week with some interesting (to me at least) lectures--the Puritans, the 1950s.  I had fun.  The students seemed to "have fun" (in this case, "having fun" is defined somewhat loosely as "not being totally absolutely bored out of one's freakin' mind").  Some of them were very interested.   Some  asked questions.  It seemed like college.  Is that so bad?

Well, I hope you've enjoyed my self-rationalizing reflection of the week.  The moral of the story: TBD. 

When Does US History Begin?

Ok, so everyday we must consider the "how to teach," the boring stuff about pedagogy.  But then there is also the "what to teach," the exciting stuff about content--the stuff that, frankly, I've been thinking about since graduate school (where we NEVER discussed pedagogy).  The actual content of history is far more interesting to me and I've spent a lot more time considering it than history pedagogy (which is why I'm forcing myself to think more about pedagogy).  Given that, it is all the more pathetic that I still don't have definitive answers to some fundamental questions regarding history content in the classes that I've been teaching at CBC for thirteen years.

Today I’m thinking about this:  Where do you begin the US history survey?   When is the beginning of America, or, I should say, the beginning of what becomes the United States of America?  Is it 15,000-20,000 B.C.E. when the first humans migrated into the Americas?  Is it 3,000-5,000 years ago when the various American "tribes" began to develop their cultural systems?  Is it around 1000 B.P. when the people we call the Anasazi were building massive structures in Chaco Canyon or the Mississippian cultures were constructing their earthen mounds?  Is it when the Vikings were making land fall in Newfoundland? Or does it begin in 1491 with Columbus (who never set foot in the place that would become the United States)?  Or does it begin with Jacques Cartier traveling down the St. Lawrence or with Jamestown or Plymouth Rock?  Or perhaps US history should actually begin in 1776 with the actual establishment of the United States of America?  No brainer, right?

I used to begin my US History I survey (US History to 1865) with a couple days on Native Americans and a couple days on the Spanish conquests before I transitioned to the French and then the British.  My decision for this was justified in a lot of ways: How can you understand the subsequent history of the Americas without understanding the "First Americans"?  How can you understand British North America without first understanding the Spanish expeditions, who spearheaded the colonization of the Americas (and in fact established the first permanent settlement in what becomes the United States near Santa Fe)?

But my choice was also pragmatic: as an expert in Native American history, I had a lot of ready material on Native Americans and Spanish colonization and in my first year of teaching those notes helped me stay one week ahead of my students.

Over the years I took that first temporary framework and made it into a permanent structure--those lectures on Native Americans and the Spanish became pillars of US History I.

As I began to elaborate on other subjects, however, I found that I had less and time--I was barely making it to the Civil War.  And I felt like I was glossing over other really important things, like the Constitution.  Shouldn't I be spending more than a day on the Constitution?

In the last couple years I began to rethink everything.  With the rise of the Tea Party Movement, I became more of an expert on the Constitution (I even gave an hour-long lecture--no notes--to the League of Women Voters last year on the Constitution, something I could never have dreamed of doing a decade ago) and I began to wonder if I wasn't doing students a disservice by not spending more time on the history and central tenets of our republican system of government so that, when they went out into the world, they would not be hoodwinked by loud-mouthed demagogues who literally make stuff up about our Founding Fathers and our Constitution.

In short, I began to think about basic civic literacy.  I've got one shot with these students.  Maybe I should sacrifice my lectures on Native Americans and Spanish Colonialism in order to squeeze in more readings and discussions about the Constitution and Founding Fathers--actual history about those things, rather than the fantasies made up by people with a political agenda.  Shouldn't our students learn more of the real history about those traditional topics before we throw them to the wolves and expect them to survive?

Or am I doing them a disservice by glossing over the precontact history of the Americas?

There are a hundred other decisions like this--What do you choose to discuss and what do you cut out? How do you organize the material you present?  The decisions are endless and I make them everyday.

But at least if I make the wrong decision the plane doesn't crash in the Potomac and kill the entire class.  My decisions are not quite as split-second and consequential as that.  But maybe they shape the way someone will vote or view the world.  And that's pretty important too.

To Powerpoint or Not to Powerpoint?

It would be easy to default to old habits right about now.  The burnish of excitement and anticipation that was Week 1 has now worn off, both for me and the students.  What lies ahead is much harder and more problematic than having spontaneous conversations about "What is History."  What remains is  ten weeks of teaching and learning US history.  But how?

Those PowerPoints--so painstakingly and lovingly created over the years--are looking awful good right now.  They come pre-programmed with all the important points I want to make, adorned with interesting pictures, funny cartoons, and poignant quotations.  They've taken me through a lot, those PowerPoints.  They were there for me when I was making that first transition from lecturing with notes to a more free-flowing style.  But after a few years, those slides, once so liberating, began to imprison me in their inexorable logic.  Powerpoints move from one predetermined slide to the next, each slide connected to the next like links in the heavy chain of my enslavement. 

Not liking the fact that the slideshow itself was controlling which direction class would move, I began to revert to "chalk and talk" presentations that were more fluid: student comments would begin to the fill the board, categories would emerge, and it seemed that the outcomes of class were more collective and certainly more dynamic. 

But for every benefit there is a cost: what I (and my students) gained in dynamism, flexibility, and student involvement, we paid for with disorganization and specialization.  I didn't cover as much and I didn't cover it as neatly as when I used a Powerpoint presentation.  Some students loved the free-flowing conversational style; other students were totally confused--they longed for clear, bullet-pointed certainty.  I loved the unwieldy and messy dynamism, but always felt uncertain that I was covering enough and summarizing things up enough for those students with little background in the field.

On Monday, instead of Powerpoint slides, I asked my students questions ("How did WWII transform American Society?" or "European Colonization of the Americas: Who and Why?") and helped them to help me fill in the answers.   The result was more student participation; but we also didn't get through as much material; students didn't get the lecture on the Spanish Conquests or the impact of WWII on women, although both were alluded to…..

So which is better?

I know I’m really horrible about creating false polarities.  As I tell my students, there are more than two answers--and usually, as in this case, the best answer is BOTH.

A good lesson is like a smart grid or a strong economy--it is diversified; it is not powered by one thing.  The best lessons are powered by lecture, discussion, and student activities.  I'm just not sure I'm quite there yet (especially because I have an ingrained prejudice against "student activities" which I will discuss at a later time…).

Another thing: I believe that an instructor should follow their instincts (because a happy teacher makes happy students), but, an important caveat:  sometimes what YOU believe are the best and most dynamic lessons are, to some students, the most disorganized and incoherent lessons.  Some students will prefer to be led by the hand through the material, and PowerPoints provide a comforting framework.

Note to self: if I go with the fluid, disorganized, free association, discussion model, it needs to be countered with an outline; list of terms, etc…. I need to supply a few safety lines to aid those students who see those kind of conversations as "disorganized."  I need to  help them get a foothold on the material and begin to pull themselves up the mountain…… (presumably so that they can get to the mountain top and look out over the promised land…...)

Spent Entire Day NOT GRADING

On Thursday, two sections of my US history survey course posted writing assignments on primary documents--there are 89 assignments awaiting me in Angel, our online course platform.  The plan, of course, was to begin grading them on Friday, except that a longer than expected history department meeting (which, to be clear, was NOT drudgery--it was longer than expected because it involved pizza and scintillating conversation, especially from Dr. Bob) and other tasks (catching up on email, writing a letter of recommendation, grading my first week's discussion for my Native American Cultures hybrid course) got in the way.  Today I got up and rode 65 miles for the CFF Cycle for Life and then spent most of the late afternoon hobbling around the house and thinking, "I should start grading those assignments."  The problem is that grading is hard enough when you're chipper and well-rested; it's inconceivable when you're completely wiped out from a long bike ride. 

Why is grading so painful?  This is something that I haven't been able to figure out in fourteen years of teaching.  Why do I resist grading?  Why do I have to marshal so much energy to begin and sustain a productive session of grading?  Shouldn't it be fun?  "I can't wait to sink my teeth into these papers and see what my students have learned!"  In the past, I've speculated that grading, unlike, say, reading a book or watching a movie, is hard because you're not learning anything or being entertained.  But both of those statements are false.  You're learning what your students know (or at least how they performed) and sometimes the papers are quite entertaining.  So why the resistance?  Can anyone explain why grading is so unrewarding?  [Of course, I can think of a number of answers to this, some of them probably not too kind to my students...]  Can anyone provide new insight into grading that will make it fun, like the rest of my job?

To be discussed in coming posts: rubrics, theories of grading, and more....  My plan is to make my blog about as appealing to read as a term paper.....Enjoy!

Why I had fun this week and why I feel so uncomfortable about it.....

Why did I have fun this week?  Mostly because I didn't give any boring lectures (yet!).

Monday and Tuesday we talked about the syllabus, my expectations, their responsibilities.  We could not finish the syllabus on Monday.  Although somehow I used to be able to go through a syllabus in less than an hour, now I find that it takes a couple days, but this includes discussions about textbooks/readings (what is the difference between a primary sources and a secondary source?), how to read a primary document, as well a thorough introduction to the course website, where they will post their assignments, where I will post articles and links and basically everything else.   Now that time-saving devices and technology have liberated us from drudgery, everything takes so much time!

On Tuesday our discussion of the syllabus, which was supposed to take only a few minutes at the beginning of class, went on longer than expected (perhaps because of necessary diversions into how the brain works, why they should strive to take notes, the power of pretending [to be interested], and the necessity of extensive training and personal sacrifice in order to defeat Apollo Creed [not that I believe Apollo Creed must be beaten]).  This left only a few minutes at the end for  the "What is History" discussion.

 Wednesday was taken up entirely with the "What is History" conversation, where I came prepared with ten full slides brimming with my favorite famous quotes about history (which can be found at http://hnn.us/articles/1328.html).  I only got through the first two quotes and then the students took over.

They had some good thoughts about who writes history (the winners), about how "facts" must be interpreted, about how epic events and great men count for more in "history" than everything else.

It was fun and lively but not definitive.  We came to no certain conclusions and left out a thousand things, not to mention the "why should we study history" discussion.  Moreover, I didn't step in and tie everything together into a nice neat bundle at the end.  The discussion was left unwrapped, like a delinquent gift awaiting the day that it would finally be pulled from the closet and be made presentable. 

No matter, we had to move on because Thursday would be taken up discussing primary documents.

Today--Thursday--we discussed ONE primary document in each of my US history sections.  In my modern US class we spent nearly the entire period analyzing the following advertisement:

In my colonial US history survey, we spent the entire period discussing a letter that Columbus sent to one of his patrons.  As with the above document, I was trying to get the students to locate the document in a historical context, to summarize it, and to analyze it.

So that was my week.

So why do I feel so uncomfortable about it?  For so many reasons.  First and most importantly,  for the same reason that I enjoyed it: because I didn't give any traditional lectures.  Great, I'm doing what all the education-ologists say I should be doing--not lecturing--but am I really involving all the students in the hands on work of learning history?  What about the 75% of each class who did not actively participate in the discussion?  And what about the 100% of each class who got no lectures on the historical context of WWII or the Age of Exploration and Discovery?  Shouldn't I be doing that?

I have to admit, I enjoyed discussing the documents with my students.  We could do one per day for the entire quarter and I'd be happy, but then wouldn't I be teaching a literature class?  Shouldn't I be telling them what happened?

I know that I draw false dichotomies (malpractice or cutting edge pedagogy).  One can use pointed lectures along with discussions of primary documents, but finding that balance is very tricky.