Faculty who have participated in the Southern Miss faculty seminar on writing and speaking over the last few years have expressed an interest in continuing our discussions about teaching online. Here's your spot!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Do you have inspiring thoughts in your teaching philosophy statement?
Wendy's post forced me to dig up and look over my now dated teaching philosophy. Over the course of the past five years, my views on teaching have changed, and ultimately I think that is a good thing. I am a little more realistic, even a little more cynical, but my central concerns have not changed. I still believe that teaching is about experimentation and I can still brag that I have never used the same exact syllabus or given the same exact lecture twice.
But revisiting my teaching philosophy statement also reminded me that the optimism of my salad days was good. Here is the passage of my long neglected teaching philosophy that I found inspiring when I reread it.
1 comment:
Wendy's post forced me to dig up and look over my now dated teaching philosophy. Over the course of the past five years, my views on teaching have changed, and ultimately I think that is a good thing. I am a little more realistic, even a little more cynical, but my central concerns have not changed. I still believe that teaching is about experimentation and I can still brag that I have never used the same exact syllabus or given the same exact lecture twice.
But revisiting my teaching philosophy statement also reminded me that the optimism of my salad days was good. Here is the passage of my long neglected teaching philosophy that I found inspiring when I reread it.
We live in an age of opinions and opinion-makers. Students today know what they believe: civil rights are a good idea; Jerry Springer is a bad idea. Abortion is wrong or abortion is right. Racism is bad and America is good. These are the opinions that students are quick to share. But as common as opinions are, they are so often superficial. Ask a student why McCarthyism was wrong and you are confronted with a long list of cliché, if honest, phrases that when summed up roughly translate to “McCarthy was an egomaniacal drunk.” Regardless of the moral or historical soundness of these opinions, they seldom have much substance. They are a learned catechism, not a carefully argued thesis, and I am always shocked by how often student papers are riddled with contradictions and assumptions.
My job as a teacher is to teach students to think harder and more critically.
Post a Comment