I visited Jim Craven's classes (huge classes, and he has to teach a lot of
them to make ends meet) last December. The students were curious and asked
me good questions. They had an obvious affection for Jim and he for them
(Students wanted to see him after class, and he seemed overly generous with his
time). His many exercises are pretty clever and not a little daring.
He has risked his livelihood numerous times in order to insist on academic
freedom, both for himself and for others. After I had taught for as long as he
has, I was too burned out to give the students the kind of creative teaching
they deserved. Jim is still doing it and much more
besides. Believe me I have seen teachers humiliate students.
More teachers than you might imagine thrive on this. But there is a big
difference between this and not tolerating bullshit and insisting that students
work hard and think critically.
Michael Yates
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 3:04
PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Another classroom
exercise
Thank you. All of my exercises are designed to reward and teach
those
who take an active interest in their education and to weed out--and
deny
rewards to--those who don't. On another list, someone made the
following
comment followed by my response. Please note that I am
actually
diminishing my powers--not enhancing them--as I am teaching them
that
what I say, perhaps especially what I say, must also be
challenged,
questioned, sourced etc.
It's too bad that it's
necessary to go to such extremes in order to
break students of the habits
they learn from teachers who punish
critical and independent thinking. I
can't say that law school grading
(based wholly on 3-hour final exams
consisting mainly of hypothetical
fact situations and possible legal claims
arising from them) promotes
anything resembling critical thinking about the
actual purpose served by
the legal system whose doctrines we diligently
swallow.
(name withheld)
Response (Jim C)
Well this exercise has
many purposes: a) it is in the student's interest
to continually challenge
content to try to figure out if this is one of
the bullshit lectures; b)
they get to see what goes on every day in
government and the
courts--someone pimping a case, with all "sincerity"
and gusto, that
privately that person might be gagging on; c) distrust
all "authority"
including--perhaps especially--me; d) cross-check always
and never
uncritically copy down--and summarily accept--anything; e)
when you see
someone like Bush, feigning "sincerity" and "honesty", the
more --and the
more likely--the feigning, the more likely it is
bullshit; f) the students
are supposed to be active participants--not
passive consumers--in their own
education; etc.
Jim C.
My apologies, I thought you
did not tell the students that some of the
lectures were
bullshit.
Joanna
Craven, Jim wrote:
>That's fucked.
You have all the power and you're using it to humiliate
>your students.
Great.
>
>Joanna
>
>Response: I can see from your
previous comments ( So you're punishing
>your students because most
economic text books are biased? If I were
>your student, I'd be pissed
at you. Joanna) that you are obviously not
>a very deep or critical
thinker (biased not the same as objective--to
>be human is to be
biased) so what you call "humiliation" others might
>call creative
pedagogy.
>
>In my textbook citations assignment, it is
extra-credit; the operative
>word is extra as in extra work for me,
sometimes necessitated by
>students not being with the program and then
winding up needing
>extra-credit. Further, if students take the time
and effort to find
>texts like "Anti-Samuelson" by Marc Linder or
others written by the
>likes of Sherman, Bowles, et al they can find
cites.
>
>Now on this assignment, just who exactly gets
"humiliated"? Remember,
>the warning is given on the first day of class
and the exact number of
>bullshit lectures is given. So who gets
"humiliated"?: Those who do not
>take the assignment seriously;
those who do not regularly attend class;
>those who do not
cross-check but rather uncritically accept what they
>are told; those
who do not connect what they are taught about
>epistemology, critical
thinking ,logical fallacies etc and the content
>of what they are
getting; those who see themselves as passive consumers
>rather than
active participants in their own education; those who are
>as
superficial, lazy and mechanical in their thinking as this person
>Joanna (Who I hope is not a teacher) appears to be.
>
>I
hear, I forget.
>I see, I remember.
>I do, I
understand.
>
>
Lao-tze
>
>
>
>
>
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