Making choices

I just had a rather unhappy young man in my office hours; I'll call him Jeremy.   Jeremy is one of the brightest students in my ancient history course; he asks interesting questions and has done well on the one test we've had so far.  He's a likeable fellow.

Jeremy is not happy with the way I teach my class.  He wants battles and politics, while my lectures are filled with social and cultural history.  Covering the Greeks, I spent as much time on Sappho as on the Peloponnesian War, and more time on Aristotle than on Pericles.   I make it clear to my students that I am more interested in the history of ideas than in the history of wars.  I've got sixteen weeks to get from prehistory to the Reformation -- and that means lots of things are going to get left out.

Jeremy said, plaintively, "I think the siege of Potidea is more important than Sappho."  I told him I sympathized with, but did not share, his perspective.  I told him I'd love to be able to cover everything in sixteen weeks, but that time constraints force me to make what are entirely subjective (but ultimately defensible) decisions.  And I choose to emphasize religious, social and cultural history at the expense of military, political, and economic narratives.   In teaching the past, there's so much more to say than can ever be said in one class or one semester.  Good teachers prioritize, sifting and picking and choosing and deciding.  Some things get lost.  And in my class, you're going to miss out on many a battle, but you're going to get plenty on women and plenty on the divine.  And I'll happily defend those judgment calls.

Comments

[mythago]

I think Jeremy is confusing interesting with important.

The Peloponnesian War alone could take sixteen weeks to cover. As long as you're not hand-waving--"Okay, so there was this big war, on to the poetry"--then I don't see the problem. In my experience, professors are more than happy to provide further-reading lists, or tell students they should take X class or chat with Professor A if they want to know much more about a subtopic.

[Hugo]

Indeed, I am very careful to do just that. Lots of suggestions for taking one of my dear colleagues who finds the history of the hoplite more gripping than the history of homosexuality.

[djw]

As far as students coming to office hours to complain about something goes, this seems pretty good to me.

[Caitriona]

Hugo,

I used to get the same type of arguments from my geometry students. "But geometry's supposed to be about SHAPES and stuff. Why do we have to write a proof about why we believe ____? This isn't ENGLISH class!"

I was trying to use geometric proofs to teach them to think, then have them apply it to their own beliefs and theology. Came up with some interesting papers, but they didn't like it.

[Brandon]

The problem Hugo is that there is a severe lack of good history profs at PCC.

You're the ONLY 1a and 1b prof, and so there isn't anywhere else to go. If it was an and/or situation, where I could take your Pelopenisian War/History of Market Economies class OR your "role of women in ancient civilizations" class, that'd be one thing... but instead, we were instructed to commit to memory the entire title of Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," while being told that simply remembering that Adam Smith wrote "Wealth of Nations" instead of "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." That's where my only criticism would arise.

Obviously, everything can't be covered in a survey course of Western Civilization, but there is a difference between being choosy and shortchanging...

Just a thought...bp

[mythago]

If it was an and/or situation, where I could take your Pelopenisian War/History of Market Economies class OR your "role of women in ancient civilizations" class, that'd be one thing...

So instead, you're stuck in a class that devotes equal attention to both? What's the problem?

There are required classes, and there are electives. Electives are where you get to say "Screw Sappho, I want to spend an entire semester learning about the tensions between Sparta and Corinth." Required classes are those where you get a broad overview and where you have to learn about stuff that isn't necessarily your first choice.

Now, if you think Hugo is unfairly balancing what he teaches (two days on the Peloponnesian War, three weeks on Sappho), that's one thing. But the original complaint to which Hugo referred was a student saying, in essense, you're not highlighting the parts of history that *I* like.

[J.J.B]

Hugo,
Regarding choices: While I understand that one must pick and choose classes, etc...Should we always pick and choose according to a preset plan or criteria? Why are we that concerned about the choices? ....Why aren't students given the freedom and opportunity to be creative and experiment. Why are we always so angry with the choices that our students make?

Thought you might be interested in the book my college student was reading...Unanumo's "The Tragic Sense of Life." Acccording to Unanumo, while the tragic figure is willing to risk everything in his pursuit of truth, he must also recognize that his quest will never be completely fulfillable.__ One must accept the irrationality that underlies existence...

[Jonathan Dresner]

I find comments like "Jeremy's" a bit amusing, and I get them all the time. If he knows the history well enough to have such strong feelings about it, then he doesn't need you to cover again the material he already knows.

[Barbara]

I sometimes found assigned material limiting, but I often had classes where the teacher willingly let you do additional reading and design your own assignments, if it seemed appropriate. Tell him that you will gladly let him follow his heart in whatever written essay or research paper is part of the grading process (assuming you assign such work). Give him some extra reading and tell him you are willing to discuss his questions or comments on the reading. If he's a kid who's truly interested in the other stuff, he should jump at the chance. If he just wants to be spoon fed a different diet, well then, when he grows up he can be the kind of professor that he wishes you were.

[craichead]

Well I think it's more than just the nuts and bolts of what Jeremy wants to see taught in the class. I think in many ways, it's not just about him but a concern he might have for a tradition in history that he cares enough about to have learned on his own and act as an advocate for.

I read a lot of history and often when I think of comparisons of what's considered women's history and what's considered traditional history I see women's history as a cultural history punctuated by a handfull of heroics and men's history as a history of heroics punctuated by some culture. Now that's not to say that there aren't heroics in everyday life, but that the way history defines heroics is through grand leadership and the creation of groundbreaking technologies or civil institutions.

It really seems like there should be a balance of both which is a tough line to walk given a limited amount of time with which to teach.

[Mark]

Once again, Hugo presents a young man here, and that young man becomes an object of disparagement. (Can you folks see a pattern here?)

I guess it wouldn't do to offer a class that honors men's interests in more action-oriented history than in a lesbian poet who is probably mentioned only because she wrote on lesbian themes. After all, we have to be politically correct, don't we?

Hugo holds up Jeremy as an example of the kind of young man who dares to question the fembot establishment. Of course, such dangerous men must be disparaged. Notice how Hugo doesn't make examples of his female students. Why is that?

Perhaps Hugo should just banish male students from his classes. Then he can be surrounded by females who have already been so brainwashed into thinking that men are evil that they flock to the nearest "wymyns center" to share their homogeneous, mindless perspectives with one another.

Mark

[Hugo]

I make anonymous examples of my female students all the time, Mark. Read "Sisterhood is Easier in Winter" on my sidebar.

[mythago]

honors men's interests in more action-oriented history

Because only boys are interested in that exciting war stuff. Girls just want to play with Peloponnesian Barbie and read about boring poetry.

By the way, there's an awful lot of non-action-oriented diplomacy, politics, history and sociology in those wars and stuff along with the kewl action sequences.

[Mark]

Mythago,

If you're going to limit your replies to straw men, perhaps you could at least be a bit more creative about it.

[mythago]

I don't have to be, Mark. You provide such good material with straight-faced lines like "honor men's interests in more action-oriented history."

Personally I'm all about the Peloponnesian War and not so much for studying Sappho, but I could not imagine going to a professor and saying, in essence, "Your class doesn't cater to me. I'm bored. Fix it to my liking."