teaching about race (me too)

Belle just offered her great post on teaching about race posted both here at Scatterplot and on her own blog, responding to pitse1eh’s blog. Both got great comments and useful links. This made me want to dust off my own essay on the subject. The core of this is an article I originally published in Feminist Voices, a Madison newspaper, in January of 1998. I’ve revised this several times since, including some revisions for this blog forum.

It is something of a truism among sociologists that the hardest thing to teach our students is the idea of social structure. The US has an extremely individualist culture, and we tend to think of race problems as reducible to individual choices, either blaming poor people for poverty and the consequences of poverty, or blaming prejudiced people for not being accepting of difference. It is very hard to get past this, and understand why we are in structures that shape these behaviors and attitudes.

teaching question #1

How do you ask questions that guide a student discussion? I realize I’m a little old to be asking this question, but I’ve realized this is a teaching skill I don’t have. I know how to lecture and tell students what I want them to know. I know how to respond to student questions in interesting ways. I know how to run a class so students are comfortable talking and asking questions. I know how to facilitate and organize a discussion pulling together questions/comments initiated by students. I know how to ask good questions of someone who has just presented a paper in process. But I don’t know how to think about planning discussions in advance for a class session. I don’t know how to prepare to ask questions that elicit somewhat predictable answers that will help students “discover” the point you want them to learn or lead them to talk their way into a point you want them to get to, or that will encourage them to dig more deeply into a topic. I get the impression that some teachers do this. Is that right? I don’t think I learned this by watching when I was young because I did not go to that kind of schools. Can you recommend “how to teach” resources for this particular skill? Do you have tips or techniques?

advice for new assistant professors

As I’m in an advice-giving mood, I thought I’d post here something I wrote quite a few years ago.  This began as a lunch conversation with a departing grad student (who is now a dean) who asked me if I had any advice for her as she took her first job as an assistant professor.  I wrote it down later and it evolved over a few years.   I’ve gotten feedback from quite a few people that this was helpful, and some of you will doubtless recognize it.

1) Don’t take anything personally, especially not at first. People will probably treat you as insignificant, not because they think ill of you, but because they are socially inept. Most of us are comfortable with the people we already know, and are not good at being friendly to new people. The old timers ought to go out of their way to be friendly and inclusive to someone new (you) but they probably will not, and you should just chalk it up to poor social skills and nothing else.

2) Help integrate yourself. Even if you are normally more productive writing at home, work in the office a lot during the first year. Make a point of loitering in the hall when it is near lunch time, so people will notice you and think of asking you along to lunch.

getting credit

This is about giving academic credit on an independent study basis for doing service or work for a community or political organization, where the faculty member is doing this as an optional overload.  It is not about official service-learning courses, nor about official internships that are part of a coherent program.  A number of organizations set up programs where students get academic credit for working for them through the mechanism of an independent study.  Recent requests have raised ethical issues for me, and I thought this might be a good topic for more general discussion and reflection.  The ethical issues such arrangements raise are both academic and political.  Here’s my thinking: