re David Harrington/Econ prof.

As a former teacher, periodically having international students, I relished my and my class’ opportunity to learn both profound and mundane insights of other countries and cultures. Some of those kids at Kenyon are a bit too damn sensitive, it seems. Happy that David Harrington is himself sensitive to not intentionally embarrassing students, but that he seeks to draw interesting stories from all (?) students to enrich his classes.

Ross Miller, Ph.D., Book Editor, at 8:50 am EDT on May 30, 2006

On Having WaaayToo Much To Say:

I am sooo sympathetic to David Harrington’s perspective. Over many years of teaching, my instructional style evolved into a very interactive one in which, instead of asking general questions and looking around for raised hands, I directed carefully worded questions at specific individuals ... and if they struggled with answers, I usually targeted other students to assist the first ones.

I generally like and respect my students, they figure that out fairly quickly, most bust their butts for me (us), and my “in your face” style of teaching is almost always successful ... well, not counting the perceptions of deans and vice presidents for academic affairs. No big deal ... I happen to believe colleges and universities are about students and teachers (the scholars) and tend to discount the interference of administrators.

Now for my interesting tale: In an MBA class several years ago, I was trying to help students understand the difference between three “definitions” of probability, a theoretical/logical perspective, a relative frequency sense, and subjective probabilities. In the process of explaining the latter, I asked a student I knew to be quite bright, “What is the probability you will make either an A or a B in this course?” I expected a response very close to 1.0. When, even with my help, he had difficulty interpreting the question in a way he could answer, I used the standard ploy of reframing the question in terms of betting odds, to wit, “How much are you willing to wager to win my bet of one dollar that you won’t make an A or a B?” I intended to interpret the betting odds as a probability ... an instructional bonus.

This line of questioning clearly frustrated the student, so I enlisted a couple of other students to help out. Subsequently, the student dropped the course, and an extensive sequence of communication ensued, the dean coming down hard on me, the student being non-responsive to my efforts to keep him in the class, and the my academic friends laughing their asses off at my going to such pains to help this guy out.

In one of his communications to me, my student wrote ...

“In class, I did believe you were trying to make a wager with me. Why would I offer a financial incentive to you to not give an A or B when receiving an A was my goal? As a fundamental Christian, why would I go against my convictions and place a wager with another? After you moved on to another student, only then did I realize it was an exercise; still I would not have cooperated. Interesting enough, I had a classmate back at Cambridge who told me that both gambling and card playing were against his beliefs but he participated in a playing card learning exercise anyway. After class, he explained what his mother’s reaction would be if she knew he participated and how guilty he felt. How much a person is willing to wager is subjective on too many things and not as valid a data set as my answer # 1.”

The student went on to tell me “As Dr. **** [the Director of the MBA program] knows, I work in the world of high tech finance ...” and he forwarded that note to Dr. ****.

That was just too much for me, so I sent the good Dr. **** one of my favorite quotations, one apparently written by Blackie Sherrod ...

“If you bet on a horse, that’s gambling.

If you bet you can make three spades, that’s entertainment.

If you bet the Dow-Jones Average will go up twenty points, that’s business.

See the difference?”

At the conclusion of this event (the student subsequently dropped out of the MBA program), I wrote to a former colleague ...

“John, after writing this letter [to my student], I thought ‘This is absolutely hilarious. If I had written a letter like that many years ago when I was teaching mathematics at Virginia Tech and then shared it with my colleagues, they would have rolled on the floor, laughing uncontrollably.’ They would have known for sure that I was putting them on, and they would contribute to the hilarity by adding their own student complaints …

STUDENT: ‘I think it’s quite awful that my teacher looks me directly in the eye when he speaks to me, even though I always divert my eyes downward. Is he trying to intimidate me, or is that sexual harassment?

CHAIR OF THE MATH DEPT.: It must be intimidation, Bruno, I don’t think it’s a case of sexual harassment!”

RWH, at 11:15 am EDT on May 30, 2006

How depressing it is to see cranky male faculty crowing about how much they enjoy emotionally harassing their students!

(At least the author of the piece was trying to learn something about life in Bulgaria. And ol’ Larry showed us all what kind of sensitivity to expect from intellectually curious economists.)

Stochastic, Another little midwestern college, at 11:55 am EDT on May 30, 2006

Difficult Stuff

Real education will always make people uncomfortable. Almost by definition education is about changing or expanding a world view — and that is hard. This is opposed to indoctrination — which may simply confirm and strengthen previously held beliefs — as in religious “education.”

There is also the factor described by Ken Bain in “What the Best College Teachers Do” — that the issue with college students is not what they don’t know, but what they know that is wrong.

And there is the huge question of whether a school is simply “preparing children for good jobs in their daddy’s company” (what, I will suggest, is all that many conservative Christian parents want a college to do) or for success in building a better world (the purpose of liberal education).

But there is also an issue of rampant cultural insensitivity on the part of instructors, generating legitimate student complaints.

I really don’t think any student has a right to refuse the curriculum of a course he or she has voluntarily chosen to take in a program they have voluntarily chosen to be part of at a college they have voluntarily chosen to attend. Just as I could hardly object to basic training if I volunteered to join the US Army. And I think students need to understand that the very purpose of education is to challenge even their most strongly held beliefs (unfortunately American k-12 education does not suggest that at all). And I think students need to able to engage in constructive conversations with profs about what is actually at stake.

And I believe faculty must understand far better than the norm, who is in their classroom, and how their backgrounds might impact their reactions. That is a vital teaching tool, and if it is ignored, where I place “the blame” might start to shift.

Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 2:30 pm EDT on May 30, 2006

Being Serious For The Moment

Four things:

You may be certain, DJV, that I take your remarks very seriously.

First, I realize there is more than a little serious substance in many jokes, but the instance of the teacher making eye contact with the student was a joke ... the telling point being the student’s name ... Bruno.

Second, as the designer and facilitator of what happens in “my” classes, I have an ulterior motive; to wit, to break down the “stereotypical” student-teacher relationship and replace it with a very interactive community of scholars ... one in which I obviously have a special role, but we are all pretty much engrossed in teaching each other and learning from each other. Some colleges and universities are defined by cultures for learning that make this somewhat difficult ... but I have rarely failed to achieve this in a class.

If it is possible for a classroom of individuals to find this common ground, then instructional “miscues” become infrequent and are much less consequential from the student’s perspective. In the case described in my earlier post, my final letter to my student included ...

“I’m very sorry to hear that you are dropping the course. I like your perspective ... whether that is obvious to you or not. I, myself was an undergraduate at a fairly fundamental Presbyterian college … I was a pre-ministerial student. The principles of religious tolerance were drilled into me for four years, and they ‘took.’

I must admit, however, that my instructional style is not so comprehensive that ‘accommodating’ the individual religious, social, cultural, political, economic, sex, etc. beliefs and differences of my students greatly influences my teaching of statistics.

I apologize for forcing you into a situation in which you had to confront your religious beliefs about wagers in order to answer one of my questions about probability.”

Third, in the final paragraphs of my “Philosophy of Teaching” I state ...

“In conclusion, it is my very strong prejudice that good teaching is a very personal matter. During my academic lifetime, I have had some teachers whose classes were very highly structured, whose presentations were dry, rigid, and humorless, whose interaction with students was very formal ... yet I learned a great deal from them and came away with a great deal of respect and affection for them.

I have had other teachers who were dynamic, whose classes were entertaining, who interacted with students as ‘friends’ ... and, unfortunately, from whom I learned very little. Frankly, it all depends ... the statements above describe MY instructional style, because I believe, GIVEN WHOM I AM, it ‘works’ for me. Given my intellectual perspective, my knowledge of the world, the subject matter that is at the core of what I teach, my personality, and my personal and professional objectives, it is my most effective modus operandi.”

Certainly there are general principles of effective teaching, but there are so many factors involved (personality, maturity, discipline, course level, required or elective ... the list just goes on and on) and there is so much variance in each of those factors, it’s simply outrageous to imagine that what works for you will work for David Harrington or vice versa. I wrote a letter of support for his thesis because (1) I know his perspective is effective for some students and professors (but apparently not for Stochastic) and (2) something very close to what he described works for me.

Fourth, I teach an MBA course in research methods for Arts Management students. Most students start the course terrified of the course content and end it with great confidence in their knowledge of statistics and social methodology and their ability to use it (with someone like me helping them out). Most of the students are women, and they must love parties because every one of our courses has concluded with their organizing a party. Last spring, two Japanese women – I would take them to be fairly traditional – wanted their photographs taken with me, one on each side. I’m a male, 6’3” tall and about 220 pounds, almost 70 years old, and I look those students in the eye and ask them questions very directly, and, according to Scholastic, I’m a cranky male crowing about how much I enjoy harassing my students. But there’s that damned photo ... we’re all smiling ... and they have THEIR arms around ME. Go figure!

RWH, at 3:10 pm EDT on May 30, 2006

Meanings of words

Back in 1970, I was taking a speech class at CSUN, in California. The instructor made a very profound argument that has stayed with me ever since. He posed this question: “What do words mean?” He didn’t ask about a certain word, but rather ‘words’ as his question. Nobody was on the same page as the professor, so he finally had to drag it out of a few of the brighter students. His main statement: “Words have no meaning at all. They are simply a series of letters arranged in some sort of order so they can be read when in printed form. Words have no meaning: meanings of words are in people’s heads. One person’s understanding of a word is different than that of another, as we were all brought up differently, with different sets of values and understanding."Harrington is simply pointing out that very idea, in his own way.

Craig C, political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com, at 4:05 pm EDT on May 30, 2006

One needs to be very careful about calling on students in class, or referring to them.

Let me give you some examples:

1)Back in 1958, I was in a class in differential equations in an engineering college. (As you can tell from my name, I am a woman. Women were not exactly common in engineering schools at that time — I was the only one in my class.) The instructor (who was one of the best prof’s I ever had, incidentally) had become disturbed about the number of students who were not coming to class — it was TThSa at 8:00 am. So he described his policy concerning missing class: If you are getting a D or F, then you had better be here every day; if you are getting a C, I will tolerate three missed classes; if you are getting a B ——; if you are getting an A, ——; and it you are ***, you needn’t come at all. Well, I was ***. That one remark destroyed any hopes I had of a social life (dates?) for nearly a year. I finally told him about that nearly 20 years later, when I received an award as a distinguished alumna.

So, remember that students have lives outside your classroom.

2) I, and many of the brightest students I have had in over 40 years of teaching, are not ‘fast on their feet.’ Going to a class where the prof is likely to shoot a question at you out of the blue can be highly stressful; frequently one’s mind goes completely blank, and one can’t even answer “What is your name?” sucessfully. Some even become physically ill.

Take this sort of thing into account, particularly early in the term. Later on, when there is a definite rapport between you and the student, you may (if you’re lucky) have created a “comfort zone” in which the student does not feel threatened. If you haven’t, then leave it alone.

Yes, I know that eventually students do need to develop the skill of answering things off the cuff, and also a thick skin. But remember that you are “the boss” (of a sort) and that is an intimidating position, no matter how jocular you may have intended your question to be. Creating a level of discomfort is unlikely to further learning on the part of the student.3)Also remember that it is the students who “stand out” physically whom you attach names to first. You are therefore more likely to call on them more often, and earlier in the term than others. (You feel that you have “known” them longer.) For example, in an engineering class, I “get” the names of the international students, African-Americans, and women before those of the white males. Then, depending on how many there are, I will get to the blond or the brunette males. One rarely directs a question to “Hey you” does one? One wants to use a name, doesn’t one?

So — THINK before you point a question at a student. And be careful about your questions. There are plenty of them that won’t cause some of the discomfort described in some of the previous comments.

Yes, I survived a batch of this, and have learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Try walking in the student’s shoes.

Liz, at 9:55 pm EDT on May 31, 2006

To Ira Sokol,

Dr. Sokol,

You stated “And there is the huge question of whether a school is simply “preparing children for good jobs in their daddy’s company” (what, I will suggest, is all that many conservative Christian parents want a college to do) or for success in building a better world (the purpose of liberal education).”

If you do not know any conservative Christian parents, please make an effort to befriend some. I think you will find your statement to be an unsupported generalization. I am a conservative Christian parent, daughter of conservative Christian parents, and I do not recognize any of the vast number of conservative Christian parents I know in your statement.

If we are to have a civil discourse between lberals and conservatives, we need to stop making these kinds of statements. They certainly don’t promote understanding and good will between people of differing opinions.

Engineering professor, at 11:05 pm EDT on June 3, 2006

Liz had many pointed and on-the-mark suggestions. Being sensitive to students’ lack of confidence is not coddling them. And using the last chance to correct their dispositions as Midwestern Adjunct suggested may be counterproductive. He obviously was able to rise above the professor’s derision, and met the challenge well. But some others may become thoroughly discouraged. In the discussion so far and in the article by Harrington, I find one important piece missing. It is not just a matter of whether one has a right to confront the students as the teacher may see fit; having decided to call on students (and I do it), one still needs to develop a keen sense about how it is affecting a particular student. Some of them are really shy and show their interest in different ways. Prof. Harrington meant well by pursuing the “gutter” question, but as soon as he realized that the foreign student was a little lost, he could have joked about it and ‘assigned’ the class to find out the dictionary meaning for the next class. He could have still used the example later, given the Bulgarian student a sense of space and had the rest of them become part of the conversation. Sometimes it fails, but extra sensitivity to the student’s particular predicament adds to the civility. That is not tantamount to a recommendation for allowing our students to be rude or indifferent or simply shrug their shoulders and say they ‘don’t know’ [which I get occassionally]. In those cases one can let them know that it is not acceptable, but without losing your cool. Some of them will drop the class, but that is not your fault. Or so we have to tell ourselves even in the ’students as our consumers’ culture!

Dismal Scientist, at 5:55 am EDT on June 6, 2006