Although I already wrote a personal response to Prof. Kibler, I cannot
refrain from responding to the recommendation from Christopher Booth. I
taught for some 38 years and at the several institutions where I taught the
student population was "far from ideal" but I firmly believe that Prof.
Kibler's approach is the more desirable one.  I for one am, naively perhaps,
repelled by the notion of deliberately subverting a colleague's approach.
Earl E. Stevens, prof. emeritus, Rhode Island College.
----- Original Message -----
From: Booth, Christopher <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 1999 9:45 AM
Subject: Re: Pedagogical Question
 
 
> Your step-father was correct, of course, although before the 2nd Law of
> Thermodynamics you should teach an even more fundamental concept,
Copernican
> non-specialization. (Occam's Razor even before that.) Newton would have
been
> just another bad-tempered alchemist without THOSE tools.   ;-)
>
> Seriously, your population is far from ideal, and your instinct is
> appropriate for an ideal group of students. Your colleague is perhaps too
> conciliatory, but given the realities of who your students are and what
> they, their parents, the Administrators, and the local job market wants, a
> whirlwind panorama of Western Civ. might be more appropriate. If you bend
> the textbook toward letting them know that such things WERE, and that they
> are different, rich, and interesting, you might have more of a chance of
> reaching them than if you try to get a budding highschool football coach
or
> future CPA or data input clerk wannabe to understand that we read Chaucer
in
> Middle English because its *wonderful*. The converted to whom you preach
> will be reached, the others will shut out the light if you shine it on
them
> too brightly.
>
> Adopt the other guy's approch, then subvert it mildly.
>
> Actually, the other approach sucks, but its a single-semester non-major
> introductory, required course; your way is how their entire four years
> should be structured. Alas!
>
> Chris Booth's two cents--although worth much less than that.
>
> > ----------
> > From:         Robert Kibler
> > Reply To:     Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> > Sent:         Wednesday, September 1, 1999 9:29 AM
> > To:   [log in to unmask]
> > Subject:      Pedagogical Question
> >
> > Here at VCSU, a colleague and I are at odds over how to teach a 200
level
> > Humanities course. He thinks that the course ought to be based on a book
> > that provides an overview of events, so that it can quickly pass through
> > literary and philosophical events from the Mesopotamians to present day.
I
> > say that it is impossible to teach everything, and that such an approach
> > leaves students with very little access to the past. For my part, I
> > further suggest that they are better off reading key bits of
> > primary-if-translated texts that are conceptually rather than
> > chronologically dependent. My feeling is that if you take these primary
> > texts and treat them according to overarching themes--ones that are
vital
> > in all cultures in time and space--themes such as the gods, love,
> > leadership, and philosophy--then the students get both a sense of the
past
> > that delivers not only the Humanities, but does so in a way that gives
> > them individual access to ancient and classical Greece, imperial Rome,
the
> > anglo-saxon and then the norman influenced middle ages, and then the
> > renaissance.  My colleague argues that I omit too much important
cultural
> > information, and I argue that his approach does not admit enough
students
> > to the Humanities--that it just gives them a sense of what somebody else
> > says about a lot of events. Under my thematic approach, we read bits
from
> > the following, and ask what it says about the four themes:
> > Homeric Hymns, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Sappho, Pindar, The Pre-Socratics,
> > The Republic, Parmenides, Thucydide's Melian Dialogue, and all of
> > Antigone, to get a sense of the Greeks. I also lecture on Greek
> > architecture and politics. For the Romans, we read from the Aeneid, the
> > Roman Elegists--Catullus, Propertius, Sulpicia, Caesar's Gallic Wars,
and
> > Tacitus' Germania. For the anglo-saxons, we read Widsith, Deor,
Seafarer,
> > Battle of Maldon, the Dream of the Cross, and all of Beowulf. We read
and
> > translate a dozen Middle English lyrics, and read Chaucer's Prologue,
and
> > his Miller's Tale in Middle English. We read a Shakespeare play, and we
> > read bits from Machiavelli.
> >    My colleague uses a book by a man named Bishop, which has lots of
> > illustrations and gives very small snippets from many great works--but
> > mostly, it is a telling of the tale of Western Civilization (the bent of
> > the course) by one expert to the uninitiated. The other expert--my
> > collegue, fills in the gaps. Between the two of them, they cover a lot
of
> > territory, and bring students up to the present. Yet for all of that, as
> > my step-father says--neither my colleague's course or my own introduce
the
> > 2nd Law of Thermodynamics--essential, in his opinion.
> >    I might also mention that there is a required second Humanities
course
> > that emphasizes music and art. These courses are taught by faculty who
> > kind of begin their approach to music and art in the 17 and 18th
> > centuries--and one of them veers off into North American Indian
> > culture--the sort of veering that a thematic approach, I think, would
> > allow.
> >     This is a 200 level course, has 40 students in a section, and very
few
> > of them English or History majors. If you had to choose between my
> > approach and my colleagues, which would you choose and why? Further,
what
> > is your own general sense about how such a course ought to be taught, to
> > such a population?
> >
>