Certainly, I believe every word you say. His reaction to my misunderstanding however spoke volumes too.
Joanna
MICHAEL YATES wrote:
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 ----- From: Craven, Jim <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 > > > > >
