Monday, September 11, 2006

Instructor's Philosophy of Teaching

I have a post on the blog for my other course this term on my teaching philosophy, here>>. It is cast in terms of a particular Scots novel (Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) but the main argument is sensible here. Please feel free to comment -- here on this blog post or in person during seminar. I owe special gratitude to our classfellow C.G. for the relevancy of the Japanese essay form.

I might add here that I know the flower & fruit of the horticultural model -- I read my students' essays at the end of every term, and it is ecstasy: there is almost univeral understanding amongst them of the material, sure, but, more importantly, of the wider context. And the point is that it seems to happen, not quite in spite of Instruction, but certainly the body of knowledge has been created from strategic nodes that I present, rather than from an entire intellectual building that I construct to completion, brick by individual brick.

No comments: