December 07 Tips for Teachers Meeting

In our final Tips for Teachers meeting of the Fall 2007 semester, we watched excerpts from the films, The Paper Chase, and Dead Poets’ Society. What follows are some of the highlights from our discussion of each film.

The Paper Chase: It was agreed that the Socratic method is indeed a good way of teaching and learning and making discoveries, but where Professor Kingsfield was less than adequate was in his tone and attitude of condescension to the students. We did think, though, about context, and since this film was set at Harvard Law School, we thought that perhaps there was more justification for this sort of severity, given the argumentative culture of the law courts, and possibly necessary preparation for it.

One member present, though, said that undergraduates today are so coddled, and are raised to think that they are geniuses. They shy away from challenge, she thought, and if they have any challenge, then they complain about their teacher. She asked if the students would ultimately be better off to be treated more toughly, as a preparation for the real world. She thought that in the past, fear was considered a great motivator, but that now society has turned too much in the opposite direction.

We then discussed whether fear is indeed a good motivator, and one member present said it might make you perform, but it won’t contribute to sustained learning. On the flip side, though, one teacher said if we are only very sweet and kind to our students, where do we draw the boundaries?

Getting back specifically to the Socratic method, we analysed the interesting scene in which one student said he had a photographic memory, and was desperately flipping through the pages of his book in the search for an answer. But Kingsfield humiliated this student by saying he would not find the answer there, as he needed to apply what he had learned to a new context. His message was definitely correct, in that we need to know not only how to find information, but more importantly, how to interpret it and how to use it. What again was wrong, though, in what Kingsfield did, was his unfortunate manner of publicly humiliating this student.

The discussion of Kingsfield’s methods very much reminded us of what Tannen says in her piece about challenge and argument in learning, and how this was true in Medieval universities, and also true in the military today. The fundamental irony, though, it seems, is that Socrates said there should be no emotions in learning, as they get in the way, and students should only be concerned with pure logic, yet the humiliating and frightening learning environment that Kingsfield established resulted in the production of many emotions, many quite negative.

Dead Poets’ Society: One teacher commented on how the Robin Williams teacher was full of poetry and passion, and said she does this in her classes, but wonders if the students comprehend. She said nostalgically that there was more poetry and passion in the 1960’s and 70’s than there is today, as now she feels the students don’t question very much.

To this, another teacher present said he deliberately asks questions he feels students have not heard before, such as asking them the difference between gender and sex. He likes to ask questions which truly challenge their assumptions, even if it makes them somewhat nervous, as this can ultimately be enlightening for them. In this, we said we were reminded of another film we had watched last semester; namely, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, in which she exhibited a lot of passion, thereby possibly igniting some students. We agreed that it is of vital importance to be enthusiastic in our teaching, and also to introduce challenging questions, which really help students to question their prior knowledge, and make new discoveries.

One teacher commented on how Dead Poets’ Society asked if passion has a role in education, as some of the students present said they were going to become engineers or lawyers, and why therefore was this relevant to them? But we thought that passion can be contagious, even if applied to a different discipline.

A question was introduced about the role of the teacher in terms of talking about ideas of freedom. After all, she said, aren’t the parents still in charge of these students’ lives? In Nafisi’s piece, someone pointed out, the book group was devoted to discussions of freedom, yet when one of the girls from the reading group returned to her home, her real (as opposed to idealistic) world was hampered by a restrictive and unfair brother. So we asked, therefore, if a teacher can really give freedom, or is it just an indoctrination of this particular teacher’s ideas?

We then tried to look at these two films in juxtaposition. At the one extreme, we saw Kingsfield, who was very cold and remote, to the extent that, despite the Socratic method and encouragement of dialogue, he still did not know the students’ names after the end of the course. This was in sharp contrast to the Robin Williams character who was very ‘touchy-feely’. Also, it was pointed out how each teacher used space very differently; Kingsfield was remote and took the role of ‘the sage on the stage’, whereas Williams not only walked down the rows between the desks, but even crouched down so that all the students had to huddle around him to be able to see him and hear what he was saying. However, it could be argued that the Williams character had an inflated view of himself, as he said to the students that they could call him “Captain”.

And finally we thought about the impact of teacher behaviour on student behaviour. In Kingsfield’s class, everyone behaved, albeit in a very rigid manner. In Williams’ class there was also good behaviour, but there was amazement, too. One student commented privately that their teacher was weird. And all the students had an initial reaction of horror to Williams’ demand that they rip pages out of their text book.