General Education Instructor: When what you teach is "no one's major"
I face two challenges, both related to my subject specialty, humanities, which is not a major at career and business schools.
The first challenge: for some students, humanities and art classes are a break from their routine. However, for most of my students this is a new way of thinking. Some perceive it as "soft", yet for me the humanities is the very essence of human creativity and communication. I try to teach my students the "2 minute conversation", meaning I am giving them an introduction to many humanities based ideas. The competency is then to be able to hold a short conversation on a wide variety of topics. A wide knowledge base is absolutely essential in a rapidly changing job environment. I try to motivate my students by reminding them that you never know who will be across the table from you. Having the ability to hold that short conversation on modern art with the curator of the local museum,whose blood pressure you happen to be taking, will always bring you positive attention. At review time this can translate into a raise, commendation or promotion. I now go to a massage therapist with an excellent conversational facility in US History. I have a great conversation, a superb therapeutic massage, and always leave a large tip.
The other challenge is feeling isolated, which can make it difficult to be a great motivator, manager and model. I work at three different campuses, and am often the only general humanities instructor. We've changed our in-service programs from all-campus activities to single campus activities. When we break into subject groups, I'm essentially meeting with myself. I have plenty of outside opportunities for growth, but wish there was a better way to share across my own organization
Hi Robert,
Thank you for sharing this expansive approach to the teaching of literature. Your approach enables students to "transfer" literature from the classroom to their lives. What a great way of getting them to value literature in many different ways. Literature with this approach is much like nature, "all around us" if we will look for it and apply it to our lives.
Gary
I have taught a literature course where I emphasized a wide and dynamic definition of "literature." During some class discussion of what literature is, I sometimes give it a deliberately wide and expansive definition of "somebody telling me something." I tell them that that somebody can tell me something with a lot of words and call it a novel, or with rhyming or unrhyming lines and call it a poem, or pair those lines with music and call it a song, or tell me with characters and moving images and call it television or cinema, etc. We them recognize, briefly, the techniques used in each method. I encourage them to see ALL of it as "art."
They're usually accustomed to thinking that only "good" things qualify as "art," but I try to get them to see that the term "art" doesn't have to be a judgment. I tell them that we can agree or disagree about whether it's *good* art, as long as we can agree that it IS art either way.
Using this sort of expansive definition of literature and art, I can move students into realizing that "literature" is not limited to the Dead White Males model they got in high school, and that the next time they're sitting in a theater watching the next special-effects blockbuster, they're still just having "somebody tell them something." I'll also use Breughel's painting "Landscape With the Fall of Icarus" (with Icarus as just a small component in the corner of the work) to talk about how the meaning in a work of art is sometimes not so obvious, that what a movie is "about" is not always captured in a summary of the plot.
By the end of the course, students are much more receptive to the role and existence of "literature" and "art" in their lives. I can't tell you how often I've had students tell me that they can't watch a movie anymore without thinking now about things like camera placement, costuming, lighting, framing, etc. I tell them every day that these are just the techniques for that sort of literature, the moving-image/dialogue form of literature. And by listening to them talk about different forms of written literature that I pair up with the movies, I know the bigger picture is sinking in - they're able and, more importantly, willing to look at the techniques that create literature, and they're able and willing to talk about what a piece of literature is "about" without merely summarizing the plot. And THAT, I think, is the real value of literature - recognizing that people ARE telling them things, influencing their values and their beliefs and their worldviews, in ways that they might not even recognize. They learn that if they're able to recognize the subtle and sometimes hidden techniques people use to tell them something, they can arm and equip themselves to judge the validity of what they're being told, to accept or reject it on its merits, etc. Every time I have a student tell me that I've ruined movies for them because they can't watch a movie anymore without thinking about these things, I smile and tell them that I'm not apologizing!
Hi Amanda,
Thank you for these great ideas about how to develop connections between other faculty and students. The communication skills-video tape sounds like it is of great benefit to students and their efforts to refine their communication skills.
Gary
Hello, It's good to see you here.
As a former administrator for evening classes, I was aware of the isolation that can happen. Maybe see who else is teaching what on evenings you are on campus and schedule break times together for some face to face?
There are virtual communication methods, this one and within the school, for those who like them. I am part of a virtual telephone and email development group that has been going for several years now, and developed some true closeness with other members.
A suggestion that came up at a recent advisory board about communication skills- video tape the students role playing. They have no idea, generally, what they look like. I'm told it can have strong shock value to some who think they've got it all figured out. I'm trying it in my next interpersonal class.
Elise, your posting was very interesting to read.
As the Librarian on a new campus, we are still building our internal relationships. From my own love for knowledge, I enjoy working with the faculty on their instruction needs and look for opportunities to bring the "real world" library into their classrooms.
If you want to locate another great motivator, manager, and model, find one of the librarians on one of those campuses you are teaching at! I think you will have a (or maybe several)new "best" friend(s).
Fran
Hi Katherine,
Thank you for sharing these ideas and strategies of how to make these general courses of value and application to students. You are meeting the challenge of these courses by making them an integral part of the lives of your students.
Gary
Hi Daniel,
You are on the right track in developing relationships with the IT and business faculty. The work we have done in the math area is to work more in the applied math area. By showing the bridge math as an essential career tool and career success you should be able to create an identification that gives you some separation from the humanities and social sciences.
If possible you could develop some activities that your students could go through that would give them success and would reduce the fear that most people have of math.
I teach required courses so I know the feeling you have about having students that have already decided that they don't need the course. With ice breakers and success activities I am able to convince them that even though required the content has value and application.
Gary
Hi Tammy,
Way to go in bringing the real world into the classroom or in this case taking the classroom out to the public. If they are going to be successful in marketing they are going to have to talk with people they don't know, whether they be in sales or customer service areas. With you as back up it is less threatening doing something like you asked of them.
Gary
I also teach humanities, writing and communication courses at a community college...and have encountered similar resistance initially. I've found, however, that part of the resistance is related to their own feelings of incompetence in that area (literature, for example). Student are somewhat afraid of literature because they are concerned that they won't "get it".
What I did this last quarter, therefore, was organize the literature selections that I used around a certain theme that would resonate in their lives (I chose "Family"). This allowed us to read a wide range of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and drama - some of the touchstones of American Lit - while also keeping it relate-able to students. When they felt they could engage with some of the IDEAS present in the literature (and could relate it to their own life situations), they felt much more comfortable getting into the more technical aspects of literature analysis, poetry form, etc.
My greatest difficulty occurs in a gen-ed intro writing class where writing ability varies DRASTICALLY between students. I attempt to keep it challenging for students with higher proficiency by delving into more fine-tuned writing ideas, but balancing the two ends of the scales is difficult - especially when working on grammar. Ideas?
I teach mathematics at two career colleges. Unfortunately, since this is not normally a major in career colleges, mathematics tends to be an orphan amidst the other subjects. Moreover, it seems to be the subject that most students love to hate; it's also the one subject which students are allowed to brag that their bad at! Only in America can you gain status among you peers by admitting that you're bad at math.
Often I face classrooms at the beginning of a quarter whose students have decided before even enrolling that there's no good reason for them to take the math course (although it's a required course) & that they should not even be there. Usually I find myself on the defensive from the first day.
Another difficulty that I have is professional isolation, especially among other General Education instructors. In-services & workshops among our Gen-Ed faculty have all been about writing papers, grading papers & prosecuting plagiarism. But I teach courses requiring different & highly technical sets of specific problem-solving skills that never get addressed in such workshops. I often try to play "hookey" from these meetings & hang out with faculty from our information technology & business programs whose courses more often encounter issues similar to my own. Indeed, I regard classifying mathematics as "Gen-Ed" to have had a disastrous impact on its teaching at my school.
How does a mathematics instructor cope with his field being swallowed up by humanities & social sciences?
I absolutely love what you are doing! I can relate to feeling isolated...I am the only marketing teacher, I'm new and so is the class. But I wanted to comment on what you are telling your students - FANTASTIC!! Just last week my University held a ribbon cutting ceremony. As the marketing class I told my students we needed to attend and learn as much as possible. Their biggest fear was having conversations with folks they didn't know. I told them that the conversations were key..its all about networking. I think I'm going to borrow your technique and see how it goes in my class. Thanks so much for sharing the idea....maybe some day we'll offer a humanities course - sounds like lots of fun.
I agree that this is a key point. Being a technical person it is easy to get lost in the tech part but some of the classes I remember the most from college were general education courses.
Hi Richard,
Excellent points about how students in technical areas need to expand their horizons beyond just their narrow perspective. If they will as we both know their career opportunities will be greatly expanded. It is great to hear that most of them do "get it" when it comes to this concept.
Gary
Most career colleges have some technical orientation. Not necessarily High Tech, but technically focused toward Business, accounting, etc.
While I teach technical classes I do occasionally teach non-technical classes.
As an instructor in a technical field, I can tell you that most employers find that technically trained people to have inadequate skills in communications with non-techically oriented people in their organizations.
I would suggest a approach where you use literature as a means to teach your students that expanding their abilities to think and speak beyond the lexicon of their chosen field is an absolute necessity as a basic communications need to be able to relate to others in a business setting and that without these skills their careers will be limited.
I be that direct. Technical students, especially high tech people, can get myopic in their view of required skills for their careers.
If you could find a way to reinforce this idea through your literature course it would be helpful in keeping them interested.
The student has to be made to understand that in order to communicate ideas and solution to people without their specialized training they need a common frame of understanding. An understanding of literature, the arts, etc, creates a common frame of reference between them and the people with which they will be working.
This is the way I approach non-technical classes for technical students and it seems to work, most of the time they get it.
Hi James,
Great way to share the reasons for gen ed classes. As you know you it is easy for the students to miss the real reasons for why they are taking the gen ed courses. Keep sharing the message for the benefits of the students.
Gary
I used to teach physics in a video game design progam. The students could see the value of the physics class which was a general ed class but often griped about the other gen ed classes. So I would be in the position of defending the other general education classes. Some of the things I would tell my students:
1) Because of the gen ed classes, you are getting a B.S. degree and not just a certificate in game design.
2) The gen ed courses help you to become a more well rounded human being.
3) The gen ed courses help teach how to think about problems and solve problems.
Elise,
I really like the "2 minute conversation" skill you teach. Being able to hold and start a conversation is a definite need for our students. Thank you for teaching are students this skill.
-Carrie
Hi Christine:
I do have a couple of suggestions for your example of student's who believe they never use this in real life.
For my humanities courses I put together a resource list called "That was then, This is now". In it I list places within our daily lives or popular culture that we encounter (I tell them "bombarded by") these ideas. For example, when we talk about the earliest civilizations in the Fertile Crescent, Egypt and Aegean Sea, I list popular literature including mysteries set in these areas by Elizabeth Peters. I also include music and if there is a music video, show it. My students love to see Steve Martin performing King Tut, or the They Might Be Giants cartoon for "The Mesopotmians". I mention television shows, Stargate is based on some Egyptian mythology.
Many of my students have young children that they are greatly proud of, and want a better life for. I try to remember to show them ways in which they can share their new knowledge with their children. This may be through books, television, new foods, trips to the museum (I used to work in museums, you are never too young to go!)
I face a similar challenge in teaching literature. It is easy to say that something like composition has practical implications for the students because every job has some level of written communication that must take place. Literature, however, is much more difficult to relate to them.
I really appreciate your insight into simply having the ability to discuss a wide range of material with the clients with whom the students may one day come into contact. I also try to emphasize the importance of developing critical thinking skills that may help them in many areas of life, including their profession of choice.
Does anyone have any suggestions for encouraging an attitude within a career college that general education courses such as history or literature have a value that goes beyond practical uses? Even if I am able to come up with "practical" applications, it is difficult to dispel the myth that the students "will never use this in real life."
