My Teaching Corner
Writing prompts and discussing discussions
Teaching suits me well. Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that teaching is what I am meant to do. Here, I want to use many years of experience to present ideas and possible solutions about the ongoing task of getting people to talk to one another.
It is much more difficult than it might seem, and I bet any readers out there understand how this is true. Yes, I believe that even if you are not yet convinced yourself. By the end of my little story, you will know what I am getting at.
Most higher education institutions, and most of the pedagogy (philosophy of teaching) instilled in teachers at the college level recommend lots of discussion. I welcome and believe in discussion as a strategy to help students learn.
To grasp the potential of free thinking is much like learning a universal language adaptable to all life situations. My professors introduced me to this brave new world by asking hard questions with no easy answers. Sometimes, there is no single answer at all.
We will never reach our potential with education by thinking about the world and everything in it using the same logic received from whatever enclave of our youth. This might mean a small town, or a street or a district of a big city, or the word enclave can refer to a family, kinship group, or a very specific religious community.
I mean that we grow up thinking like the people around us for the most part, and consider only those questions deemed appropriate by the group. Yes there are exceptions, but I am speaking about the general trend.
In closed-off societies, there are few incentives to disagree and many more reasons to affirm the status quo. College education is supposed to dismantle assumptions and ignorance and replace those things with curiosity and reevaluations. This is a great thing.
The first step is to put people together from diverse communities — and that is part of the purpose of college to begin with. Then, teachers invite differences of opinion, but more than that, the idea is to just get people talking with instead of past one another.
You know how it works when it does not work, dear reader. Everywhere, all the time, folks old and young (but especially old) care only to restate something they believe rather than engage with someone’s reasonable point of view they have never considered.
Probably, a person has forgotten why they think point A is better than point B. I do not need to ramble on any further about how every person is programmed to some extent. You already know.
To be clear, nothing I am saying has to pertain to things that are controversial. This could or could not be the case. I confess to loving ideas, and combing those with new ideas that explore everything about living.
So, beginning my teaching career meant learning how to inspire folks to talk. Here is another confession: I am bored by my own voice. Most students do not want to listen to the teacher lecture all the time, right?
It turned out that I am good at creating discussions. Everyone says so, in fact.
For reasons unknown, I can do this much better when face-to-face in a class than when pitching discussion topics online. Lately, I am not doing very well at all.
Here is where everyone who might be reading can sympathize with my story. If you are writing in hopes of acquiring a loyal readership, then you are a discussion leader regardless if you want to be one, or not.
It is probably harder than ever to attract and keep someone’s attention. In school there is the grade incentive. That obviously makes a huge difference.
In the online world, the competition for the eyes of the public is intimidating and arduous. So, I want to share a little from my experiences that might help.
One method is to make intentionally short-sighted or inaccurate statements that forces a response. I might say, in class, something like “we all know the British were the bad guys in the American Revolution. So, why were they so unfair toward the colonies?”
I promise there will always be a few eager students who grasp there is more to the story and will speak up. If you take the time, you can apply the principle to whatever subject in your online writing.
My favorite discussion prompts ask what I call “the big questions” applicable to any person, at any time, anywhere. Despite what people say, they like to speculate on what life means as long as teachers do not require specialized knowledge beyond their ready recognition.
The point is to force students to make a decision to defend from only two choices — without a middle ground. Here are some I have used or thought of for the future:
1 — In general, and not thinking about specific people, are human beings more inherently good or bad? Think about all your experiences and what you have witnessed or heard for the entirety of your life.
2 — Do human beings do good works to receive positive attention and/or rewards in return, or do people do good things from a place of sincere kindness, only?
3 — Is it better to be loved or feared (Machiavelli), and why?
4 — With all people in mind from all over the world, what motivates people to act more, pleasure or pain? Imagine all the small, day-to-day decisions along with the very significant ones.
5 — What is and has been more significant in terms of your awareness of the past and present, that achieves some kind of result for humanity: cooperation or competition? In other words, which one is more effective?
6 — Do people create governments, or do governments establish a group of individuals as belonging to something we can accurately call “a people?” Think about states and nations, along with any other grouping that you think refers to one people, such as a kingdom or region.
7 — What do people most often look at in order to define their identity: race, class, or gender? Which one matters most as to how people see themselves?
You might be surprised to learn that good teachers can use extremely broad questions to transition toward pointed conclusions and goals no matter the subject. It is a similar thing to say that all topics are connected somehow.
My favorite discussion idea is the cooperation versus competition one. I have presented this topic for debate in a real class, and it performed very well. It even sounds catchy when you say it aloud.
To summarize, it seems part of grabbing attention for your writing must involve stirring folks to comment. I mean, consider all the stories and the numbers of people who are competing for a few minutes or even seconds of people’s precious time.
Well, it might be that I just answered one of my “big questions.”
This was good