Teaching appeals to me for its combination of
speculation and interaction, for the challenge of explaining difficult ideas,
and for the wonderful moments when students “get it.” It is serious
play, a search for wisdom in knowledge. Good teachers inspire us to think
boldly and to make a difference in the world. My teachers have taught me about
my world, my life, my responsibilities and my potential, and I want to do the same
for my students.
I present learning as problem-solving. When
encountering a text, we face the question how to interpret it. What is
knowledge in literary studies? What kinds of questions are useful for
literature, and what methods do we use to answer them? How do we uncover
evidence that would help us answer our questions? In the classroom, I guide the
students through these questions, making the process of interpretation (in any
field) as important as the content. I combine close reading with open discussion,
pointing out that in intellectual discourse, we must weigh our opinions against
both the clues in the text and the evaluations of our colleagues. Discussion is
as important as careful reading, as we must learn to recognize when differing
opinions are conflicting and when they are complementary.
Insofar as writing is another form of learning, it
too requires problem-solving, this time regarding the presentation of ideas:
how to organize and explain the evidence in a way that is clear, persuasive and
interesting? I stress the process here as well (thanks to my coursework in the
Writing Intensive Program), working individually with students to discover
their particular habits and abilities and to show them how to play to their
strengths and to the needs of their majors. These writing conferences have been
especially useful in helping my non-majors connect the skills I teach to the
skills they need in their own fields. It is great when these students tell me
they want to read more literature because of my class.
We must also ask why we should interpret
texts. Because books transform the way we think, the students themselves become
part of the course content. Both religious and minority literature oblige us to
reconsider the ways we interact with the world. Minority literature reveals how
the material and institutional aspects of our culture affect our struggle to
achieve our national ideal of equal opportunity for all people. Reading it, we
are challenged to seek new ways to realize America—another level of
problem-solving. Similarly, religious literature challenges us to seek new ways
to realize our own humanity by inviting us to contemplate our relation to those
things that transcend the material and institutional world.
Here again, content is balanced by process; the
problem to be solved is how we should live. As humans, we have amazing
potential—for thought, for beauty, and for compassion. It is our
responsibility to use that potential wisely, and to pass that wisdom on to our
students.