Peter Filene
1 Kicking and screaming teachers are in the 21st century
Having been a counselor in a Texas community college for the past thirty one years I can readily state that I am thrilled to still be able to gather new ideas from colleagues who are decades my junior.
Mr. Filine in his book assesses the current state of higher education for the masses without "dissing" those who labor in the profession and the same time slyly encourages us to reach out beyond the "way we taught."
Without explicitly stateing so I found between the lines that perhaps teachers are becoming superfluous unless we understand the context of the educational process in respect to technology, popular culture, and learning taking place quite literally at the speed of light. He alludes to this on p.56, "...(teachers) play a complementary part in the symphony of learning." This metaphore flashes to mind the spanish word for teacher, maestro.
Mr. Filene's chapter on mandatory class discussion addresses the universal entity that all students bring to class which is fear. By teachers confronting this head on we take a quantum step in the learning/teaching equation. Empowering the student is directly proportional to empowering the teacher and it is the key to the entire process.
I have a sign on my office door in two inch bold print that states, "UNAUTHORIZED LEARNING NOT ALLOWED." Fortunately in our electronic world it is not possible to adher to this dicate. To wit I stumbled across Mr. Filene's book by going on line, looking at the NY Times home page, clicking on the an educational story, referencing a book mentioned in said article, being exposed to another book on the Amazon site, and then thirty minutes and $50 later having to wait a whole three days for my three ordered books.
The tag line from _Glen Gary Glen Ross_ was "ABC", always be closing. The tag line from _the Joy of Teaching_ in my view is "ABL"...must I say what the L denotes.
Thanks for a great read.
2 Useful, enjoyable, energizing
I read this book as part of an effort to catch my breath during Spring Break in my first semester teaching a large college class. It left me feeling re-energized and excited about the new ideas I learned, and gave me new perspective on the whole undertaking. It is chock full of really useful and thought-provoking insights and suggestions. Reading the book basically got me ready to get back to teaching with renewed enthusiasm and confidence.
I would recommend this enjoyable and extremely useful book to any college teacher looking for new ideas and techniques--even a fresh attitude toward how they approach the classroom and their students.
