Whatever it is that we think we are doing at Furman, it seems
hardly worthwhile unless the prime beneficiaries are those in the global
community who are least powerful, have the fewest opportunities, and have the
fewest choices. Because paternalism almost necessarily follows from such a
desire to do justice from above, one purpose of the curriculum should be
self-examination of motives. Another should be to improve the ways in which the
un-empowered and the dispossessed can themselves state what they need and can
be allowed to state grievances and guide the terms of the debate. There are
controversies about the nature or value of distributive justice. Our students
should know what these debates are and should participate in them.
Distributive Justice. Whatever it is that we think we are doing at Furman, it seems
hardly worthwhile unless the prime beneficiaries are those in the global
community who are least powerful, have the fewest opportunities, and have the
fewest choices. Because paternalism almost necessarily follows from such a
desire to do justice from above, one purpose of the curriculum should be
self-examination of motives. Another should be to improve the ways in which the
un-empowered and the dispossessed can themselves state what they need and can
be allowed to state grievances and guide the terms of the debate. There are
controversies about the nature or value of distributive justice. Our students
should know what these debates are and should participate in them.
I would encourage us to talk as much as possible to the key
stakeholders in the curriculum, especially students and former students. And
not just the ones we consider to be successes. To my mind, one of the biggest
problems in the current curriculum is that many students feel alienated from
the curriculum and uninformed about what we are doing. In other words, they
lack ownership. I would point to our serious plagiarism crisis, the number of
students who go into personal crisis during their encounter with our curriculum
(see “My Presumptions
About Students,” below), and their feeling unengaged by our classes
(see the NSSE survey) as
compelling evidence of this alienation. They do not get the motivating
principles we want them to get. One of the things they care the most about --
prestige -- is a good thing, but ought to be balanced against the larger needs
and problems of the global community, and should not be done at the expense of
that community. In practical terms, no student should be able to leave Furman
without being exposed to methods and approaches of public-policy
problem-solving, community reconciliation, and active listening.
Student Ownership, Responsibility, and Self-Reliance
Our students seem to prefer the comfort of us making decisions for them. So do
I, when confronted with an unfamiliar situation. If the research on student
intellectual development is to be believed, they come to us looking for
concrete answers and clearly-defined (dualistic?) structures, delivered from
experts and authority figures. Our current curriculum, in and of itself, does
little to change this, and the trend toward double majors only reinforces it.
This is why I think electives should be mandatory for all students (and that
means electives over and beyond unspoken curricula such as the premed program).
One might even make the case that an intelligently designed suite of electives
might be more important than is a major for getting students to achieve
intellectual self-reliance. In concrete terms, students should be asked, quite
formally, to define their goals and evaluate their success in achieving them.
If there is one thing I think we should add to the curriculum it is this. Since
students do not always see their own best interests (though I believe they are
capable of doing so) this will require much more aggressive mentoring than we
structurally provide for now. We will need to rethink our academic advising
program.
Risk-Taking, Creativity, and Love of Learning
We should strive in the revision process to create the maximum number of safety
zones where students can learn to become comfortable taking risks, can fail a
few times without falling into an emotional crisis, and can set their minds
free to play. If one looks at student obsession with the GPA, for example,
they, (like us), seem to be driven far more by fear and status than by hope,
joy, or curiosity. I strongly support the demand for excellence that so
pervades this campus, but right now I believe it to be unreflectively and
destructively social Darwinist in its expression. Every good enterprise thrives
from its studio or its R&D division, where there are no budget limits, no
merit evaluations, and no external criteria other than cleverness, imagination,
and joy. Our current curricular structures and values do not, in my judgment,
give enough space for students to go through the necessary stage of failing
repeatedly before having that big breakthrough. Our curriculum needs more Menlo
Parks. And it needs more opportunities for students to stretch beyond their
existing (successful) cognitive strategies and schemas. I like the requirement
put forth by several of our peer colleges that students can take no more than a
certain number of courses in any one division. I think a revised and improved
CLP requirement also helps here.
The Self and the Other
I am persuaded by Nussbaum’s arguments in favor of closer study of the student’s
own world and traditions. I also like her point that they need to study one
other tradition with some care, rather than lots of traditions superficially. We might want to consider, for
example, some linkage between the language students take and the way they
fulfill some sort of other cultures or social sciences requirement. I think the
same logic applies to the natural sciences. Students should be made conscious
of the environment in which they live, biological and environmental. They
should also see the worlds they cannot see, both close in and far away. I think
we do much of this work already with our current courses, without ever
explaining very well what we are doing. There are some interesting
interdisciplinary opportunities, though, that we should ponder including. We
should also be alert to the ways in which self and other might mean something
different to each individual student, especially international students, those
from the lower and lower-middle classes, etc. There may be a gender dimension
here, too, given the preponderance of females on campus and their generally
better academic preparation than our male students.
Ethical Decision-Making and Numeracy
Nussbaum’s case
for this is also compelling. I would argue that the need for these courses is
especially critical for those who are least likely to take them. These students
are also the same students who are (a) most likely to feel clumsy and awkward
dealing with ethics or with humanities problems in general, and (b) they are
also among the students who, after they graduate, are most likely to end up in
technical and professional careers where such ethical choices are most commonly
made (i.e. medicine, business, and the law). We need to think very carefully
about how to invite those who are most unskilled and most reluctant into this
conversation that they most desperately need. Here is one place, in particular,
where our GPA-centered social Darwinism fails most spectacularly. By the same
token, learning how to evaluate quantitative problems is a powerful tool for
making these ethical choices. For students who do not feel adept in dealing
with this kind of information or using abstract methods, we need to invite them
into the quantitative conversation, too. Here too, we do much of this quite
well, and some of it quite unreflectively.
Do at Least One Thing Well.
We should continue to have majors, and I like the idea of restricting this to a
single major where practical. I would also like us to more actively promote the
ICP program. I do not support minors, but I am cognizant of the argument that
minors will allow students to take what they want to take and also take
something that their parents think is practical.
THE CURRICULUM
I have taken the liberty of sketching out a curriculum. I am
agnostic about what kind of calendar would accomplish this, though I find Brad
Barron’s split dual semester proposal intriguing. I will state that any calendar which
significantly undermines foreign study will be a non-starter.
Research, Expression and Communication
(1/2 course) First year small group mentoring and tutorial programs, w.
upperclasspersons as well as faculty, focused on inviting people into the great
conversation of the liberal arts; critical thinking, topics flexible)
(1/2 course) First year small group tutorials, topics developed by students
working in conjunction with faculty, in a seminar or lab setting.
(1 course) Introductory communications expression course, covering writing,
information literacy, and critical music/drama/graphics/ and public speaking
literacy.
(1-3 courses) Language. students who have competency in one language (proven
through standard testing or Furman assessment) should be required to take at
least two semesters of a second language, unless given a disability waiver. Students
majoring in business or health related careers will be required to have
competency in Spanish at the “2 courses above 21 level.”
(1 course) Quantitative skills and formal problem-solving. Does Logic, Econ,
Accounting, or Statistics count in this group? I’m still thinking through
this.
(1 Non credit pass/fail) All First Year students, regardless of
credit standing, will be required to produce a project (an essay, a video,
music, a poster session) in which they explain how the courses they have
already taken make sense, and in which they justify a proposed course of study
for the remainder of their Furman career. (See Bard’s
curriculum for something similar.)
(1 Non-credit pass/fail) Before beginning their last term at Furman, all
seniors will be required to produce a summary project justifying their claim to
a Furman degree.
(1 course) A senior capstone, probably integrated into the major.
Who am I, or What is the world around Furman? (Some of these
courses might need to be combined)
(1 course) The Self, the Cognitive Mind, and the Physical Body [a range of
possible courses, including interdisciplinary.]
(1 course) Risk-taking, Invention, Creative Expression [a range of courses, including
interdisciplinary]
(1 course) American Government or American History, or American Literature
(1 course) The Multicultural South [from a menu of courses, literary, social
science, or marketing. Should have some sort of first-hand encounter component,
through service learning, oral history, storytelling, internships.]
(1 course) The European Tradition [choice of alternatives here.]
(1 course) The Natural Southeast [Biology / EES]
What is in the World that is distant from my Own Experience?
(1 course) Natural Science – I’m thinking of Chem, Physics, or Astronomy in
particular (the micro-universe and the macro)
(1-course) Understanding peoples and cultures (I have in mind here some
combination of anthropological, sociological, or economic ethnography, along
with what we do in our current Asian-African requirement, with the addition of
Latin America)
(1 course) World Politics or World Economics.
(1 course) Religion, Ethics, Philosophy.
(1 course) Furman-Guided Travel Study or Service Learning.
(revised) A CLP program.
Focusing, Reaching, Risking
(4-8 courses)Electives. I believe that there should be a mandatory minimum of
electives that students should be required to take, where they have to chose
their own path.
(8-12 course) Major
(revised) A CLP program.
BACKGROUND AND PRESUMPTIONS
My Presumptions About Our Students
A profile: our students mostly between the ages of 17 and 22, are mostly white,
tend to be female more than male, and are mostly campus residents rather than
commuters. They are recruited predominantly from the suburban communities of
major urban areas in the southeastern United States, though Furman is
attracting an increasing number of minorities and international students. They
are attracted to Furman not only by curricular features such as “engaged
learning,” but also for its name-brand reputation and its park-like setting.
They are generally responsible, cheerful, and compliant “organizational kids,”
though there is a modest trend toward passive-aggressive and “treating faculty
like the hired help”
behaviors. The are strongly in favor of meritocratic structures. At the same time, they have stronger
sense of charity and public responsibility than do students elsewhere, as CESC,
in particular, evidences. Both the students and their parents tend to be
risk-averse. Furman’s fenced and gated suburban setting may reinforce this
tendency. They come to
Furman relatively less likely to discuss books or intellectual ideas at home
than students at other colleges, and they tend toward the familiar, the
structured, and the comfortable rather than the imaginative or the
unstructured, though in this and other things there is considerable variation.
The growing popularity of conservative Presbyterian and traditionalist Catholic
organizations on campus, relative to the Baptist and non-denominational groups
that used to win their loyalties, is an intriguing benchmark of this shift in
their intellectual preferences and outlooks. Furman’s
increasing selectivity is likely to increase the number of students who are good at figuring out rules, tests
and structures, who have been exposed to an impressive array of content, and
who are conscious of their place in the intellectual hierarchy. They are
increasingly likely to attend graduate and professional programs, which means
that their perception of Furman is increasingly that we are a way-station
rather than a destination or a defining part of their identity. The
corresponding increase in plagiarism problems and in students having
psychological distress suggests that more selectivity, with all of its many
benefits, is not necessarily associated with improved understanding of,
agreement with, or enthusiasm for, the goals and requirements of Furman’s
curriculum, (at least as the students understand it). They are generally very polite, intellectually
capable, and disciplined. It is not likely that changes in the curriculum or
calendar will dramatically change the profile of the students that we get.
My Presumptions About Our Graduates
The majority will go on to professional, managerial, and technical careers,
often involving some graduate-level study. Most will return to suburban
communities in the southeast, though Furman’s creative arts, travel
study, and internship programs or their personal and family connections will channel quite a few of them to places
outside the region. Many of them will play an important role in local
political, civic, and religious organizations. This is a continuation of the
active and structured organizational life they followed while at college. Many
of them will continue to read intellectually rich materials and enjoy the more
refined visual, dramatic, and performing arts. In their managerial and civic
roles they will make decisions that affect a wide range of individuals,
especially the region’s poor, marginalized, and disadvantaged. The increasing ethnic diversity of
the region, its growing economic disparities, and the globalizing tendencies of
technological change will require them to step far outside their own personal
identities. Although most of them will have planned for a specific career, such
as physician, analyst, lawyer, or accountant, after a decade or so most of them
will have moved into supervisory and executive roles that will require as much
knowledge of cultural differences, interpersonal relationships, and social
institutions as of technical or scientific information. Their citizenship
responsibilities will place similar pressures on their knowledge acquisition
skills, their critical and ethical judgment, and their ability to respect and
understand others. As in their college years, status improvements and leisure
activities will be important to them as goals and motivations. They will
continue to be more family and neighborhood-oriented than are alumni from other
colleges. In the future they may be less loyal to Furman than their
predecessors, particularly the smartest and most ambitious ones.
Intellectual Debts
It was Michael Polanyi, I think, who claimed that expert knowledge comes as
much from sitting around telling war stories with students and colleagues, and
by practicing, as it does from formal study. When it comes to the curriculum I
would enthusiastically agree. But it also makes sense to identify guiding
influences beyond these conversations. In keeping with his sense of
epistemological processes as informal, recursive, and unstructured, let me
offer the influences as a personal reflection combined with a free-form
annotated semi-bibliography.
I like Paulo Freire’s demand that we start any
teaching by starting with what students already know and already care about. I like John
Dewey’s call for an education that blends theory with application in
a laboratory or studio setting, and impressed with Kolb and Fry’s model of
experiential learning that build’s upon Dewey’s model. I find Lee Schulman’s
“Table of Teaching” useful for understanding the sequence of processes involved working students through
a cycle of engagement, information, performance, application, reflection,
critique, and commitment. I like Parker Palmer’s discussion of the dilemmas and paradoxes
of teaching and learning and his demand that we create true “communities
of learning” in which every participant is valued, where the call is for
invitation rather than exclusion, and where we view education as a spiritual quest. I have been similarly
moved by Rollins English professor Barbara Carson, whose generosity toward
students and colleagues is both emotionally profound and intellectually rich. An
echo of her warmth and vigorous invitation can be seen in her delightful
article “Thirty Years of Stories: The Professor’s Place in Student
Memories,” in which she finds that students remember most from college their
faculty member’s enthusiasm for their disciplines, their demands that students
push beyond their own expectations
to reach their fullest potential, and that faculty members genuinely cared for
them as people and connected their disciplines to student interests. I have
been influenced by William Perry’s model of cognitive development
among undergraduate students
and Tony Grascha’s understanding of the variety of different teaching
and learning styles. I
have learned much from watching people in a wide range of other disciplines
teach at the ACS teaching and learning workshop, and then reflecting upon the
implications of those teaching methods. I have been influenced by the Iroquois
orator Red Jacket’s critique of Europe’s failure to live up to its own
ideals, and the Iroquois council’s council structure of debate to consensus. I am impressed by the pedagogical value
of community-building methods and exercises sponsored by the National
Coalition-Building Institute. I have been shaped by my own experiences in
traditional elementary and secondary schools, and the University of Virginia,
both as Jefferson conceived it and as it was practiced in the 1970s and 1980,
and just as much by experiences in open schools, alternative free education,
and Empire State College’s non-traditional mentoring system, distance learning
structure, and demand that students write and justify their own curricula. I have been
greatly influenced by travel study programs, starting with my Court Bell’s three
day field trip to Gettysburg in 1972, and subsequent trips to Europe and
Canada, though I am still mulling why it is exactly that physical exposure can be so superior to “virtual
tours,” and how foreign travel (service learning, too, for that matter) may
serve more to reconfirm existing prejudices than it does to broaden empathy and
understanding. I have been influenced by recent discussions of the role of digital technology in
transforming teaching and learning, and especially the transformation of our
roles from being “information authorities” and the source of student
knowledge, to “information tour-guides” whose role is to highlight key “sites” and to teach students how
to discriminate between plausible and implausible information.
Posted by love at
September 19, 2004 03:20 PM
Discuss
this proposal in the forum, or leave a comment below!