Abstract
I suspect that every student has at least once thought, “How did this person get a teaching job? They’re horrible… boring, scattered, and erratic.” Steven Cahn, a keen, long-time participant-observer in higher education, addresses this problem and related concerns in his slender but eminently pithy book—one of those books of which you’ll likely think, “Exactly! I wish I had written that.”
Cahn’s book is divided into 10 chapters, the longest of which (“Tenure”) is 16 pages. Most of the chapters are only three to five pages long, but even those short chapters contain a wealth of useful information. What struck me most about chapters on “Examinations” and “Grades” is that, in the space of three to five pages, the author eviscerates some progressive attitudes toward these two traditional pillars of student assessment with deft surgical precision. For example, Cahn notes that one criticism of examinations is that “they stifle creativity, emphasizing the mindless reiteration of facts instead of encouraging imaginative thinking” (p. 23). This attack, he counters, misses the mark on two counts. First, “only poor examinations emphasize learning by rote,” and second, “the mastery of any field requires control of relevant information and skill” (p. 23). He argues that the foundational information emphasized on exams does not limit creativity but, instead, “provides a framework in which it can flourish” (p. 24).
Similarly, of the criticism of grades, Cahn explains that “A grade represents an expert’s judgment of the quality of a student’s work in a specific course” and it “is not a measure of a person but of a person’s level of achievement in a particular course” (p. 25-26). He admits, “whether grades are fair, however, depends on a teacher’s conscientiousness in assigning them” (p. 25-26). I know of school districts that have forbidden the use of red pens in grading because of how the color makes the student feel. Of course, as soon as another color is used, that color is perceived as “injurious,” and the can is kicked down the road yet again. Cahn’s reasoned approach is a breath of fresh air to teachers in the miasma of administrative nonsense.
The heart of Cahn’s book, though, concerns the undue emphasis that many institutions of higher education place upon research prowess and productivity and the concomitant, often systemic, diminution of the importance of teaching. This tragedy is illuminated every time college professors, when asked what they do, answer by identifying their fields of research. Or as Cahn writes, “Their primary commitment is to their discipline, not their classes” (p. 1). Cahn himself proudly reports “I take pleasure in identifying students as the primary focus of my life’s work” (p. 3).
In his discussion of effective teachers in chapter 2, Cahn responds to the question about what amazing teachers have in common: “The answer is not that successful teachers invariably know the subject better than others. Rather, they have mastered pedagogical skills that, surprising to some, are the same whether the students are children, teenagers, or adults” (p. 6). In describing some notably successful professors whom he heard lecture, Cahn writes “their clarity was memorable. They weren’t in the classroom to flaunt their erudition or display their brilliance; they were there to teach” (p. 15). A proper view of one’s critical role as an educator is foundational to one’s effectiveness as a molder of minds, in the best sense of the term. The looming question, however, is the following: How can the systemic listing of the higher-educational ship toward research be righted such that teaching is valued as it once was in the academy? In my mind, today’s universities could learn much on this count from the Lyceum and the Peripatetics.
Although this incisive book certainly should be on the desk of every university administrator who admits that the ship is listing, how much more influential it might be to those who do not. Moreover, many chapters will hold immense value to teachers and administrators at every level, specifically chapters 2-6 and 8 (“How Teachers Succeed,” “Learning to Teach,” “Examinations,” “Grades,” “A Teacher’s Role,” and “Evaluating Teaching,” respectively). Cahn’s book gives me hope that the ship is not doomed to sink, no matter how titanic the present challenge may seem. Administrators, read it and respond with thoughtful decisiveness. Teachers take heart—your work truly matters.