an ounce of example
is worth a pound of exhortation
- The Robbins Report
Happy Friday!
This week I geeked out on the art of Sister Mary Corita Kent. Big thanks to Austin Kleon for pointing me to her work. I am currently reading through Austin’s latest book where Sister Corita makes two guest appearances (more below).
With that, here are 3 links, 2 books, and 1 thought from my research this week.
3 links
Learning Leadership: In addition to being a thoughtful and engaging professor, Dr. Eric Weber is a careful and exemplary scholar. I really enjoyed his chapter, “How is Leadership Learned?” from his book Democracy and Leadership: On Pragmatism and Virtue. Weber argues that leadership can be learned and taught through liberal arts education, and specifically “learning through practice.” He also provides some great examples for how educators can help facilitate courage in their students.
Keep Swinging: Speaking of practice, I found this article from Scott H. Young to be some much needed “mid-week” encouragement. Young writes, “It looks like the most important determinant of creative success is simply how much work you produce...Over a surprisingly wide range of pursuits, creativity is productivity, and we will have more hits if we take more swings.”
Reflection and Wisdom: Carrie Birmingham makes a compelling case for conceptualizing phronesis as a model for pedagogical reflection. Birmingham argues that this conceptualization adds clarity to the nature of the relationship between reflection and actions—that is, “actions are derived from reflection, and reflection is built through the practice of reflective actions.” By inviting students to reflect over their engagement with certain virtues, educators can help students grow in their judgment for engaging in future virtuous actions.
2 books
From the Desk: This week I picked up a copy of Austin Kleon’s Keep Going. I read Austin’s first two books during the “inside years” of 2020 and 2021. If you are involved in creative work (including, academic research, writing, and teaching) then I highly encourage you to pick up any of his books. He has had a huge impact on how I approach my own academic and creative work, and he is even the main inspiration for my original Needle’s Eye blog which has since turned into this newsletter.
To the Shelf: I recently finished Jason Baehr’s Deep in Thought: A Practical Guide to Teaching for Intellectual Virtues. This book does a fantastic job of taking a lot of the work Baehr has done over the past several years, and synthesizing it into a short practical introduction to teaching for intellectual virtue. This quote from one of the opening chapters has really stuck with me:
“Many of us were drawn to teaching out of a sense that education is a profound human good. At some point in our educational journey, we experienced learning as joyful, exhilarating, and intrinsically worthwhile, as adding meaning and new direction to our lives. More likely than not, this experience was bound up with an experience of a particular teacher-of someone who cared passionately and intelligently about us and the subject she or he was teaching. Inspired and reoriented by this encounter, we devoted ourselves to pursuing similar experiences with students of our own.'
Yet far too often, the life-giving vision that compelled us to enter the profession gets swamped by proliferation of roles and responsibilities, an overriding concern for academic achievement as measured by standardized tests, shifting policies and expectations, an absence of resources and support, inadequate compensation, and more. Such challenges can leave even the most hopeful and idealistic of teachers feeling deflated and discouraged, if not downright cynical.
This state of affairs leaves many teachers wrestling with questions such as: What's the point of what I'm doing? Am I really making a difference! What can I reasonably hope to accomplish as a teacher? Is all this hard work really worth it? Isn't there a better way?”
Jason Baehr does an excellent job of addressing this tension and offers a compelling vision for teaching that can help foster a love of learning in students.
1 thought
Try Something New
In the world of virtue and character education, one of the most significant ways educators can help students grow in traits like courage, patience, fair-mindedness, etc., is to model (or exemplify) those desired traits in the classroom.
For example, in one study, students identified teachers who sought to innovate in the classroom and grow in their craft as an educator, as exemplary models of courage.1
There is an important distinction to be made here between the desire to innovate and improve as a teacher, and the desire to be an exemplary model of courage by involving students. Here are a two ways I think we can do this:
Innovate - Explain - Set Expectations: I’ve been guilty of creating a new assignment and dropping it into my classroom with no explanation for my students. When we innovate and try something new in the classroom, we can give our students the opportunity to look over our shoulder. We can take a moment to explain the decisions we made and what we can reasonably expect from them as a result. It takes courage to disclose our thinking process. It takes courage to admit our ideas might fail or might not work out the way we originally intended.
Provide Regular Opportunities for Feedback: When I teach, I offer my students at least two opportunities to share their feedback with me on their learning experience. I ask them about what they like, dislike, and find challenging. The most challenging part of this exercise is being willing to set my ego aside and receive their feedback with an open mind. That (I believe) takes courage. It requires acknowledging their comments, asking for clarification, and taking the necessary action to improve. I should also note that I always begin these feedback sessions by expressing my willingness to grow as a teacher and how their feedback is vital to my development. It's in this willingness to involve them in my growth that both requires courage, and serves as an exemplary model for them to emulate in their own development.
Bruce Macfarlane, Teaching with Integrity: The Ethics of Higher Education Practice (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004) 134-135.