Statement of Teaching Philosophy Addressing Current Challenges
Statement of teaching philosophy addressing current challenges to teaching history and/or political science to community college students.
by
Jeffrey Alexander Martin
14 December 2024 for Yavapai College
Introduction
The challenges of teaching are never small. Even the growing availability of information and advancing technology don’t alleviate the challenges of teaching, it just changes. In this statement I’m going to address four such challenges. Two of them have to do with technology, and two of them have to do with the culture and subject areas of history and political science. These will not be in a particular order of importance, and it’s worthy of note that this statement will be based on personal observations rather than academic research, although there is research occurring across all four of these topics.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence is changing the lived environment for humans at a significant pace, with the foreseeable future appearing to be noticeably different than the recent past. For instance, a student in one of my classes recently noted that they (the students) aren’t supposed to use AI because most of their teachers have told them that, and yet most of their teachers are using AI to grade their papers, and she considers that hypocritical and unfair. It’s a reasonable observation in that if we have students doing school work with AI, and teachers grading that work with AI, then where does the humanity come into it? It’s noteworthy that this discussion was in an Introduction to Humanities class.
It’s also noteworthy that when I asked the students what the most useful thing they got out of the class was, one girl answered, "How to talk to people. Like with speaking and being confident." Another answered, "How to think. You know, like with context and everything." Another said, "Thinking deeper about these things." Therein lies the necessary humanity of thinking and communicating. Whatever the technology may be, to be human we must think, and feel, and communicate. The technology, from pencil to AI, is a tool that we must learn to use to enhance these skills and abilities.
Online, In-Person, Hybrid
I’ve taught both online and in-person. Both have their benefits and downsides. The convenience of teaching and learning online is hard to beat. It’s also not the same as having a conversation with someone sitting or standing next to you. Different people have different preferences at different times. People naturally organize into clans, markets, and bureaucracies (Ouchi, 1980), and the reality is that the format for learning will be influenced by clan and bureaucratic social structures, but will be decided by market social structures. I believe that all three formats will continue to exist while fluctuating in popularity according to the specific demands of the time and place.
Political Structure Differences
Even with the mass availability of information about history and the world, we all live within a given culture and with a specific perspective. It’s sometimes, often, difficult for someone from a democracy, or a representative federal constitutional republic, to understand the hearts of minds of someone in the world today or from history who knew nothing other than an autocratic kingdom or empire. Why did a great thinker like Thomas Hobbes argue so strongly that a separation of powers in government would be self-defeating? It would be an odd argument to make today in our society, but in England in the mid-1600s, a case could be made on that evidence.
In the practical application of political knowledge within our contemporary society we have something that parallels that knowledge barrier in history. At the national and state levels we have a similar political structure and process. There’s the president or governor, the congress divided into the house of representatives and the senate, and the court system. When we get to the local level things change somewhat. To a certain extent there are similarities. The executive, legislative, and judicial powers still exist. But, it’s not the same. At the level of the city, town, and county things are a bit different. And yet, these are the most accessible levels of government while also being taught the least.
As a local elected official it’s still very difficult for me to contact a federal senator. The state senator, I have his personal phone number in my phone, and I’ve talked with him several times over the last few years. He’s fairly accessible. My county commissioner, I talk with him a lot. We accidentally run into each other at meetings. As for me as a township supervisor, I’m very easy for residents to contact. They email me, call me, text me, message me, and stop into the office to see me. By learning about the local structures and processes in addition to the larger organizations we can help students to know and understand the government and political processes that they can directly influence and get involved with. I have many stories to demonstrate this, and this interaction allows someone to advance to higher levels with greater understanding if they so choose.
Contemporary Information Overload
It’s not that long ago that everyone received almost the same information from the same few limited tv stations, the same limited radio stations, and the same newspapers. Things have changed significantly from a few decades ago. Now, most people live in echo chambers formed initially by their own selection bias and then enhanced by proprietary algorithms geared for enhancing interaction times.
This is a natural attempt to limit data and data sources by human brains and minds overloaded by the massive availability of information. The internet and then social media have expanded at such a rapid rate that it’s impossible to reasonably keep up on everything happening everywhere in the world, even though you can find that information if you want.
The question of why people don’t learn from history has been asked and answered many times. (Hart, 2012) I’ve heard said by a number of young college students that they don’t care about anything that happened before their lives. Essentially, that the past is in the past and doesn’t matter. Now, there are several things wrong with that. One, the past has lead to now and to understand the present we must understand something of the past. Two, history tends to repeat. Not exactly, but there are thematic similarities and cycles, so the study of history helps to reveal not just the present but also potentialities for the future. However, I do see why the students are attempting to limit their field of study to just their lifetimes, it’s because they won’t be able to consume all of just that limited set of content anyway, so why try to add in more if they can’t keep up with what they already have. The worth of understanding parts of history is an important thing to help students connect with.
Conclusion
The challenges facing teachers and schools will never end. Sisyphus continues to push his boulder up the mountain, even though he knows the work will not end, but we can still imagine him happy. (Camus, 1991) People must seek humanity in the age of AI, organizations must adapt to the market demands of class formats, students must learn both the overall context and what they can apply, and everyone must choose and prioritize what they will and will not choose to know. The world changes, the wheel turns, and history marches on.
Reference List (I had intended for this to be a personal statement without citations, but these came to mind while I was writing.)
Camus, Albert (1991) The Myth of Sisyphus. Vintage Books: New York, New York. ISBN-10: 0679733736 ISBN-13: 978-0679733737
Hart, B. H. Liddell (2012) Why Don’t We Learn From History?. Sophron. ISBN 9780985081133 (ISBN10: 0985081139)
Ouchi, W. G. (1980). Markets, Bureaucracies, and Clans. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(1), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392231
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