one of those posts which will piss off everyone (except my Mum)
This is actually a self-congratulatory, "oh look how brilliant I sometimes am" post.
I just had an email from a former student from my Introduction to International Relations Research course from last semester. This student is currently in China (along with another of my students) for a semester abroad programme and he wrote an absolutely lovely email about how useful my class had been, how he had enjoyed actually
doing research in my class and how some of the ethical issues we had grappled with had come up in the course of his current research. He gave examples of how the research tips we had talked about in class are helping him now.
Since I've spent a lot of time this semester agonising about whether how I am teaching my students World Politics is actually helping them*, this was a great email to get right now.
It's a few weeks to Thanksgiving, but I feel I can't take all of the credit for this. So, yes, thanks to Weberman and Prof P whom I nicked my syllabus from and to all those who had to listen to my stories about my class.
It's also one of those "oh so this is why I do what I do" moments and, yes, it feels fantastic.
* Especially in view of a recent conversation in which I was told that to expect "them" to have "sophisticated views" is to expect too much of them. "What do they know?" was the question I was asked. My response at that time was silence. Now, I'd say it doesn't matter what "they" know--it's more important to see what "we" can figure out in the course of a 75-minute class session.
Labels: I'm still brilliant, look how marvellous I am, philosophy of teaching, teaching (and learning)
when real life imitates virtual life
As yous are well aware, engineering or global public health are not among my top 3 subjects to teach. So, this summer, I had fun trying to figure out ways to make these subjects interesting
and fun for students when I myself had little or no interest in them. I used videos (do yous realise how many public health and "green living" videos are narrated by celebrities? A lot), we did simulation exercises, and argued about what would happen in hypothetical situations.
One of the things we did, in my opening 3-hour class for the Global Public Health course, was to talk about
this--how virtual worlds can (and have) responded to epidemics.
Labels: berkeley, teaching (and learning), virtual worlds, world of warcraft
How to learn everything in 3.5 hours
Today's class session notes, if I were to write them up, would probably amuse ProfP, Weberman and E. At times, I was sat there thinking "this would make an excellent reality TV show" and fighting a strong urge to look back and see Nemesis (of the Machiavellian kind) shadowing me about.
So, what happened? Well, the session itself went off okay. This was one of those sessions where my two classes--Global Public Health and International Law and Human Rights--were at the same time and each was 3.5 hours long. We started off with introductions, I emphasised their general good luck in acquiring (if they finished all assignments and I liked said assignments) one university-level credit for doing far less work than "normal" university-level students usually do, introduced them to the wonders of Blackboard and the wondrous site that is TUWSNBN's library and got on with the business of actually getting them to learn.
I should probably digress at this point by adding that I had acquired, for the purposes of this first class, two Teaching Assistants. One, about to enter Medical School in the Fall, was for the Health class and the other, about to enter Law School next year, was for the Law class. Their jobs was to facilitate each of the classes since, despite my wishes, I couldn't be in two places at one time.
So, the introductory lecture: I have a bit in the beginning where I talk about how Global Health and International Law are related. Some of the challenges they face are similar--we go on to discuss things like "public goods", transboundary issues, sovereignty of the state and social justice and equity (my themes for all my courses--might as well stick with things I know). We watch a film on Climate Change and how that will affect global health and also how it's a challenge to international law. It (seems to) go okay.
Then, we separate out and I have to hand over my Health class to HealthTA. HealthTA is fantastic and she's supposed to be leading an in-class exercise on "Neglected Tropical Diseases". They watch a video on Guinea Worms (pretty gruesome and available on YouTube if yous are interested), read a NYT article about tropical diseases and start a discussion. We were trying to get them to think about "health" and "global health" from a perspective which they (usually) wouldn't have thought of.
While this was going on, LawTA had the Law class and was conducting a Negotiations Exercise on Climate Change. Each student had a reading packet and was one of the major actors in the International Climate Change regime. They were supposed to discuss what the main goals and interests of each actor was and how the interests could be (and whether they could be) accommodated through the international regime.
Where's the amusing part you ask? Well, after having been a "veteran" of these gigs by now, I knew that we had to explain basic concepts like the United Nations,* The G-8, the Kyoto Protocol and so on. I forgot to tell this to LawTA who, understandably, thought they knew all this and was surprised when they didn't. The conversation we had very much resembled numerous conversations I've had with the people mentioned above:
LawTA: I can't believe they didn't know the UN! Or, "developing countries"
Me: Yes, well, these are not terms that come up often in high schools, presumably.
LawTA then explains how, in her high school, they had Model United Nations and Amnesty International and such. Pretty much what I tend to do when talking to the people mentioned earlier. Role reversal--this time around, I was explaining that concepts seemingly-obvious to us aren't to the students we are working with. There's not much point in whingeing about it but, instead, get them to understand these things.
My learning experience here? LawTA's easy acknowledgment of "we Americans can agree that human rights should be gender-neutral and encompass the whole world, right?" when discussing Universal vs. Culturally-specific rights. It's a statement that, as a non-American, I wouldn't be able to make. I can't say: Look,
we don't do X in
our country since the "us"--the students and I sharing an experience of having lived and having been from here-- is missing. For me, it's always, "you", which then distances me from the students I'm interacting with. Something that I hadn't thought about much until I watched LawTA in action.
On the HealthTA side, the learning experience was a practical one. It's been a hot day here in Berkeley (hot, being about 85 degrees Fahrenheit) and the room we were sat in was humid. The students, some of whom had travelled across the country, were falling asleep. So, HealthTA made each of them read from the PowerPoint slides we had--slides about how Global Public Health is about issues such as equity, access, affordability and not
just about being free from diseases. She then made each student explain what they thought the slide meant and come up with examples. This actually generated a fair amount of interest and discussion and is definitely a tip I shall pick up on, I reckon!
So, there yous have it. Tomorrow morning, my Global Public Health class continues at 8am. Hopefully, we've not yet scared off the kids.
* Really. I had a student define the United Nations as "all the rich countries". I know people despair of the high school system all the time but, really! However, I guess they're still kids and it's our task to get them to think on such issues. Have I become all Berkeley-ian and Zen?
Labels: berkeley, global public health, having assistants, international law, teaching (and learning)
High plains driftin': on the trail(s) of race and history
Well, PTSD-ers remain silent for nearly a week or so and then write two posts in a day . E's previous post got me thinking that I'd not written to regale yous with my adventures in the Northern reaches of this great country as I made my way across it. I should probably mention that none of what follows here is likely to have anything to do with academia but, then, as yous may have gathered by now, little of what I seem to write does.*
First, the name of the train itself. The way the Amtrak system works is that I had three choices for my cross-country trip: Washington to Chicago and then 1) across the Northern reaches of the country 2) across to Denver and Salt Lake City and 3) down South to New Orleans and through Texas. Well, when I found that one of the trains was called "Empire Builder", there really was no choice to be made. I had to take that across.** The Empire Builder made its way across Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Oregon. In the process, we passed through towns which, apart from their tarred roads, seemed little changed from the days in which Mr. L'Amour wrote about them. Having grown up with a steady diet of "Westerns"--both books and films--actually passing through countryside that resembled this mental image I had of America was pretty "cool".
Of course, there were differences--the ubiquitous utes; the communication towers; the sign advertising "free wireless internet" on a wooden shack near Malta, MT; the paved roads (I think I mentioned this already?)-- but the image of small frontier towns in America with their (one) main street and shoddy train stations, with their shops with names like "Jed's saloon" and "Burt's tack shop" and with people who waved at us as the train passed by, fitted in well with my (imagined) reality of going out West in America.
And then there were the oddities and marvels--the "Torture Museum" at Wisconsin Dells, the nightlong thunderstorms (during which the skies did turn red and streaks of lightning bisected the dark), the town of Fargo (in the midst of a blinding rainstorm--just what I would have hoped for), the "recreated" trading post of Fort Union (with its oh-so-fake wigwams situated stiffly in front of the post), seeing buffaloes run across the plain (oh-so-"Western")and crossing the continental divide.
The scenes of natural beauty which were pretty breathtaking as well--dry, dusty towns shifted to rocky mountains and evergreen trees with West Glacier National Park as a highlight, especially when the train went through tall mountain ranges with the river far down below. Except for the differences in the types of trees, it was almost like being back home in Nepal. Empire-building was actually an experience of homesickness, as the mountains, rivers and the high waterfalls were rather similar to the physical geography of home.
At this time, I would like to do a bit of advertising for Amtrak and highly recommend their "Trails and Rails" programme. This programme, where wildlife rangers rode on the train and explained about historical and natural heritage of the part of the country we passed through, was an excellent source of information and entertainment. However, as is usual in modern retellings of history, the stories about "Empire-building" that were actually told were heavily "sanitised"--not much mention was made of diseases, deaths and dodgy dealings with difference.
Then, after nearly 2 days of passing through the Northern Part of the United States, the train was just leaving the mountains, the rain stopped and there appeared a rainbow.*** It was a time to glory in the successful trip out West, in having survived a gruelling trek and it was a time to be thankful for the Empire Builder. Yes, I do see the irony in typing that but I shall do so anyway.
Next post--teaching and eating (in the main mess) and living with the students I am teaching. Seeing them at mealtimes, chatting to them on the buses as we go on trips and then teaching them "in class". Blurring of boundaries, as it were. An example: today's discussion in class, in between talking about international law and genocide, was about which of the TA's was the "hottest". How to draw lines when, on the one hand you are "hanging out" with them (eating and going on trips) and, on the other, are teaching them? Stay tuned for my reflections.
* This is a convoluted way of telling yous that you can follow my (train)trek across the United States by checking out
this map. I went from Washington DC to Chicago to Glacier National Park to Portland to Berkeley. I shall remain in Berkeley until mid-August and then will make my way back across the country. I've not yet decided
that route but I shall be taking the train...again.
** LilSis1 would probably tell you this is because of "reading far too many Louis L'Amour books when younger". Also, all Nepalis are frustrated Empire builders at heart. If only we had but world enough and time, we say as we pine for our (non) Empire-building pasts (though Berkeley, California folks' views of Nepal (and Nepalis) seem to be more along the "free love" version of Marvell than the Empire-building version Nepalis usually go for).
*** I kid you not. I couldn't make this up if I tried. There was a proper, shiny rainbow. If I'd seen this scene in a film, I'd have groaned at its utter cheesiness. But, it did happen. This is not to say I shan't groan at similar scenes in future films.
Labels: homesickness, teaching (and learning), waiting for Clint to ride up on his horse, way out west
