On the discussion class

Today is the first day of teaching for me at my new university and as I am plunged back into the world I find myself reading articles on the Intatweb about how to give effective lectures ten minutes before I start lecturing (as if this will somehow help!) So I revisited “On The Discussion Class”:http://teaching.uchicago.edu/tutorial/renfield.shtml by James Redfield, which is actually about the joys of lecturing. This is one of my favorite essays on teaching of all time. It works for me mostly because I am a product of the University of Chicago and Hyde Park, although not nearly to the same degree that Redfield is (he is Robert’s son). But I also love the deeply learned, eloquent, and very humble tone of it, and the deep sensitivity and amount of thought that gets packed into what is, after all, a very short piece.

Alex Golub is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He studies mining and petroleum development in Papua New Guinea, as well as American culture in to the online game World of Warcraft. You can contact him at rex@savageminds.org