THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHIES

Carl James Grindley

Today, teaching statements, or teaching philosophies are the stuff that dossiers and portfolios are made on. Lamentably, however, a great many such statements appear to be nothing more substantial than hastily constructed busy-work that through a surfeit of online guides have become more and more formulaic, gradually removing the true personality of the person behind the desk, and replacing it with a blueprint of the desk itself. Without resorting too strenuously to scholarship on the matter, it is reasonable to suggest that the subject is at once vexing, vague and of tremendous importance to people’s potential and present careers. As Gabriela Montell noted back in 2003:

The problem, some professors say, is there’s an absence of criteria about what constitutes a good teaching statement, not to mention good teaching. In fact, few professors were able to give concrete examples of what they considered a bad statement, but most said they knew one when they saw it. (n.page)

Similarly, Nancy Van Note Chism mused:

When asked to write a statement on their philosophy of teaching, many college teachers react in the same way as professionals, athletes, or artists might if asked to articulate their goals and how to achieve them: “Why should I spend time writing this down? Why can’t I just do it?” For action oriented individuals, the request to write down one’s philosophy is not only mildly irritating, but causes some anxiety about where to begin. Just what is meant by a philosophy of teaching anyway? (1)

Along the same line of reasoning, Daniel Pratt, writing for the AAUP lamented:

As I watch the mounting pressure on faculty members to produce philosophy of teaching statements, I see strategies ranging from genuine reflection on commitments that clarify and justify specific educational aims and means, to simple borrowing of ideas and texts from available samples and sites. For those involved in the review of teaching, it may be difficult to discern the genuine from the contrived, the sophisticated from the naive, or the profound from the prosaic unless we move philosophy of teaching statements from the periphery to the center of the review process. If such documents continue to be peripheral, faculty will have little incentive to opt for the genuine rather than the borrowed as they craft their own statements. (n.page)

Currently, there are some 960 PDFs of individual teaching statements or guides to writing teaching statements posted on sites with the .edu extension. Most are wracked with banality or link to one another (Indiana, for example, sends people to Duquesne, The University of Minnesota, The University of Michigan, and The University of Georgia, (http://www.indiana.edu/~harweb/teaching/Article%202.pdf); whereas The University of Washington directs its graduate student traffic to Ohio State, The University of Texas at El Paso, and The University of California at Berkeley (http://careers.washington.edu/sites/default/files/all/editors/docs/gradstudents/Academic_Jobs_Teaching_Statements.pdf ... although two of those links are indeed broken). Even Columbia uses examples from Tulane, Wake Forest, The University of Minnesota and Ohio State (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/tat/pdfs/ teaching%20statement.pdf).

On the surface, any so-called practical advice appears to be too broad actually to be practical. The University of Florida, for example, advises its product to craft statements that “help employers ‘see’ you in the classroom and work to clarify your views of teaching and learning while documenting evidence of your successes and potential” (http://www.crc.ufl.edu/assets/files/guides/GRADteachingstatement. pdf). Even more meaningless is Adam Chapnick’s advice that:

There is no style that suits everyone, but there is almost certainly one that will make you more comfortable. And while there is no measurable way to know when you have got it ‘right,’ in my experience, you will know it when you see it! (5)

Despite the problems with the philosophy of creating a philosophy of teaching, I remain convinced that such documents have a sound place in a portfolio, if, that is, they move away from the formulaic and more towards the personal reflection. Philosophies of teaching, at least in the context of reappointment and promotion, are typically read by broad faculty committees, whose members come from divergent fields. Mathematicians read the portfolios of Allied Health faculty, English professors review the inner workings of the Biologist’s mind. With the growth of our college, it is becoming more and more likely that reappointment, tenure and promotion votes will be cast by faculty members who have met the candidate but infrequently, whose dealings with a prospective lifetime colleague might amount to no more than a few hours here and there in a large committee meeting. With this in mind, the teaching statement, at least as it has been envisioned in our portfolios, takes on a very important task: that of introducing and personalizing one voice out of many. I do not think that this concept has gone unnoticed.

Conversely, something about the portfolio process—introduced at Hostos nearly a decade ago by then Provost Daisy Cocco de Filippis—caught on with those senior faculty whose duty it was to review the work of the untenured. Hostos has always had a culture of sharing experiences, but with the advent of the portfolio system, I think that senior faculty began to reflect on their careers, on their vocations, in ways that have complimented the types of reflections made by their junior colleagues.

I still recall, the thoughts that went on in my mind when I crafted my own statement. In retrospect—and it is posted online in my ePortfolio—it is dismal, as if written by a machine whose only function was to design other machines. If I were to rewrite it today—and that is something I will be doing after reading the statements printed in this edition of Touchstone—I would make it far more personal.

Many of our writers this year talk about place. Professors Lundberg, Morales, Phillips and Rodriguez tie their most formative pedagogical moments to specific locations—Sweden, Cuba, the hills of upstate New York... To me, this sense of place was particularly strong in the statements crafted by Professor Phillips who dropped me off “under the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains.” In that I agree. My approach to teaching is fixed inviolate to the rhythms and cadences of Canada’s pacific coast, where the relentless tides and the ceaseless rains gave one a sense of consistency, so when I was finally ready to attend a university, I fell into my classes as if they were as natural a part of the landscape as the giant cedars and firs. I doubt I could have made the transition from non-student to student in any other environment.

I think that if I were forced to chose just one emotion that I could take from the statements of professors Morales and Rodriguez—who place their most defining moments in Puerto Rico and Cuba respecitvely—it would be joy. It is a little acknowledged truism that there is tremendous joy in both teaching and in witnessing others learn. Both of these experiences come out so clearly in the words of these two remarkable professors, that I am ashamed to admit that my first experience in front of a class was that of terror, that some mistake had been made when I was flung in front of my first composition class as a twenty-something year old teaching assistant. I wish that I could have had the incredible pleasure that both professor Morales and Rodriguez describe—even to this day, I am wracked with anxiety before class, terrified that someone will march in and say that I do not belong.

Professor Laskin does an admirable duty in framing her approach in terms of a transition from one way of life to another. This is, of course, something we have all experienced, if just in the gradual transition from one side of the classroom to the other. Professor Laskin frankly discusses her life as an English PhD, working as an adjunct. As a college, we are all the richer for her choice in leaving the English classroom for the library. She has probably interacted with more students in a term that I will in a decade. If there is anything that reading these statements does, it is to make one reflect with humility on the vast contributions of our senior colleagues. Professors Cohen and Lundberg head towards the philosophical, with Professor Cohen recognizing the ‘sacred’ role that we play in leading our students towards both a lifelong passion for learning and engagement in the vast enterprise that is this nation and this planet. Professor Lundberg is at once more reliant on specific philosophies but also cognizant of the time and place wherein her experiences were consolidated.

The following statements are models of their kind. Far more useful to junior faculty than anything one will find interlinked on the web and useful as well to senior faculty in that these statements are true reflections of the very real humans who crafted them.

WORKS CITED

Chapnick, Adam. “How to Write a Philosophy of Teaching and Learning Statement.” Philosophy of Teaching Statements: Examples and Tips on How to Write a Teaching Philosophy Statement. Ed. Mary Bart. Madison, WI: Magna, 2009.

Chism, Nancy. “Developing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement.” Essays on Teaching Excellence: Toward the Best in the Academy. Ed. K.H. Gillespie. POD Network: A Publication of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education. 1997-98.

Montell, Gabriela. “What’s Your Philosophy on Teaching, and Does it Matter?” Chronicle Careers. The Chronicle of Higher Education (27 March 2003): n.page. Web. 16 May 2012.< http://chronicle.com/jobs/2003/03/2003032701c. htm>

Pratt, Daniel D. “Personal Philosophies of Teaching: A False Promise?” Academe

91.1 (January-February 2005): n.page. Web. 16 May 2012. <http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2005/JF/Feat/pratt.htm>