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Columns::January 13, 2003
$1 million gift will establish endowed chair in public policy
$6.7 million NSF grant funds study of land-use change in southern Applachian Mountains
Adam Cureton is UGA’s newest Rhodes Scholar
Woodruff, Honors Program student, named one of 40 Marshall Scholars
Marine talk
State, nation econmic forecast: Still raining
IRP considers changes in operational procedures
Full of beans
Campus Closeup
Update: Private Giving
Newsmakers
Campus News
Forum essay
A personal philosophy of teaching
By Pamela B. Kleiber
This essay was originally written for UGA’s Teaching Academy, which Kleiber joined this year.
Teaching and learning are among the most personal of activities. When I say someone has taught me something or I learned something from a person, trust and respect are implicit. Appreciation and affection also accompany such an attribution. I was taught at a very early age that it is at least as important to be discriminating about what we take into our minds as into our bodies. This is essentially a matter of critical thinking.
The most important teaching I do is to model and teach an appreciation for dialogue, deliberation, reflection, development of critical thinking skills and public judgment. While I have developed an appreciation for and skills in these approaches throughout my life, my association with the Kettering Foundation has been particularly useful in helping me apply these approaches to the world of ill-defined problems. I aspire to share these approaches with colleagues and students.
When our hearts and minds are open, we are free to learn from those whom we hold in high regard and who hold us in high regard. When people have the good fortune to learn liberally in the sense of free and full, I believe we have the responsibility to teach, formally and informally. People who profess to teach only in the classroom limit their sphere of influence. I have had the good fortune to learn from and teach with faculty and students with whom I feel a strong sense of shared responsibility. This is true in both the formal context of the classroom and the informal context of mentoring.
I did not set out in life to teach. My teachers have made a teacher out of me. They have put books, musical instruments, microscopes and telescopes in my hands and put me in teaching situations, and then they have taken the time to ask me about the experience. I teach because I have learned from extraordinary people, some of whom are members of the University of Georgia Teaching Academy. I have found what begins as a relationship between two people, centered on teaching and learning, naturally extends to others in the course of life. The smallest unit of two combines with others to develop communities of scholars, overlapping, intersecting, and always creating learning.
Margaret Meade is quoted as saying, “Never underestimate the power of a small group of individuals to change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” In the face of threats to civilization as we know it and the freedom to learn and teach freely, it becomes more critical than ever to contribute to a greater understanding of the world through teaching. As I teach, I learn and learn to teach.
Teaching is context-dependent and requires the teacher to take responsibility for the environment, one that permits learning by allowing the freedom of expression of ideas to understand prejudices, biases, assumptions and limitations of our underlying natural, but unlearned, attitudes. My decade-long relationship as an associate with the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forum Network has provided me with excellent experience and training for addressing these issues.
As a qualitative researcher educated in the humanities and trained in the social sciences, I am motivated as a teacher to promote appreciation for interdisciplinary approaches to study, diversity of perspectives and consideration of ill-defined problems that face our world. As associate director of the Honors Program with responsibility for the UGA Faculty Mentor Program, I have the enjoyable task of inviting faculty to mentor first-year Honors students. The Teaching Academy will certainly
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Pam Kleiber
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provide an especially good place to find such faculty. And as coordinator of the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, I hope to increase awareness among members of the Academy of the potential of research as a context for teaching and mentoring undergraduates.
Finally, I look forward to developing a collegial relationship with the interdisciplinary community of scholars who are members of the UGA Teaching Academy in the interest of contributing to improved teaching and learning on campus and beyond.
Pamela B. Kleiber is associate director of the Honors Program at UGA.
FORUM GUIDELINES
To encourage discussion on issues affecting the university and higher education in general, the Forum section appears periodically in Columns. Faculty, staff, administrators and researchers associated with the university are invited to submit essays and respond to previous essays.
A committee appointed by University Council and Staff Council reviews submissions to determine which are of greatest interest to the university community. Faculty members of the Forum review committee for 2002-2003 are Jonathan Evans (English), Mary Frasier (education) and J. Scott Shaw (physics and astronomy). Staff representative is Melanie Andrews (legal affairs).
Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the UGA administration or the review committee. Articles will be edited to conform with the Associated Press and the UGA stylebooks.
Guidelines for submissions
• Topics should be related to issues in higher education.
• Essays should have broad appeal in the university community.
• Essays should be no longer than 700 words.
• Send essays to Beth Roberts (columns@uga.edu; News Service, A-205 Stegeman Coliseum).
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