Leveraging Opinion & Belief: Why Should They Care?

Let me start by saying this: as an adjunct instructor for psychology and sociology at Yavapai College, I have the opportunity to teach really interesting subjects.  I know, I know.  You have a particular affinity for your own field(s), too.  In fact, for most of the instructors and professors I know, the path to academia looked a little more like this:

Than like this:

Still, I'll make no secret of the fact I think my own subjects are the best, and I'll tell you why: every single student in every one of my classes has some level of personal experience with the subject material.  Every student developed in the womb, was born, and - for better or for worse - grew up in some sort of family system.  Each of them has interest in sex and sexuality (though their levels of knowledge and experience in this area vary wildly).  I have yet to meet a student who hasn't known someone who died or loved someone who has a mental illness.  And almost all of them have wondered at some point how anyone could possibly care enough about high school sports to kidnap a rival's beloved mascot.  Because my fields focus on the scientific study of human behavior - our development, motivations, beliefs, and interactions, as well as how we perceive and organize the world around us - what students learn in my classes exists on more than just a theoretical level.

In order to get students to recognize the truth of this statement, somewhere along the line I realized I could capitalize on their natural tendency to offer their opinions and beliefs when presented with a given topic.  Every instructor has had the frustrating experience of trying to reach the odd obdurate individual who is overly wedded to his or her preexisting belief system.  But the fact most students have their own thoughts and opinions about the material presented in your course doesn't always have to be a bad thing!  As an instructor, you can actually use this reality to your advantage.

I have found this is particularly true of online students, who are often fairly tech-saavy and come into the online classroom with a fair amount of experience stating and defending their thoughts on every online forum from Facebook to Popular Science.  The key, obviously, is to demand a higher level of rigor than those students are used to, and to require their sources include (or, perhaps, are confined to) the textbook and/or articles you've assigned for the course in which they're enrolled.

Here are some ways in which I've used this phenomenon in my classes:

• Rather than asking students to discuss which individuals are most at risk for HIV/AIDS and why, I'll ask them to take a position on the FDA's banning of men who have had sex with men from donating blood in the United States, and to defend their position using sources provided in the class.

• Instead of requiring students to describe the impact of age-related changes to vision and reaction times, I'll have them propose laws regarding older drivers.  Or for that matter, younger drivers.

• Should teens have to do service-learning to graduate from high school?  Should parents be prohibited from spanking their children?  What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of Little League baseball for kids?  If it was your job to revise standardized testing, how would you evaluate the quality and effectiveness of public schools?  If you could wave a magic wand and everyone would make the same amount of money for full-time work, how difficult would it be to recruit doctors and other professions that require considerable educational and cognitive investment?

Students care about these types of questions.  Often, they have already thought about the issues.  My husband, Jason, recently encountered an English 101 student who stated that since she'd posted an adequate result on her AIMS test in the 10th grade, she hadn't had any quality composition instruction since.  Can you imagine the thoughts she might be able to offer on how to revise standardized testing?  And that's just one example!

This approach has two added benefits.  The first, obviously, is for the instructor.  While I do use some easily-graded measures like true-false, fill-in-the-blank, or multiple-choice questions, I really feel that essay and short answer are where it's at.  Supposedly it was Einstein who said something to the extent of, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."  I like essay as a tool for assessing student learning.  But let's face it: reading and grading 48 essay responses comparing and contrasting the theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky can feel downright painful by the time you're reaching the end.  On the other hand, reading the same number of nuanced arguments about MSM blood donations is a lot more engaging for the instructor.

The other benefit is for the student.  Although I'm bound to have my own feelings and opinions about what they write (HIV testing has, after all, improved to the point where many nations allow MSM to donate blood under certain conditions), no matter which answer a student gives, I'm going to argue with it when I provide feedback.  If there's anything I want students to get out of their college education, it is the understanding that the world around them exists in a thousand shades of gray.

And ultimately, I'm far more worried about the students who come out of a classroom feeling like they've mastered the course concepts than the ones who come out feeling like they've been left with more questions than answers.

Against All Odds: Protecting the Liberal Arts

It's pretty much the worst-kept secret in higher education: the liberal arts are in trouble.  On a national scale, rhetoric and emphasis with regard to higher education have been increasingly focused on college and university study as a means to an end - a better job, a higher salary, a greater degree of self-sufficiency and a lesser degree of dependence on social welfare programs.  Recently, even the President of the United States has been pitching the idea of making college more affordable, in part by reducing the length of time it takes to complete a degree.

While I am reasonably confident all college instructors would like to see higher education within the financial reach of every American regardless of income, race, or gender, those of us in the liberal arts are acutely and painfully aware of which "fat" gets trimmed when it comes time to pull out the cleaver.

It's hard to argue with the idea that many careers and trades do not require a sophisticated understanding of traditional college subjects outside the field.  But it's equally hard to argue with this: even if the post-college career doesn't require it, the college graduate does!

There are reasons for this.  Perhaps most obvious is that the integrity of higher education in general is important.  A college graduate should not only be prepared to enter his or her field, he or she should also be able to uphold the expectations of a "person who has attended college".  If I were an employer hiring a college graduate, I would expect this potential hiree to be able to describe the significance of the Parthenon, give me the gist of theories developed by Freud and Marx, and understand the basics of human cell biology.  In addition, I would anticipate she or he would have the ability to write reports clearly and coherently, make compelling arguments, and correctly cite reliable sources.  A college education should - nay, must - mean something beyond being able to perform a specific job, else we could enroll our kids in a trade program at ten and be done with it.

Positive civic involvement and good public policy depend on both an educated populous and policy-makers whose backgrounds include the liberal arts.  An understanding of history, philosophy, and rhetoric is essential when it comes to developing, selling, and implementing effective public policy, not to mention the ability to evaluate and apply research evidence!  If college is expensive, how much more money have we spent putting into place programs and policies that were later found to be ineffective or even counterproductive (and were often unsupported by research in the first place)?  Eschewing evidence-based interventions was precisely what resulted in such gems as abstinence-only education and the No Child Left Behind Act.

Finally, there's a question of values at stake here.  Economic self-sufficiency and increased social mobility are not the only reasons to go to college.  What about learning for the sake of learning?  What about expanding your understanding of the world?  What about pursuing your interests?  What about the fact that a liberal arts background could potentially make you better at just about any job you might wish to pursue?  Financial success may be among Americans' core values, but it's not the only thing that matters (and we liberal arts adjuncts know that better than anyone).  When liberal arts are part of a core curriculum, college can be an opportunity for students to explore those areas of interest and learning while simultaneously developing the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need in order to achieve their economic and career goals.

So the liberal arts are important, and as teachers, we should be fighting like hell to protect them, even when the battle increasingly appears to be a losing one.  And while engaging in that fight publicly, there's also a subversive path we should be taking at the same time, which relies on one universal truth: 

Teaching about anything is an opportunity to teach about everything.

No matter what you teach, you can incorporate all types of topics and subjects.

When lecturing about economic systems with one of my classes, I often use Henrietta Lacks as an example.  While her case allows me to discuss the implications of capitalism (with regard to biological material), it also gives me leeway to talk about so much more, including gender, race, class, medical ethics, families, sexuality, and history.  When talking about how to conduct research, I often use the example of Ignaz Semmelweis to illustrate why research is so important... and in the process, we can talk about germ theory, history, and social psychology. My husband, Jason Whitesitt, a Professor of English and Humanities at Yavapai, also adheres to this philosophy, utilizing units on body modification, media, and food ethics to teach composition and rhetoric.

Now, he and I might not be ideal candidates for the type of subversive behavior I'm describing here, because we both teach courses that already fall under the liberal arts umbrella.  I'm certain it's considerably more difficult for a welding or agriculture instructor to include liberal arts topics in their lectures (although I have no doubt it can be done).  But the liberal arts aren't going to disappear entirely.  Nursing students will always need to take psychology; business students will always need a composition class.

The real danger is this: students are increasingly at risk of getting a mouthful of liberal arts in their college experience, instead of the three-course meal that they need and deserve.  Which means as teachers, it becomes more important each year that we make it a point to offer every bite we can, at every opportunity we can find.