Focus on the Public Discourse

Image credit: Center for Human Studies at George Mason University

One of the biggest challenges facing people who teach history, public policy, and social science is that many of our students aren't really following the news in any systematic way.

When I ask students how they keep up with current events, most give me blank stares. Those who do follow current events usually admit that most of what they know comes from the introductory monologues of  late night television, or from comedic entertainment, such as Jon Stewart or the Colbert Report.

Many schools require that their social policy courses include detailed analysis of a political issue or a particular piece of legislation. I think this is a bit too ambitious and prevents us from seizing an opportunity to give students an academic experience that will really be meaningful to them, and is more likely to stay with them for the rest of their lives.

It seems to me that our objective in these courses should be introduce students to the world of current events, and sources one uses to weigh and consider historical developments. I think it is a waste of time to have students write complicated policy papers if they haven't first had the opportunity to discover and appreciate the public discourse surrounding those policies and how they are affected by all of this.

I believe we are doing well if, during the course of a semester, we teach students how to find, interpret, and evaluate information content in newspapers and over the internet. An informed and intelligent citizenry begins with being aware of the public discourse, and being in a position where they can contrast and compare opinions, and evaluate how policy makers and "talking heads" arrived at their particular point-of-view.

Immersing students in news sources and news content, before moving on to more complicated policy papers, is a demanding task and should not be lightly dismissed. If students become thoroughly familiar with public policy discourse in non-academic and non-specialist publications they will develop a sense of what it will take for them to meaningfully contribute to, and influence, public opinion when they become professionals.

One step at a time. Save the policy analysis papers for more advanced courses. Our first task is to expose students to the world of current events and the discourse of public opinion. In fact, our first task is to fire their imaginations about these things. Our first task is to create assignments that immerse students in the world of blogs, newspapers, magazines, and other popular media so that they begin to evaluate the content of these sources in creative and critical ways.  This will help them to develop skills that will more likely be meaningful to them for the rest of their lives.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Project-Based Instruction

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Project-Based Instruction

For students in my history and social work classes I am increasingly using project-based instruction. The idea behind project-based instruction is that students now have access to a plethora of information over the internet. Although it is still important for instructors to help students gather, filter and evaluation information, the biggest challenge is no longer getting access to information, but what students will do with that information once they get it.

In addition to having greater access to greater amounts of information, everyone now has the power to produce and publish content, and to distribute it to the general public. This means that students no longer have to be merely consumers of knowledge, they now have it within their power to become producers of new information and to add to the overall body of knowledge. This is another  good reason for project-based instruction. Students who have taken the time and effort to read the literature on their topic, and to follow the discourse on it, will be in a position to add their voice, in meaningful ways, to topics they are interested in.

A third reason for using project-based instruction is that teaching is the best way to learn. When we teach others what we have studied, we learn to anticipate questions that others might have. We also learn how to put our thoughts into words and express those thoughts in a way that makes sense to others. Teaching what we have studied helps us to identify the gaps in our knowledge so that we can strengthen areas where we are weak. Project-based instruction turns students into teachers, which deepens their base of knowledge and their capacity to learn.

Project-based learning is important for future professionals. Increasingly professionals are discovering the benefits of blogging in order to reach more clients, customers and constituents. The most successful blogs and websites are not self-promotional; they focus on sharing information for free in order to build trust and credibility. Students, and even seasoned professionals, who develop the habit of blogging and creating websites to share information, will find that they have acquired a valuable tool for social networking, not only online, but also in their immediate environment.

One other thing; as a historian I am keenly aware of how difficult it is to re-construct much of  history because so few people, other than the elites, left records of their thoughts and experiences. Social science also tends to speak for populations, rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. Many people have been put in the position of being consumers of other people's interpretation of their lives and experiences, rather than having the power to generate their own accounts and interpretations. Project-based learning has the potential of getting more and more people in the habit of carefully formulating their thoughts so that their voices will be heard, remembered, and taken seriously in the public arena.

Using a Journal to Track Your Learning Process

The projects that I have my students work on result in "artifacts of learning," in other words, the evidence of their learning is in what they have produced by the end of the course. Usually this takes the form of creating and maintaining a public blog or a website. There is also a corresponding assignment, such as maintaining a journal, to document what they are learning as they work on their project for the course. Typically, journaling will focus on how they came across their sources, how they selected them, and choices they had to make about how to interpret these sources.

The early part of the journal will typically discuss what it is they think they know about the topic, and what they expect to find in their research. As they work on their project for awhile, the journal will begin to discuss some of the surprises, mistakes or difficulties they have encountered along the way. The final chapters of the journal should discuss what they have learned from the whole process.

Project-based instruction, which combines the process of creating an artifact of learning with the activity of keeping a self-reflective journal, can be a powerful way for students to learn by teaching and increase students' awareness of their process of learning. This empowers students to take ownership of their process of learning and contribute to the overall body of knowledge for others to sift through, evaluate and use in the future.

See also: How Teachers Teach and Students Learn , The Four Arrows of Project-Based Learning and Wikis, Discussion Boards, Journals, and Blogs

C. Matthew Hawkins

Social Work: What's In It For Me?

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I am reminded that there are many motives for entering the social work profession. If you ask a person why they became a social worker they will usually say, "because I wanted to help other people," but a student addressed an interesting question to our class the other day: "Did you enter social work mostly to help other people (maximize their potential) or did you do it to (actualize) yourself?"

It was a good question. I can hear the chorus of denials from many social workers, that they are thoroughly altruistic and there is nothing in it for themselves in the least. I'm not sure that this is the healthiest way to think about social work.

It's fairly obvious that most social workers don't want to come off as being someone who promotes themselves at the expense of others -- or they don't want to acknowledge it if this is what they are doing. A social worker would violate the code of ethics if they deliberately fostered client dependency, and if their driving motivation was to boost their own self-esteem, by becoming important in someone else's eyes. But there is another form of self-interest that is not dysfunctional -- in fact, one can argue that it is essential in order to be a good social worker; the quality of solidarity with the human condition -- particularly in their loneliness and suffering. It's easy to share their joys; the real test is whether or not we have time for them when they are suffering.

I am reminded of a poster I saw in a soup kitchen once. I was working as a volunteer; the poster quoted Lilla Watson, "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because you understand that your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." We work for the liberation of others, not out of pity or condescension, but because we are all bound up together in this struggle for a better life.

When we acknowledge that our liberation is bound to the liberation of other people -- and this liberation can be psychological, spiritual, emotional, economic, or political -- then this would be a healthy form of self-interest.

Pope Benedict, XVI argued, in his encyclical on Love, that when one is afraid, or feels vulnerable, that is not a good time to turn inward in a vain attempt to protect oneself. The cure for fear and weakness is to give yourself, selflessly, to others. The cure for fear and weakness is to reach out, to transcend yourself.

A healthy sense of self-interest, for the social worker, would occur when their practice links them to a larger community rather than continuing to live in fear and isolation, cut off from the experiences of the rest of humanity.

C. Matthew Hawkins