I know there was a classroom where the professor was good at the subject
and the students were encouraged to apply the knowledge they learned in the
classroom into their career goals.
Professor John Andrew Philip was the history professor who taught the
class “The Origin of the Modern World” for several years in UCR. When I took his class in the early 1990s, he
said, “This is the one-hundred-and forty-seventh time that I address this same
old lecture”. His classroom was very
big, which held 200 students in the classroom.
When he came to the front of the classroom, he had nothing—but a very
small microphone stick on the front-top of his T-shirt. He wore shorts most of the time. Usually, he would pick up a chalk from the
bottom edge of the blackboard. Then he
would begin his lectures. Usually, he
would be jumping up and down, from the left to the right, as he drew on the
board. He paused where the lecture needed a break to catch the students’
attention, or to give the students a brief time to think its contents. He pointed out the significance of the
events, and he pointed out how one event was connected to the other events. His lecture was excellent, well organized
and well written in his mind. If I had
to find the role of Western Civilization in the World History by myself, I
would have to study at least one history book whose thickness would be as much
as a dictionary. But then, Professor
Philip had finished the significance of the Western History in just a few
hours.
Every Tuesday, there were the separate small classrooms to help students
to learn. The students wouldn’t get
penalties if they did not go to the discussion sections. The midterm and the final were the written
essays. As I know, he had four teaching
assistants to help him grade the essays.
But the students could find him and talk to him in his office hours. There were 5 questions on my each two
exams. The students only had to choose
two out of the five questions for answering the essays. The question allowed the students to develop
their own ideas based on their own interests, or on their own knowledge. For example, the questions were like, “what
is the Monroe Doctrine.” Or,” what is the link between the US revolution war
and the European history?” Questions
like these helped the students to develop the critical thinking, writing
skills, and their own ideas. “As a
professor of the university”, he once said, “I seem to have no works at all,
but walking on the campus and address the same old lectures every
quarter”. From my description, one can
see the professor was good at his subject, and the students were given chances
to teach a specific subject that related to his or her career goal.
But now the professors are less helpful to the students. As I took the class, “The US Since 1875”, in
Cal State San Bernardino in Spring 2002, in the first two weeks, Dr. Robert
McCoy taught the class, on the topic “right after the reconstruction”. Two weeks later, Dr. John Master taught the
class, on the topic “the 1920s”. Then Dr. Joyce Hanson taught “the 1930s and
the depression Years”. And the Dr. John
Master came back to teach the “World War Second” the rest of the US history.
The lecture as a whole was disconnected and inconsistent. I had to spend a long-hours-self-study
outside of the classroom every day. The
midterm and the final were 50 multiple choices, no essay, and period. The
classroom was like Professor Philip’s whom I had with in UCR years ago, which
classroom held about 200 students, also.
I was by fortune passed the class.
To the other students, I believe, the students must be disappointed to
take the class because they cannot learn from the lectures.
Why not the history department of CSUSB pays a little more to any single
professor of these three, and letting him or her to address a consistent
lecture? I think the problem is on the
money. The department would not spend
the money on paying more to the teachers.
And the results are: the anguish from the professors whom were assigned
to teach the class, and the wasting time form the students who came to the
class for help. Simply paying more to
the professors can solve the current embarrassing situation in the history
department in CSUSB. But it costs the
money!