I am the teacher of athletes,
He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
–Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” (1855)

Walt Whitman has made an interesting resurgence within my research and teaching practice lately. And, it would seem remiss not to mention that my main focus for this post links to my own concerns pertaining to the current upheaval that marks American society. As my mind has been blurred these past few months by the public figures, national conflicts, and media flurries that have skewed the foundations of American democracy, Whitman’s philosophies remain resolute in my consciousness. And, I wonder, what might it mean to be a “teacher of athletes,” as proposed by Whitman in the lines above? He seems to be describing a pedagogical and democratic imperative that calls for an uneven exchange of altruism: teachers are only as good as what they offer to and model for their students. The athletic endeavors of Whitman’s educators seem to model key tenets of American character which then become heightened by the possibilities and training of their “student-athletes,” opening up what Whitman might call the nation’s potential for vast “democratic vistas.” This metaphor expresses the life-blood that connects teacher-to-student, allowing educators to live within the “wider-breasts” that grow from their example.

Whitman embodies an altruism that informs the most important modeling done within the classroom: the modeling of our own civic responsibilities as American citizens. From his example, I am concerned with how civic responsibility must become a vital part of  humanities and STEM curricula within a nation currently undone by increasing political polarization and social inequality. Attempting to define civic responsibility can be a daunting task in itself: the term evokes notions of the complementary ideas of citizenship, social accountability, civic engagement, and community involvement. However, as Diana E. Hess and Paula McAvoy have shown in their book The Political Classroom (2014), civic education is a key aspect of teaching students how to react to and survive in a world filled with controversy and conflict; students must be prepared for participation within a democracy by engaging in tense, political discussions: sorting through complex arguments, citing evidence for their claims, and being exposed to multiple sides of a debate (xv). Ideological diversity matters, and this means teaching students to speak across political and cultural lines. This article in the Atlantic from November 10, 2016 expands upon our current political situation, emphasizing the need for a stronger reliance on democratic and civic learning in secondary and higher education. And, Hess and McAvoy point to the growing necessity of educators who make well-informed decisions when teaching controversial issues in often controversial spaces.

Creating Tense and Democratic Discussion

In obvious ways, the basic structure of a Socratic seminar represents the most straightforward way to spark tense discussion while scaffolding multiple viewpoints and creating opportunities for students to speak. However, these seminars can become ineffective if they are primarily teacher-led or dominated by very talkative and attention-seeking students. It’s important to create clearly defined lines that regulate talking and listening until students learn how to converse on their own. I also build-up to the autonomous student-run seminar which follows only after students have conversed and interacted through a number of small and large group activities.

Practicing and generating complex questions becomes an important part of this process. For example, after teaching Sherman Alexie’s short vignette “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore,”  I model various types of questions before students in my expository writing class write their own. Students’ questions are also initially created using Bloom’s Taxonomy, and students use a verb list to develop questions which they can later use in a seminar while simultaneously becoming acclimated with Bloom’s hierarchy of cognition.  This helps students become more active and informed within the learning process in general, while examining ways to ask and answer complex levels of inquiry.

Moreover, in the past, when teaching a novel that deals with controversial issues such as the cloning and bioethics which underlie Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2006), or the racism and prejudice which characterize Sherman Alexie’s books The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993) and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), I begin with a discussion of ethics in general, so that students can think about how they make moral, informed decisions over controversial issues. Joan Didion’s “On Morality” sparks discussion on this topic; and, students are often surprised to learn how self-serving their moral decisions are. Also, discussing Didion’s text in class has helped me to shift the conversation, allowing students to think about the needs of the community instead of their own needs.

Educators Who Are Actual Athletes

Creating productive, controversial spaces in the classroom, also, only really covers half of civic and democratic education: the real-life models who use their lives to educate others and govern themselves provide the most valuable models of effective educators.  As Henry David Thoreau iterates in “Civil Disobedience” (1849) : “That government is best, governs least,” reminding us that we all have a responsibility to make sound decisions which stress the democratic tenets of our nation.

Service learning can be one of the most effective ways to create opportunities for civic engagement. While it may not always seem convenient to create a service learning project within your own classroom, it is pretty simple to communicate to students how they can get involved in your community and school environment. Stony Brook has a Community Service and Service Learning webpage where students can easily learn about ways to volunteer and get involved.

Finally, the real-life modeling that coheres teacher to real-life citizen can best be illustrated by two graduate students in Stony Brook’s English Department this past summer which deserves a mention here. Caity Swanson and David Rodriguez have literally and figuratively embodied what it means to be Whitman’s “teacher of athletes”; and, as instructors in Stony Brook’s English Department, they have portrayed their own athletic and pedagogical prowess: they biked from Brooklyn, New York to Detroit, Michigan to speak at the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) conference: this is a 750-mile bike ride completed by two amateur riders (no offense guys). Yet, Caity and David are practicing what they preach, and have stood as examples in the English Department to promote environmental awareness while moving outside of pretentious titles.  For their students, they are living examples of instructors who are actively engaged in the issues which drive their research and teaching both inside and outside of the classroom. So like Walt Whitman, their example is a good reminder to perhaps rethink our teaching practices this fall.

And, it seems only natural that Mr. Whitman should get the last words here; words that will follow me this year:

I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?
I follow you whoever you are from the present hour;
My words itch at your ears till you understand them. (81)

 

 

 

 

As An Aside 

Sometimes the most difficult aspect of creating a productive political environment relates to the educational space itself.  As a bit of an aside to this post, I have listed below what I have found to be most effective.  The most valuable educators in my life have understood that the tightrope walk of education requires them to uphold certain behavioral and motivational techniques—especially while creating a space for political and controversial discussion. At the high school where I worked in Amherst, New York, we referred to these techniques through a number of catchphrases. I think about these phrases all the time in my regular teaching practice at Stony Brook.  Although some might claim that these sound clichéd, and perhaps, like “educational jargon,” they make me more aware of how to tap into my own social and empathic intelligence.  So, while not “ground-breaking,” these simple strategies remind me to constantly seek out new resources, or at the very least, they make me more aware of how to create a productive environment that allows me to model behaviors and challenge the learner. Here they are.

1.) Feeling Tone: this is the feeling in the environment encountered by the learner.  Often created by communication from the instructor that conveys levels of both personal and communal awareness within the classroom.

2.) Level of Concern: positive degree of anxiety the student feels as a result of teacher, time, material.

3.) Interest: extrinsic variable related to the focus on the learning—could be content-based or person-based.  Often related to a change of methods, reading materials, or shock within classroom.

4.) Success: internal feeling towards an achievable challenge by the learner which shows that learning is taking place.  This requires teachers to adjust the level of difficulty, or enact forms of differentiated instruction.

5.) Knowledge of Results: teacher feedback which is specific and immediate.

These concepts illustrate a fundamental reciprocity between teacher and student while also calling for students to develop their own intrinsic character and motivational techniques. So, maybe, the real-life modeling that occurs within  the classroom has the potential to create more democratically sound and educated students: students who actively create productive spaces in their own lives which model the spaces they have experienced in the classroom.

Works Cited

Hess, Diana E., and Paula McEvoy. The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education. Routledge, 2014.

Kahlenberg, Richard D. and Clifford Janey. “Is Trump’s Victory the Jump-Start Civics Education Needed?” Atlantic, 2016 Nov. 10. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/11/is-trumps-victory-the-jump-start-civics-education-needed/507293/

Thoreau, Henry David. “Civil Disobedience.” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/thoreau/civil.html

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. 1855 ed., Penguin, 1986.