Teaching
It's not about me, it's about you.
Every now and then, scholars who work as educators are asked to present their "teaching philosophy." For those working in so-called higher education, the exercise often involves careful introspection and an uncomfortable balance between understated modesty and the self-promotional imperative to document the elusive, ephemeral achievements of the classroom. It's hard to measure the surplus value created by teaching labor-power. Grants have dollar signs attached to them, and research yields books or articles that can be counted and monitored on such bizarre benchmarks as citations or the "impact factor" of the journal where the work appeared.
But success in teaching is much more difficult to measure and evaluate. Yes, of course everyone cites numerical scores on teaching evaluations. But it is widely understood that these measurements capture only one limited and particular type of success. Most students give positive evaluations for the educational experiences they enjoy; the learning challenges that have the greatest long-term value are not, in general, very enjoyable.
So the eyewitnesses at the scene of the pedagocial crime are not always able to distinguish Good Teacher from Bad Teacher in the lineup. At the end of the semester, the eyewitnesses leave, and it's hard to track them down again. The successful "teachable moments" in the classroom, therefore, are elusive and ephemeral. So when it comes time for professors to justify ourselves, we're forced to be a bit self-promotional, and to try to find some tangible evidence of success.
Not long after I joined UBC in 2002, I went through that familiar keep-your-job ritual of the academy, The Tenure Review. In the process I tried to achieve the right balance between modesty and self-promotion in my statement of teaching philosophy. Here's what I wrote:
"For many years I have been privileged with the reduced teaching assignments that come with a joint appointment with a research center. I do not regard such a privilege as a license to neglect students. I really do believe the oft-recited statement that research and teaching are two sides of the same coin, although I would add the valuable currency of advising to the metaphor. In the realm of advising through scholarship, I undertook major substantive revisions and rewrites on two student seminar papers that showed promise (Keith Brown, Julie Silva), and stewarded the manuscripts to peer-reviewed publication. In formal classroom teaching, I am committed to rigor and innovation at all levels of the curriculum, and I have enjoyed teaching advanced seminars with enrollments below a dozen, middle-division offerings with 75-100 students, as well as introductory surveys enrolling 150 to 250. By the numbers, student evaluations usually rank my overall teaching effectiveness at a mean between 4.4 and 4.6 on a 5.0 scale. I am also working to revitalize our department's Urban Studies program. My first offering of the program's fourth-year seminar coincided with intense public debate around Vancouver's bid to host the 2010 Olympics, and thus one part of the class integrated urban studies scholarship with a local case study of the bid process. We worked with a local alliance of nonprofits and other researchers on campus to develop a community survey (for which we secured ethics/human-subjects approval) administered at a series of forums organized by the city's Mayor.
At the graduate level, I have enjoyed the opportunity to undertake major revisions to the structure, literature, and theoretical emphasis of long-established courses in the graduate curriculum (urban housing and labor markets, urban systems, migration). I also developed a new course at Rutgers, focusing on contemporary developments in quantitative geographical analysis; this course allowed students to develop the methodological components of their individualized research agendas while engaging classic multivariate techniques as well as recent advances in ecological inference, expansion methods, and spatial econometrics. Most of my advising roles have been as part of the 'supporting cast' of committees, but I do take these responsibilities (and opportunities) very seriously. I am currently supervising a new doctoral student at U.B.C. (Mona Atia) who is working with me on a project supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada."
On reflection, the precarious balancing act of modesty and self-promotion was a failure: I took far too much credit for a teaching enterprise that is (or at least should be) an inherently collective, social, and cooperative activity. Teaching is the ultimate public good: in Sayerian realist philosophy, "teaching" is part of a quintessentially necessary relation, with one facet defined by its corollary: teaching presumes learning. It's a cooperative project, even when (and perhaps especially when) instructors impose a rigid, hierarchical order in the classroom. Yes, as an undergraduate, I did enjoy those courses where the instructor seemed casual and open to students' requests and recommendations on the content, schedule, and workload of the semester; I understood clearly that those instructors were giving students the opportunity to participate, partially to subvert the traditional teacher/student hierarchy. Yet I also enjoyed those "traditional," hierarchical faculty, who imposed clear protocols and requirements that we were expected to follow. Even before I knew anything about Chomsky, I vaguely understood that one of the functions of the academy is to manufacture consent -- and if we are involved in that, then we might as well try to reserve our consent to those who deserve it. I was all too happy to consent to a hierarchical learning experience in a logical, rigorous curriculum taught by first-rate scholars. Such collective consent makes the hierarchical classroom setting just as cooperative, a common production, as the laid-back, open-ended participatory seminar or workshop.
As with all other public goods, higher education is under assault. There are enormous profits to be made by re-defining the collective teaching/learning experience, to shatter the community production into individualized elements that can be standardized, routinized, commodified, and put under surveillance in the expanding audit cultures of neoliberalism. The push for privatization and marketization has been underway for some time, and in many universities it is now standard procedure to view students as customers. Did you enjoy the class? What did you like most about the class? What did you like least about the class? This insidious trend is perfect for socializing generations of students into life in the consumer society, where everything has its price. It's also in line with the established infrastructure of treating consumers as targets: the next time you feel that warm glow of self-esteem when you are asked if you enjoyed a particular class, think about the last time an unscrupulous corporation suckered you into a nasty financial transaction, all the while advertising/assuring you about their commitment to customer service, and that "your opinion is important to us." And don't forget that the corporate model of targeting consumers is now diffusing throughout the university, enabled by the simultaneous and interdependent acceleration of a) competition, b) automation, and c) cynicism. Frank Furedi (2011, p. A12), Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, relates a story that makes the point:
"A couple of years ago, I was listening to a presentation about a new and apparently sophisticated anti-plagiarism tool. Throughout the talk, the speaker boasted of her software's potential for detecting copied work and preserving 'academic integrity.'
I was a little despondent about the notion that, henceforth, the value of academic integrity would be secured through computer software. Nor did I feel reassured when, towards the end of the presentation, we were told that 'academic judgment' was still necessary to determine whether plagiarism had taken place. To me, the notion that academic judgment had become an adjunct to plagiarism detection software was even more disturbing than the association of this product with the upholding of academic security."
Even if we accept the logic of marketization, it is clear that he "product" of higher education -- the cooperative teaching/learning experience now subject to commodification -- is in crisis. In December, 2010, Maclean's surveyed the wreckage of the job market for today's new university graduates, compared to the Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and members of Generation Y; Maclean's offered a depressing label for today's graduates: "Generation Screwed." Idealistic young students have always been faced with tough choices in how to balance the joy of pure learning with the pragmatic considerations of employment, debt, and long-term earnings potential; but things seem to have changed. Selling out doesn't work when there are no buyers for the commodity of higher-educated labor power; we need an entirely new labor theory of value. James Cote, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario, notes that the university degree has become the "entry-level qualification" for a basic, living-wage job; the downgrading of labor now means that "Yes, there is an advantage to a university education. But only because there is a disadvantage" to other paths, other choices that were once viable points of entry into the middle class (quoted in Laucus, 2011b). Interviewed (Laucius, 2011a, p. C2) for a story on the catastrophe of high unemployment among recent graduates, business student Lauren Jamieson, 21, clearly understood the importance of product placement in a commodifed society:
"When my dad graduated, not that many people had university degrees. ... Now so many people have degrees. It's like, 'What else do you have?' It's like when you see two products on the shelf, and one has all these high ratings, and the other one doesn't."
You are Not a Product on the Shelf
[still in progress, more to come later when I find the time...]
References
Frank Furedi (2011). "Our Job is to Judge." Canadian Association of University Teachers Bulletin, 58(5), p. A12, A7.
Joanne Laucius (2011a). "Downwardly Mobile." The Vancouver Sun, June 11, p C1, C2.
Joanne Laucius (2011b). "The Devaluation of Higher Learning." The Vancouver Sun, June 11, p. C2.
Office Hours
My office is Room 252 in the Geography Building. Look for the photocopy room on the Second Floor, and then wind your way down the corridor next to it until you find images and maps of cities.
For the spring of 2012, my office hours are on Mondays and Tuesdays. I teach the Urban Studies Seminar on Mondays from 1 to 4pm in Geography Room 200, and then from 9am to noon on Tuesdays we're doing Urban Research in Room 115. You can usually find me in Geography Room 252 on Monday mornings, or in Geography 115 shortly after the end of class at noon. And don't be shy about calling me at 778 899 7906 to find out where I am: sometimes I feel the need to do something truly revolutionary and subversive, like going to the library and just getting immersed and overwhelmed by all the possibilities of all those books...
Look around this website first to see if I've already provided answers to some commonly asked questions. If you're looking for course materials, then see this for Urban Studies 200/Geography 250, this for Geography 350, this for Geography 450, and this for Urban Studies 400. If you're facing a deadline and you need an extension, or if you took a standing deferred and you're wondering what you need to do to finish the uncompleted work, then read this first. If you're working on a project for one of my courses and you have questions about formats, references, and the like, then take a look at this. If you're having trouble getting started with writing, then you may be interested in some of these reflections and bits of advice. If you need a letter of recommendation, I will try my best -- I cannot guarantee, but I will try -- and you can save us some back-and-forth email time by first taking a look at this.
Other Teaching Resources
Students should note that I have rigorous expectations on sources and citations for all written materials submitted in my classes. I am also, however, an incurable optimist and a trusting soul. This means that I directly ask students to avoid plagiarism -- and I do not follow the innocent-until-proven guilty model of contemporary technological bureaucracy. UBC and many other institutions of higher education now subscribe to TurnitIn.com, a corporation that scans essays and term papers to check for material that may have been copied from web sites, published works, or previously submitted essays.
Please do not crush my naive, childlike idealism: one egregious case of plagiarism might be all it takes for me to require that everyone endures the academic equivalent of border strip-searches and 'enhanced' interrogation techniques.
The guilty-until-proven-innocent presumptions of "plagiarism detection services" goes against every principle and passion of my heart, mind, and soul. So does the rampant privatization of academic culture: when a professor forces students to submit things to turnitin.com and related services, then those student essays become part of the ever-growing databases that the companies use in their sophisticated and aggressive marketing plans and business models. You can help me -- and other professors like me -- fight back by eliminating their market. Moreover, you should also note that I've built in sufficient provisions in my course polices -- such as the permission for revision and re-submission if you're not satisifed with a particular mark -- that allow you to avoid the high-stakes, life-or-death night-before-the-due date panic that might lead you to think about cutting and pasting or doing some other kind of plagiarism. Please, please, please do not plagiarize. Choose any recognized citation style, and use it consistently in your writing to provide information that will allow a reader to a) verify statements, assertions, or interpretations, b) locate further information about a particular topic, c) distinguish your analysis and interpretations from statements or information you've borrowed from other authors, and d) show the reader all the work you've done tracking down important sources and reading to learn about a particular issue. I do not count footnotes or endnotes in the stated word limits for assignments, and so it is always better to provide more citations rather than fewer. Consult the resources below for further guidance, and also take a look at these general guidelines.
- University of British Columbia Libraries. 2006. "Avoiding Plagiarism." Online resource guide, last accessed June 27. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.
- Christopher R. Friedrichs. 2000. "Footnotes: A Guide for the Perplexed." Vancouver: University of British Columbia, Department of History.
- Kate Turabian. 1996. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Sixth Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Adapted and Excerpted, University of Georgia Libraries.
If you are having difficulty getting started on your writing project, you may wish to consider some of my advice here.
"Eighty percent of success is showing up." Allen Stewart Konigsberg (Woody Allen), quoted in Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Among Friends (1982), reproduced in Una McGovern, ed. (2005). Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, p. 12.
Something to Aim For
I don't measure up to this standard, but the quote below does inspire me to try to keep up with the 'information explosion' and the dramatic, accelerating innovation of scholarship on cities and urban life:
"At the level of the university, teaching is itself an expression of scholarship. In an age of intense specialisation generating an information explosion, the scholar who can take information and synthesise it into coherent structures of knowledge is performing an essential and sophisticated task. To be able to create an intelligible and intelligent university course is a very significant accomplishment. The facile distinction between teachers and researchers comes from another era when a graduate education conferred upon the teacher a long-lasting competence in a single field. Today disciplines interpenetrate to such a degree that the researcher cannot rest tranquilly secure in his or her area of expertise, and the teacher cannot rest secure that a gentle summer's preparation will be sufficient scholarship for a good introductory course." -- University Senate (2002), Excerpt, "The Description of Criteria for Tenure and Promotion," Section A.1, Appendix to the Senate Executive Report on Revisions to the Tenure and Promotions Criteria and Procedures, March 21. Toronto: York University Senate.
Las Vegas, NV, June 2006 (Elvin Wyly)
Selected Previous Courses
Critical Measures of Urban Inequalities
(Graduate Seminar, Geography 552)
The New Spatial Politics of Social Data
A guest lecture for Geography 345, Derek Gregory's Geographic Thought and Practice, first written on November 2, 2004 and subsequently revised a bit.
Charting and Challenging Urban Hierarchies
(Graduate Seminar, Geography 531)
Research Proposal Seminar
(Graduate Seminar, Spring 2002, Rutgers University)
- Syllabus
- 'You are Here'
- Problem Statement
- Bibliography
- Preliminary Research Design
- Literature Review
- Methodological Statement
Quantitative Geographical Analysis
(Graduate Seminar, Spring 2001, Rutgers University)
- Syllabus
- A Short History of Quantification in Geography
- Data
- Classification and Cluster Analysis
- Principal Components Analysis
November, 2007 note: Oops. I should not have used standardized
data for the geometric illustration. Theta is always 45 when the
variances are equal. As Homer would say, D'Oh! See this instead.
- Logistic Regression
- Ecological Inference, Part 1, Part 2
Malmö, Sweden, September 2009 (Elvin Wyly)
Chicago, IL, March 2009 (Elvin Wyly)
Philadelphia, PA, June 2009 (Elvin Wyly)
"Stevens has a reverence for facts." Jeffrey Toobin (2010). "After Stevens: What Will the Supreme Court be Like Without its Liberal Leader?" The New Yorker, March 22.
Facebook or bookface? Vancouver, BC, May 2010 (Elvin Wyly)
Yes, we're all living in that high-tech, digital network society, but don't forget that old-fashioned, low-tech approach called The Conversation. Face-time, not Facebook. MyFace, not MySpace. Please don't be bitter that you can't follow me on Twitter, that "global clearinghouse for cerebral flatulence." [Joseph Brean (2010). "Taking Offended to a Whole New Level." National Post, December 28, A1, A6, quote from p. A1.] Unless I'm frantically preparing for class or I have another crash deadline, I'm more than happy to talk if you stop by unannounced, or if you call my cell at 778 899 7906. So use email when it's the only viable option, or to provide basic information; but if you'd like to talk about issues raised in the classroom or get advice on something, talk to me. I won't bite!
"Libraries make citizens of us all."
Yes, yes, of course, use your high-speed-wi-fi-ipod-ipad-Blackberry-whatever-new-daintsy-craintz-modulated-bifribulation-fancy-device-comes-out-tomorrow to your heart's content. And while you're doing so, you'll be feeding into the giant datastream of a digital capitalism incessantly seeking to colonize every bit of your attention span to maximize profits.
If you really want to be revolutionary -- or even if you just want to spend a little bit of time now and then off the grid, beyond the tireless surveillance systems of transnational corporate capital -- then walk into a public library. Walk down an aisle. Choose a book, and another, and still another -- all without having been prompted by some software bot that claims (often with chilling accuracy) to know what you'll like based on your past behavior. Maximize the likelihood that you will defy their maximum-likelihood prediction models. Be an insurgent. Go to a library. Consider one of these irresistible libraries.
"These books have lives that have changed mine."
Read. Think. Discuss.
"As Chris Anderson ... put it recently, email is a 'giant rat's nest of voracious demands on our time, energy, and sanity." Merlin Mann, a San Francisco writer and blogger, laments, "'Every day somebody's born who's going to send you a crappy email in a few years.' ... Like others writing about e-mail culture, Mr. Mann has erected a Fort Knox-like system to cloak himself from would-be senders. To contact him, hopefuls must jump through a number of hoops; the experience is not unlike a job interview. If it's really urgent, Mr. Mann suggests calling 911."
So you're bored studying geography at university. You've always got options. Drop out of geography and drop out of university, and ... pursue a military career. Become a junior officer, and seize power in a bloodless coup. Build your power around a mercurial cult of personality and style your image as a "desert nomad philosopher." Write a three-volume text for required reading in every school, outlining a "third universal theory" to transcend the contest between capitalism and socialism. Sponsor a cornocopia of terrorist organizations, and plan the bombing of an airliner that kills 270. Declare yourself "history, resistance, liberty, glory, revolution," and enjoy 42 years of absolute power. Revel in the wealth and authority until a civil war spreads, and until a U.S. Predator drone launched from Sicily and piloted remotely by satellite from a base outside Las Vegas strikes a direct hit on your escape convoy. Run from the devastated vehicles to hide in a concrete drainage pipe, only to get caught by a team of rebel fighters. Die at age 69 only three kilometers from your home town.
From information reported on Muammar Gaddafi, in Ben Farmer (2011). "The Last Hours of a Tyrant." National Post, October 21, A1, A2.
"I fought for my country. Now I'm fighting for my kids." Ann Rosenbaum, a former Marines military police officer, describing her opposition to a new statewide initiative mandating online courses and technology use in the classroom in the state of Idaho. Governor "Butch" Otter, for his part, has learned the finer points of Lyotard and Derrida. "When asked about the quantity of unreliable information on the Internet, he said this also worked in favor of better learning. 'There may be a lot of misinformation,' he said, 'but that information, whether right or wrong, will generate critical thinking for them as they find the truth."
CopyLeft 2012 Elvin K. Wyly
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The End of Civilization?
"When I was in my final year of undergraduate studies, I remember striking up a conversation with a hungover student after one of Run DMSmith's Monday morning lectures. It was a miracle that the hungover student had made it to class. He asked if I wanted to grab a cup of coffee, and I said I had to run a few errands, but I could meet him outside the library in an hour or two.
He said: 'The library ... where's that?'
We are no longer in touch..."
--Tom Slater, February 2012