Teaching my passion

RANDALL H. MCGUIRE

Teaching my passion!

Teaching is one of the most fulfilling, satisfying, and joyful things that I do. It forms an integral part of the seamless whole that is my professional life. For me, effective teaching springs from a human relationship between the teacher and the student. As such, education cannot be “instructor-centered”, or in the fashionable parlance of current pedagogy, “student centered”. Instead it must establish relationships that encompass all participants. Like Shakespearean comedy, some parts of my classes play to the pits, others to the balcony -- everyone can get something. I strive to move students towards an analytical understanding of the world that allows them to critically evaluate different knowledge claims and theories. Ultimately, they should be able to use critique to create new knowledge and understandings. Critical thinking requires something to think about and to analyze or it becomes sophistry. Anthropology provides both content for analysis and a critique that makes the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic. In 1992, the State University of New York awarded me the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Binghamton University awarded me the University Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. In 2002, the American Anthropological Association presented me with the McGraw-Hill AAA Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology. PUBLICATION

I describe the lecture above in "The View From the Pit"

Education does not change the world: education changes the people who will change the world.
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Paulo Freire