Classroom Lessons Laying the Groundwork for Civic Engagement “Classroom Lessons” highlights examples of excellent teaching by our Hofstra colleagues. Each issue, Andrea Libresco, associate director for pedagogy at the CTSE, will visit a different classroom in search of effective teaching techniques that can be applied across disciplines. If you have a colleague whom you would like to volunteer for observation (or if you would like to volunteer yourself), please contact Dr. Libresco at Andrea.Libresco@hofstra.edu. It seems that every week another newspaper in a major city folds. Here at Hofstra, Newsday is no longer given away free to students, and the bins that hold The New York Times are often overflowing with unread papers. Thus, it can sometimes feel like a real challenge to engage students in issues of the day. Dr. David Green, associate professor of political science, is up to that challenge. I was fortunate to observe him in his introductory American Politics course, taught primarily to nonmajors. Several days prior to the class, the students and I were e-mailed a list of eight articles that had appeared in the previous couple of days in The New York Times (though Professor Green regularly uses other news sources, as well). When I read the articles, I was struck by the diverse issues represented in the pieces: the widening war in Afghanistan, a kickback scheme
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Photo by LadyKat Photography
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by ANDREA S. LIBRESCO
perpetrated by Pennsylvania judges, Obama’s history-making live Internet video chat, a photo and accompanying article about a 2009 Hooverville in California, the repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York, Hillary Clinton’s speech acknowledging the culpability of the United States in the Mexico drug trade, the Obama/Geithner plan to regulate the finance world, and an Op-Ed column on the economy by Paul Krugman. I wondered how Professor Green would be able to address all these diverse issues in one class. It turns out that Professor Green did not expect to address every issue in detail. Instead, he briefly reminded students about the main point of each article and then said, “OK, that’s the menu. Where do you want to go?” And students eagerly responded. They weighed in on whether and how America could be responsible for Mexico’s drug trade, as well as whether America should feel the need to apologize to another country — in this situation or any other. The kickbacks article led a student to recount a program she had seen on prison kickbacks, which, in turn, led another student to share an article she had read about Victoria’s Secret using prison labor (to which Professor Green playfully quipped, “Be careful; we could be wearing killer underwear.”). Professor Green encouraged students to make associations such as those above, yet he also connected the students’ points to larger questions. When the Three Strikes law came up (in the context of the prison labor topic), he raised the issue of how such a law could pass and informed students that the prison guards union had been behind the referendum on the California ballot. The big question then became: “Who is governing and in whose interest? Is it in the public interest?” Clearly, this question is of relevance beyond the immediate topic. In fact, the question of public interest led to some comments about agriculture subsidies that benefit agribusiness in the United States, even as they may undermine economies and lead to higher numbers of
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hungry populations abroad. The power of agribusiness to affect legislation that may not be in everyone’s interest led to a discussion of campaign contributions and campaign finance law, as well as the extent to which campaign spending ought to be categorized as “speech.” This wide-ranging current events conversation, undertaken by engaged students, and periodically directed by Professor Green, the guide-on-the-side, took up almost half of the class time (though he indicated that it usually accounts for roughly one third of each class); the remainder of the class time was devoted to a more traditional lecture on the powers of the judicial branch. Professor Green feels that the time devoted to current events is time well spent, as current events becomes a vehicle for analyzing the process by which America is and ought to be governed. In addition, it is clear that students relish this part of the class where, in democratic fashion, their choices about which topics to discuss are valued and honored. While he used to direct the conversation more and have a particular agenda for each article, Professor Green now allows for free-ranging discussion. The students clearly understand that it is their responsibility, not only to read and