[Over the last
few months, I’ve had the chance to take part in a number of interesting
AmericanStudies conversations, each hosted by a unique and significant
organization or space. So this week I wanted to follow up those events with
some further thoughts and reflections, leading up to a weekend post looking
ahead to the NeMLA
Convention later this month!]
On what’s unique
about Brandeis’ adult learning program, and what I’ve already learned from it.
As I hope every
post about my courses
in Fitchburg State’s Adult Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) program
has reflected, I’ve been continually inspired by my work with those courses and
students. That includes very practical effects, such as the fact that the topic
for my
third book emerged directly out of the first
such ALFA course I had the chance to teach. But my courses have also
offered more overarching professional and philosophical inspirations, on many
levels that I would sum up in a two-fold way: as a reminder of the true value
of public scholarly work, of sharing my understandings of American literature,
history, and culture with others; and as a concurrent and just as crucial reminder
of how much I can and do learn from my fellow Americans as part of those
conversations. Bottom line, I have loved each and every ALFA course, and so
have begun to seek out opportunities to teach in our adult learning programs as
well. So far I’ve made connections with two: the Worcester
Institute of Senior Education at Assumption College (WISE); and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institution at
Brandeis University (BOLLI). Late last year, as part of those burgeoning
connections, I had the chance to attend BOLLI’s holiday luncheon for its
instructors, an event dedicated to conversations about why we teach (in an
adult learning program as well as overall).
What struck me
most about BOLLI’s adult learning program was a fundamental distinction in how
the program defines
its courses and instructors: the courses are known as study groups, and the
instructors as study group leaders (SGLs). These are far from just semantic
differences: BOLLI sees the classes as communal investigations into a shared
topic or question, with the SGL providing some core materials and starting
points but with all the participants occupying equal roles in that process of investigation,
reading, and discussion. As I learned from the SGL testimonies at the luncheon,
in some cases that means that the SGL is presenting materials on which he or
she is an expert—but, again, is doing so not to then lecture about them, but
rather to participate in communal conversations about those materials. And in
just as many cases, it seems, the SGL is taking this opportunity to explore a
topic that is relatively (or even entirely) new to him or herself, and thus the
course becomes an even more fully communal investigation into that subject. Regardless
of which end of that spectrum a particular course occupies, what I heard clearly
and consistently from each and every SGL at the luncheon was that the courses
and conversations are intended to be genuinely educational, profoundly perspective-changing,
for every participant, SGLs and students alike.
I haven’t had a
chance to teach a BOLLI course yet; because of when I made the initial connection,
this coming fall will be my first opportunity, and of course I’ll keep you
posted. But just attending that luncheon, learning more about the program’s
emphasis and perspective, and hearing the testimonies of those past and present
SGLs, I was struck with particular force by a different side of an idea I’ve
long espoused: that public scholarship and teaching are two sides of the same
coin (I wrote as much in the intro to my
Chinese Exclusion Act book, a project again based directly on an ALFA
experience). I still believe that, indeed feel it is more true than ever in our
current moment; but what ALFA has consistently taught me, and what this BOLLI
event and emphasis did even more overtly, is that we public scholars—we teachers—need
to see ourselves as participants in these conversations, ones with as much to
learn from them as we have to bring to them (which is, to be clear, a great
deal). To note that truly multi-directional and transactional nature of both
teaching and public scholarship is not, I don’t believe, in any way to abandon our
role, but it is to reframe it: to see ourselves as helping get conversations
going, of bringing materials and questions to those discussions, and of thus
facilitating truly communal and civic engagements with our topics and themes.
Lofty ambitions to be sure, but ones well worth aiming for, as BOLLI has both
reminded and modeled for me.
Last reflection
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on
this conversation? Conversations or events you’d share?
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