[As of next week
my
sabbatical is officially done and I’m back to full-time teaching. So this
week I’ll share some previews for my Spring 2020 classes, focusing on new
readings I’m adding this semester and leading up to some updates on book talks
and projects. I’d love to hear what you’re up to as well!]
On adapting the
same overall topic for two very different adult learning settings.
This Spring I’ll
be teaching once again for the two adult learning programs for which I’ve had
the chance to teach most frequently over the last half-dozen years: Fitchburg
State’s Adult
Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) and Assumption College’s Worcester
Institute for Senior Education (WISE). (I’ll also be teaching a second
course for Beacon
Hill Seminars on the subject of my most recent book, We the People, but that’s a topic for another time/post!) But for what
I’m pretty sure is the first time across all those classes and semesters and programs,
I’ll be teaching the same basic topic in the same semester (indeed, basically
across ten consecutive weeks, as the two five-week courses abut one another)
for both ALFA and WISE. Both classes will focus on readings and conversations
related to a topic that is not coincidentally also a central subject of my
proposed next book project (for more on which watch this space, natch):
examples and models of critical patriotism from both American history and our
contemporary moment.
I’m not gonna
pretend for a moment that I plan to reinvent the wheel for each of these two very
similarly focused classes—I’m sure it’s obvious to any reader of this blog that
I enjoy the feeling of having multiple balls in the air, but that’s a very
different thing from juggling chainsaws and I try to steer clear of the latter
as much as possible. But at the same time, I quite literally can’t run the two
classes in exactly the same way, as the programs themselves operate
differently: ALFA classes cap at about 25, meet in FSU classrooms, and are
intended to run as discussions/seminars; while WISE classes cap at around 75,
meet in large lecture halls/auditoriums, and are intended to run mostly as
lectures (with time for questions/responses from the students at the end of
each session). So, for example, I can and generally do ask ALFA students to
read materials in between classes, as that makes it much easier to have full
discussions of them during our sessions; but not only is there not really space
for such discussions at WISE classes, but I would also feel badly asking them
to read materials when there isn’t much opportunity to share their thoughts on
them. So while I’ll likely share many of the same voices and texts in both
classes, I’ll do so in those significantly distinct ways—which, I hope, will
lead to distinct yet interconnected insights and ideas for the book!
Speaking of, book
updates this weekend,
Ben
PS. What’s on
your Spring 2020 horizon?
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