North Central Sociological Association 2007 Reflections on Teaching Address: Teaching and Learning across Academic Cultures

It is an honor to be recognized with the teaching award from the NCSA, and I am very humbled to be included in the list of previous teaching award recipients, especially since many of these recipients have played an indirect role in mentoring me as a sociologist and as an educator over the years. When I was invited to give a presentation, I spent a good number of months thinking about a topic that is hardly explored, yet crucial to our lives. As sociologists, we may have dedicated little time to reflecting on this topic and the multiple meanings attached to it. We lack the experience. The topic, seldom studied and addressed, has to do with the examination, analysis, and evaluation of teaching and learning across academic cultures. I refer specifically to the study of commonalities and differences among academic cultures rather than to independent analyses of each type of academic institution; there is plenty of research on effective teaching and learning on the latter. I have attended many teaching and teaching-related sessions over the years where sociologists have addressed issues specific to their particular campuses. At the same time, it is undoubtedly difficult to compare and contrast teaching and learning on different academic campuses; one needs to have taught and lived in different academic cultures. As I reflect on my own interest and experience in becoming a student of sociology and as a sociologist, my cultures of teaching and learning are informed by the particular types of academic institutions. When I refer to myself as a student or learner of sociology, I do not mean simply my previous status as an undergraduate and graduate student. Rather, this is a status that I carry with me; it is a status that I consistently construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct. In the process of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, I am sometimes overwhelmed and confused by the complexities of the particular academic setting in which I teach and learn. Being overwhelmed and confused may not be an ideal state for a student, but it is a somewhat positive state for an educator. If teaching and learning become too comfortable, monotonous, and repetitive in all the various social settings for me, I will be like a robot and fail to appreciate the social institution and cultural context in which I teach and my students learn. Giroux reminds us that "teachers are transformative intellectuals," not simply technocrats; otherwise, we will lose sight of our goal to educate students (1989:125). I need to make sociology equally relevant to students in all academic cultures. Calhoun (1999:22) points out that "teaching skills might not be readily transferable across populations of students and types of schools or programs." What is easily understood in one cultural milieu for students within one academic institution may become totally irrelevant for students in another. Baker (1999:98) views learning as "embedded in a social and cultural context." So, in addition to teaching students about sociology that is unique within their particular academic cultures, I am also teaching myself about sociology and learning about the students in a particular setting and the ways that they construct meanings relating to societal issues. THE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND ACADEMIC CULTURES My journey as a sociology instructor has taken me to different types of academic institutions of higher learning, including a public community college, a large state university, and a small private liberal arts college. In each one, I believe that I learned just as much, if not more, from my students than they from me. Goldsmid and Wilson (1980) state that teachers both teach and learn; they learn from their students. In fact, my students are sometimes my best teachers-their knowledge and insights provide me with a base or a starting point for classroom discussions and debates. However, it is rather difficult to find colleagues who can truly understand the different challenges I face in the classrooms on different campuses. …