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Course Documents
In Stephen Brookfield’s wonderful book on reflective teaching (cited in the Resources section of this Teacher’s Overview), he urges teachers to take much greater pains to explain themselves, their philosophies, and their decisions about course management to the students in their classes. He points out that most students respond positively to such efforts, are better able to make sense of what is happening in the class, and are more willing to invest genuine effort in course requirements. Inspired by his suggestions, I began to investigate the situation in my own classes, and I soon learned that few students were able to intuit the rationale or motive for many choices that I had assumed would be transparent. Posted here are several documents where I try to make my assumptions, expectations, and reasoning more accessible and transparent to my students.
a. A handout on time expectations
As I discuss elsewhere on this site, issues of time management are a major challenge for me. The document posted here is one way I have attempted to deal with my own troubles in this regard, and to articulate a reasonable and clear set of time expectations for students in my fieldwork courses. It sets out my standards about the amount of time students should plan to spend on the class each week, and announces that they will be required to turn in weekly time sheets. It goes on to explain why.
To see the handout on time expectations, click here.
b. An introductory statement about “community legal education”
This document is an excerpt from the introductory course information sheet that I handed out one year in my course on Community Legal Education. In it, I try to situate the subject of community legal education within two related contexts: first, the world of lawyering for and with the disadvantaged, and second, the world of adult basic education. You will see that I also try to warn students in this handout about the disorderly and unpredictable nature of community fieldwork.
To see the excerpt on community legal education, click here.
c. A note for students about some of my underlying assumptions
In this document, I tried to articulate some of the assumptions that I believed were motivating my choices in a class on Community Legal Education. I thought students had a right to know these things, and I also hoped that if we got used to unearthing and considering normally unspoken assumptions, it might help us pursue critical thinking in other aspects of the course as well. The document then goes on to lay out a set of contrasting assumptions that are in some conflict with my own. I hoped by offering these to suggest that conflict and contestation would be welcome in the class.
Inviting disagreement does not come easily for me. I enjoy learning environments where there is a lot of harmony and empathy going on. This preference of mine is not all bad: certainly some wonderful learning can take place in supportive circles. But I also know that my repertoire of learning modes, and that of my students, needs to include the ability to welcome and creatively embrace moments of conflict. I am still working on this, but sometimes it seems that I can sabotage my own best intentions. For instance, I suspect that my articulation of contrasting assumptions in this document may have included a subtext that did less to invite contestation than to show everyone I had already thought of every opposing view that anyone might want to venture. Therefore, they could just give up on disagreeing, right? Arghh.
To see the assumptions document, click here.
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