News Release

By DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL—The Joy of Teaching is both the title and the subject of a new book University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill historian Peter Filene wrote as a practical guide for people starting careers as college instructors.

Just published by UNC Press, the book covers such topics as understanding students and colleagues, understanding oneself as a teacher, defining aims and outcomes, relating to students and balancing teaching duties against requirements at larger colleges and universities to publish research.

Constructing a syllabus, lecturing, discussions, broadening the learning environment and evaluating and grading students are among specific tasks the author describes.

Filene, the recipient of six teaching awards at UNC, is Bowman and Gordon Gray professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Like most acclaimed teachers, he offers numerous examples and avoids dictating the "right" answers. Instead, he tries to offer readers useful strategies and suggests that they choose what appears most helpful to their own situation -- whether it’s a large lecture course with 300 students or a seminar with 10.

Those entering the profession "will find in this little volume a systematic introduction to college teaching," wrote Ken Bain, director of the New York University Center for Teaching Excellence and author of What the Best College Teachers Do. "More experienced professors will find a host of productive new ideas that will help them improve their efforts."

Filene wrote in his introduction that he persistently reminds readers that teaching is a two-way process, what education scholars call a "dialogic."

"An instructor talks, but what do his or her students hear and understand?" he said. "Teaching is only as successful as the learning it produces."

As a result, teaching should not be like pitching baseballs to students to see who hits and who strikes out, Filene said. Ideally, a teacher operates like someone organizing a game of Frisbee, "inviting students to catch an idea and pass it on."

Students play a critical role in learning relationships and interact not only with the teacher, but also with one another and the subject matter, the historian said. But students’ expectations and practices should not dictate what instructors do.

"The purpose of teaching is not to satisfy consumers’ wishes or to find the lowest common denominator," he wrote. "Because learning involves venturing beyond what one already knows and believes, an effective teacher takes students out of their ‘comfort zone.’ He or she challenges them with unsettling ideas, sets high standards, demands introspection and hard work -- all the while, heeding how students are responding."

As studies confirm, good teachers display five key characteristics that depend on personal skills, Filene wrote. Those are enthusiasm, clarity, organization, stimulation and caring.

"Enthusiasm ranks first on the list," he said. "Good teachers care about their subjects with zest and passion, and they enjoy communicating it to others. They treat students fairly, want them to succeed, give them respect and offer support."

The new book concludes with a selected, annotated bibliography for readers who want to explore a greater variety of general ideas about teaching and different viewpoints on various specific disciplines ranging from economics and English to geology and physics.

"Every reader will find an engaging and friendly discussion and a wealth of stories that both inform and inspire," Bain said. "I’ve been teaching for many years, …and I found in this book fresh ideas that gave me a renewed sense of the joy of teaching. I highly recommend it to you."

Among Filene’s previous works are Him/Her/Self: Gender Identities in Modern America, In the Arms of Others: A Cultural History of the Right to Die, and Home and Away, a novel.

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Note: Filene can be reached at (919) 962-3971 or filene@email.unc.edu.

UNC Press contact: Gina Mahalek, (919) 966-3561 or Gina_Mahalek@unc.edu

News Services contact: David Williamson, (919) 962-8596, david_williamson@unc.edu