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The Art of Teaching, by Jay Parini
PDF Ebook The Art of Teaching, by Jay Parini
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Becoming an effective teacher can be quite painful and exhausting, taking years of trial and error. In The Art of Teaching, writer and critic Jay Parini looks back over his own decades of trials, errors, and triumphs, in an intimate memoir that brims with humor, encouragement, and hard-won wisdom about the teacher's craft.
Here is a godsend for instructors of all levels, offering valuable insight into the many challenges that educators face, from establishing a persona in the classroom, to fostering relationships with students, to balancing teaching load with academic writing and research. Insight abounds. Parini shows, for instance, that there is nothing natural about teaching. The classroom is a form of theater, and the teacher must play various roles. A good teacher may look natural, but that's the product of endless practice. The book also considers such topics as the manner of dress that teachers adopt (and what this says about them as teachers), the delicate question of politics in the classroom, the untapped value of emeritus professors, and the vital importance of a settled, disciplined life for a teacher and a writer. Parini grounds all of this in personal stories of his own career in the academy, tracing his path from unfocused student--a self-confessed "tough nut to crack"--to passionate writer, scholar, and teacher, one who frankly admits making many mistakes over the years.
Every year, thousands of newly minted college teachers embark on their careers, most with scant training in their chosen profession. The Art of Teaching is a perfect book for these young educators as well as anyone who wants to learn more about this difficult but rewarding profession.
- Sales Rank: #828416 in Books
- Published on: 2005-01-13
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.20" h x .80" w x 7.10" l, .80 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 176 pages
From Publishers Weekly
A prolific poet, novelist, biographer and critic, Parini (One Matchless Time: A Biography of William Faulkner) has also taught throughout his career. He offers fresh musings about teaching's demands and what it takes to not lose one's other, creative self while meeting those demands in this memoir-cum-advice book for novice instructors. The classroom, Parini writes, is "a form of theater" in which the teacher plays "wise man, fool, tempter, coach, comforter, and confessor." Parini charts his somewhat bumpy road to the lectern and his own self-education as a poet, and suggests that intellectual hunger coupled with an ability to hold people's attention is crucial to a teaching identity. Parini admits to being almost swallowed by the "publish or perish" monster that haunts university educators on the tenure track, and notes that writing creatively while teaching academically is a struggle, though he has found fodder amid a busy schedule of lecturing, grading, "husbanding," parenting and living. He meditates on classroom dress code and office hours ("Once in a while, a student actually comes into my office with a question related to a course"), on conducting seminars and voicing political beliefs. Free of the usual complaints of systemic educational problems—perhaps because Parini teaches at a liberal arts college rather than a public high school—this warm guide should inform, entertain, and inspire young teachers as they seek to "waken a student to his or her potential."
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Over the course of three decades, not only has Parini written poetry, novels, essays, and major biographies of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, and William Faulkner but he has also taught college English. He now shares his hard-earned insights into the writing life and the teaching profession in an educational memoir. Parini sees teaching as a creative endeavor that resembles theater in its immediacy, trepidation, and exhilaration. But he also felicitously compares teaching to writing, thus illuminating both disciplines in a fresh and vital manner that will speak to every lover of literature. The first link between the two arts is the need to "invent and cultivate a voice," Parini avers, a process that takes time and experimentation, so that each class is "as an act of revision." Practical and philosophical, ardent and lucid, Parini covers the nitty-gritty of teaching, explains how writing is nurtured by teaching and vice versa, and discusses why teaching students to think critically not only about books but also about the world around them is so very crucial. Donna Seaman
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"This warm guide should inform, entertain, and inspire young teachers as they seek to 'waken a student to his or her potential.'"--Publishers Weekly
"A charming reflection on 30 years devoted to learning.... Parini offers a number of tips in a manner that is decidedly laid back, friendly and casual--in much the same way, one surmises, that he teaches his own classes."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"To read one of these short essays is like taking a walk with a genial, generous and intelligent teacher who speaks fluently and kindly. The book probably ought to be considered as a sequence of such walks, designed to bring pleasure and some profit, too, to all, but particularly to young teachers entering the field."--Washington Post Book World
"What he writes about teaching will be of keen interest to all educators, especially young ones just finding their way in the profession.... Parini has thought deeply about all aspects of teaching, and readers will appreciate his insights on such sundry topics as assessment (he believes teaching to the test is 'anti-educational'); dress (it reflects one's teaching style); and the hiring of new colleagues (people you have to be prepared to work with for the next 20 years). Parini's book may not change the way you teach, but it may make you think more deeply about education than you ever have before."--Education Week
"[A] combination memoir and advice book, the tale of a shy, working-class kid from Scranton, Pa., who gradually discovered that he loved to read and write, and that he was happiest when he could pass along that love to young students.... When he zeroes in on the passions that animate good teachers, and the nuts and bolts of running a lecture course or a seminar, the book takes wing."--William Grimes, The New York Times
"Parini, an English professor at Middlebury College, shares his quiet wisdom on guiding students toward the pleasures of critical thinking. Equal parts memoir, essay, and practical advice, Parini's handbook for the writer who teaches is a gentle, elegant tribute to those who turn the life of the mind into a performance art."--Utne Reader
"Practical and philosophical, ardent and lucid, Parini covers the nitty-gritty of teaching, explains how writing is nurtured by teaching and vice versa, and discusses why teaching students to think critically not only about books but also about the world around them is so very crucial."--Booklist
"One pleasing aspect of The Art of Teaching is Parini's candor about professorial anxiety, similar to the stage fright that afflicts some longtime actors."--Philadelphia Inquirer
"Writes with economy, clarity and passion. He argues that part of a professor's work is to challenge students' assumptions. He has done the same for readers with this good book."--The Charlotte Observer
"An eloquent and humane vision of our most vital human resource--teaching and its role in our civilization. Written with a poet's elegance, The Art of Teaching is part memoir and part personal and practical reflection on what it means to be in the classroom with students. A seasoned teacher and writer, Parini gives us a remembrance of great teachers who changed his life and of how writing and scholarship come together to make teaching better and richer. This book is also a reflection on the dynamic relationship between teachers and students, academic colleagues old and young and the important community they all create when they come together on a college campus. In an age when the pursuit of money and the God of materialism threatens to swallow America whole, Parini reminds us that the intellectual and human values that happen in the classroom are our most important preparation for life." --Peter Balakian, author of Black Dog of Fate
"Jay Parini, novelist, poet, biographer, and editor, has now given us an extremely readable and useful book about teaching, drawing upon his decades in the classroom on both sides of the desk. Aptly titled, The Art of Teaching is itself artful in its well-measured, outspoken, and entertaining look at a subject not enough explored and therefore the more welcome." ---William Pritchard, Professor of English at Amherst College, and author of Shelf Life: Literary Essays and Reviews
"In discussing his own lecturing, Isaiah Berlin said he was 'fumbling for the light switch in a very large but very dark room.' Parini switches on lights, and if he does not make all the darkness visible, he illuminates much of the mystery of teaching and shows us all how to do better. Parini is a fine writer and a superb teacher. He blends inspiration with practical advice--describing, for example, the classroom as theater. Jettison all those heavy volumes on methodology and read this small book. Read with a pencil and mull, and you will become a better teacher, and maybe a better person. What a friend teachers have in Parini!" --Sam Pickering, author of Waltzing the Magpies and The Best of Pickering
Most helpful customer reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
The Art of Teaching
By Dee
Becoming a teacher takes years of exhausting, painful trial and error. Deserving a four star rating, Jay Parini's book The Art of Teaching looks back over his years in the academic field. This beautifully written book is full of essays on everything from the first day of class, to the day of commencement. Parini looks at every issue a teacher might face in the classroom from the teacher's persona, to the teacher's relationships with the students and colleagues. He writes about trying to balance a teaching life and a life of research and writing.
Parini uses the word "teacher," although he really should say "professor" because the book is about his life at the college level. His life in the early years of teaching and all the struggles he ensued learning the ropes and climbing the ladder to tenure.
Although this book is written for the teacher at the college level, anyone in the teaching field will come away with some useful insight. This book has great quotes like "There is always a fresh start, with new students, new colleagues, new courses even old colleagues somehow look new in September." In my experience in the teaching field this is so very true.
Reading this book made me think of teachers from my past. We as teachers draw from our past experiences. This helps us to become better teachers. That is what Parini did. He put some of those experiences down on paper so we could all learn. Although, this book is about teaching at the college level I did come away with some very good insight on teaching from the heart. I would recommend this book to anyone in the teaching field.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
You'll enjoy this book and benefit from it
By Jordan Bell
I can't imagine a teacher who wouldn't benefit from reading this book. Parini's writing is easy to read and he uses words skillfully. He doesn't write like a social scientist who wants to sound serious without having much to say ("A number of factors have been identified as contributing to the differences..." is a quote from a memorably poorly written book I skimmed recently). Instead he says specific things in a way that is pleasant to read.
This book is also a model of a brief professional biography. Parini doesn't tell us about meeting his wife or much about his parents, and takes us through all his experience with schooling from elementary school to his second teaching job in a remarkably short space.
Parini talks about too many things for me to try to give a table of contents of the book, but there are three ideas that I found especially important. The first is that you must construct your identity as a teacher, and when you teach you must choose a mask to wear. Teaching is not a natural activity and it is a harmful romantic idea to try to find your authentic self. And this is especially important for teachers because they have to help students learn different disciplines ("arts", things that are not natural, unlike defecating and drinking water), and if they give students the idea that mathematics or music or acting or writing should be as natural as breathing, the student will lose heart and give up when they see that it is not natural for them. "One must get over the foolish notion that a mask is not 'authentic,' that there is something shameful about 'not being yourself.' Authenticity is, ultimately, a construction, something invented- much as a particular suit of clothes will feel authentic, or inauthentic, given the context. The notion of the 'true' self is romantic, and utterly false."
The second idea I want to mention is that a good teacher is a perpetual student, someone who is fascinated by things and likes learning about them. I think a teacher who learns a subject just enough to qualify to teach it and then turns aside from continued learning can be at best mediocre at teaching, no matter how energetic they are about presenting. Someone who loves ideas doesn't make lists of "the five causes of x", or "the six types of y". These are standardized methods to get students to write things down on paper and then forget them, because no one except committees of textbook writers ever cared about these lists. And teaching a subject helps you to clarify your ideas about it. This is the great connection between scholarship and teaching.
The third idea of Parini's I want to mention is his preference for one on one teaching or small group seminars over lecturing. I think that the future of higher education is to have videos of lectures by truly excellent lecturers. If there is to be continued employment of teachers in higher education, I think it will and should be as tutors (in the British not the North American sense).
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
A Tiny Book Packed with Wisdom about Teaching
By Timothy P. Koerner
Here's a little (so small it'll almost fit into one's pocket) book on a rarely written about topic: college teaching. It is part autobiographical and part what-to-do/what-not-to-do and is beautifully written, not surprising as the author is a creative writing and literature professor.
Jay Parini's THE ART OF TEACHING will proably have its greatest appeal to English and Humanities teachers/professors. But anyone who has ever taught or aspires to teach at any level can enjoy and benefit from it. The author professes at a small liberal arts college in New England but earlier spent quite a number of years as student and teacher in England, thus adding greater perspecitve to his subject.
The book's orientation is both philosophical and practical. We read about what a professor's primary focus and prime functions ought to be and how he or she should teach, but there are also specific suggestions about such matters as office hours, lecturing, and conducting seminars.
A former teacher, I enjoyed Mr. Parini's book immensely and recommend it enthusiastically. I can't resist mentioning a few of my favorite sentences from the book: "There is always a fresh start." (p.1) "It's always possible to do a better job the next time around." (p. 7) "Few outside the teaching profession understand the courage it takes to step into a classroom..." (p. 68)
The author is a poet and has written biographies of John Steinbeck and Robert Frost among other works. His profile of Frost in the book and my admiration for Steinbeck's writing means that I now have two additional titles for my "books to read" list.
Tim Koerner January 2011
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