Levels of Pedagogy and Individualized
Instruction
Mark Unno
Students take courses in religious studies for a number of different
reasons. Some are simply there to satisfy a distribution requirement,
some to gain knowledge of religion as one cultural phenomenon among
others in the process of acquiring a liberal arts education. Others
are interested in learning more about the tradition into which they
were born or about traditions different from their own, and still
others are seeking some kind of religious or spiritual resolution to
their lives, either in connection with specific problems or more
generally as a cornerstone of their self-understanding.
Due to the broad spectrum represented among students, the
instructor or teaching assistant must be ready to respond to student
interests and concerns at many levels and tailor their teaching to
individual needs. This is especially true in working with
undergraduates and even more so in introductory as opposed to
higher-level courses. Graduate students are fairly clear about what
they expect out of a course, are developing certain professional
skills, and their professors have some idea of what they wish their
students to learn. Undergraduates, in contrast, are in a more
exploratory mode, are often concerned with existential issues and
personal understanding, and not infrequently see teachers as more
than just proprietors of intellectual property.
Depending on the situation, instructors are asked to fill the role
of mentor, senior colleague, friend, resource person, or even
counselor. The multiple roles demanded of an instructor in religious
studies are in part the historical effects of an educational system
which retains aspects of the mentor-disciple relationship
characterizing the classical European education in which it is rooted
but which now takes place in the setting of the secular, liberal,
democratic university based largely on the ideal of public, equal
access to objective bodies of knowledge.[1]
It is the complex combination of these personal and public aspects
which constellate the university education as it is currently known,
and in particular the discipline of religious studies.
In order to provide the most flexible, open, yet focused learning
experience possible within the given limitations of the classroom
situation and my own abilities as a teacher, I have partly come to
conceive the teaching process in my role as a instructor in terms of
several different levels of pedagogy and individualized instruction.
Before I begin to explain what I mean by this, it should be made
clear that these levels and categories are not fixed in a hierarchy
but merely represent certain ideal types that in actual practice are
quite fluid and move in and out of each other.
Levels of Pedagogy
Professionalism. Whatever the motivations of a particular
student for taking a course, it should be possible for her to excel
as long as she fulfills certain standards for writing an academic
paper and participating in discussion sections.[2]
That is to say, there is a level of professionalism that should be
considered in evaluating students' work. Leaving aside the nature of
discussion sections for now, academic writing is to be distinguished
from what I might consider to be an excellent piece of writing in
another situation. The reason I make this distinction is
two-fold.
First, the academic paper in religious studies represents a genre
that is specific to its setting. Although there is a certain degree
of flexibility, it is a genre that involves technical elements such
as documentation and logical consistency. It is a format that is
ostensibly public and derived from the model of the natural sciences
yet is in fact highly intersubjective since it will most likely be
read by just one person, namely the instructor. As I have heard
several professors remark, the academic paper is a forum for an
ongoing conversation between teacher and student. Students may go
beyond the boundaries of the prescribed genre, but in such cases they
should consult with their teachers. A poem on the theme of mystical
union submitted without prior consent is not acceptable academic
work, and I have doubts as to whether consent could be obtained for
such work in any case.
The problem of genres, however, is distinct from that of
individual styles. As one gains experience as a teacher, one will
find that students write in a variety of styles, some more dense than
others, some more linear than others who might take a layered
approach, unpacking levels of analysis rather than pursuing one
direct line of argumentation. Beginning teachers tend to give
favorable recognition to those papers that match their own writing
style most closely. It is important to see that different styles can
be equally effective and to encourage students accordingly.
Second, the information available to students in writing a paper
is more limited than might otherwise be the case, and the
effectiveness of their analysis and self-expression should be based
on material provided in the course. I might have strong personal
disagreements with a student regarding his conclusions, but if he has
made a careful and balanced analysis of the course material and
presented his ideas in a clear and organized manner, his efforts
should be rewarded regardless of my own personal convictions. I can
suggest additional reading material to fill out what I perceive to be
an incomplete picture, but this should not alter my evaluation of his
work. Students try to please their teachers, and there is a place for
learning through emulation, but teachers should be aware of what it
means to write an effective paper based on the limited body of
knowledge students are expected to cover. Even if one is aware of
these limitations, however, it is difficult not to project one's own
agendas and biases; when presenting one's own views, this fact should
be announced to the students along with encouragement to disagree. A
way to gauge the fairness of one's evaluation of students' writing is
to find two papers representing opposing conclusions and to see how
even-handed one has been in appraising them.
As I have noted elsewhere, the only tangible evidence of students'
work in humanities courses is the written paper,[3]
and it is the teacher's responsibility on the one hand to provide the
tools necessary to excel, but on the other to also know the limits of
what can be expected.
Engagement. This brings me to another dimension of pedagogy
which has to do with levels of engagement. Students write better
papers the more engaged they are, and skillful teachers find ways to
engage students in their subject matter. At the same time, it would
be unfair to ask that all students be engaged at the same level. Some
students may find a particular idea or thinker deeply stimulating at
an intellectual level but not necessarily as a matter of personal
commitment. It might be appropriate to challenge them personally if
either we stood on equal ground in terms of access to knowledge and
institutional authority or I were willing to take responsibility for
the effects my statements might eventually have. That is to say, the
boundaries of my inquiry into the personal dimensions of students'
thinking should be commensurate with the limits placed on me as a
figure of authority and my ability to be held accountable for the
challenges I ask them to face.
Students at top-level universities can fall into the kind of
bourgeois relativism criticized by Lee Yearley in his essay in this
volume, and they need to be challenged in order that they may learn
to think and write well. At the same time, students may sometimes
feel that the rug has been pulled out from under them without a
responsible alternative being provided. There is a delicate balance
between professional distance and the personal engagement essential
to vital intellectual discourse, a balance that is difficult to
maintain because it is ever-changing, but one that needs to be
carefully considered nonetheless.
Individualized Instruction
The awareness of the personal and individual dimension in students' work, then, is integral to, rather than in conflict with, the professionalism required on the part of the instructor. In the foregoing discussion I have focused more on the professional limits of the teacher than on the potential for creativity and nurturing, the examination of which I would like to move on to in a discussion of individualized instruction. It is one thing to know the limits of the profession, and something else altogether to know how to respond to individual needs. As Rod Ellis states, the place of learning is not essentially
where certain rather special kinds of activities take place, but one where learners are valued and nurtured as individuals. . . . The idea of an individualized approach to . . . pedagogy has . . . been threatening to teachers - because they have not been able to see how it could work in practical terms. . . . But ultimately, stimulating growth and catering [to] diversity is . . . [a question] of how well the teacher can communicate with her learners.[4]
Practical goals. One fairly easy way to tailor pedagogy to
individual needs is take into consideration the reasons students have
for taking a certain course or writing a specific paper. For example,
I might encourage a student in an introductory survey course on
Buddhism who is also writing a senior thesis on the role of ritual in
early Christianity to explore a similar topic for a paper in the
Buddhism course. I would also advise a junior planning to go onto
graduate school in religious studies to write a different kind of
paper from a sophomore majoring in engineering taking a religious
studies course out of intellectual curiosity. This does not mean that
I have different standards. In fact, I try to maintain consistent
standards regarding the basic elements of a paper regardless of
class, major, or other factors. It was my experience as an
undergraduate that the best teachers maintained consistent standards,
enabling me to see my progress over time. However, it can be helpful
to be aware of the ways in which a students' work might be tailored
to their individual interests or integrated with their work in other
areas. This may seem obvious, but it is easier said than done. This
is because it takes considerable energy on the part of the teacher to
be aware of both the various factors that might be related to his
students' work and the possibility of his own agendas interfering
with the individual destinies of their development.
Individual destiny and intellectual balance. Because
teaching and learning are more art than science, there is something
essentially intangible about the intellectual journey that unfolds in
the relationship between a teacher and his students. Nothing is more
intangible than the process of learning about the ways in which the
destinies of individual students unfold, yet perhaps there is nothing
that is more important for a teacher to understand.
This sense of individual destiny comes into play in many different
areas, among them the development of a balanced intellect. In
learning to think critically, students must be able to take an
appreciative as well as critical approach to the material and to see
many sides of an argument. However, the goal of thinking in a
balanced manner is not merely to see that two opposing views can be
argued with equal merit. Rather, it is to become fully aware of all
of the implications of a particular standpoint yet still be able to
find one's own voice in the matter. Because each student brings the
legacy of her own biographical, cultural, and religious background to
bear on the subject at hand, there are already tendencies and
expectations that shape her thoughts and to which she is most
receptive. A balanced intellect is fostered by respecting the history
constituting the formative influences of an individual's thought
while simultaneously providing a critical light that can be cast upon
it.
The question of balance might be involved in a variety of
scenarios. A student coming from an ethnic Chinese background may be
taking a course in Chinese thought in order to learn more about the
traditions that have influenced his parents. I might encourage such a
student to develop an appreciative understanding of the Chinese
thinkers presented in the course rather than asking him to engage in
critiques from the very beginning. On the one hand, it is easier to
criticize something than to appreciate it, and on the other,
meaningful critiques require a foundation of appreciation.
This can be true for traditions other than one's own. A student
who is an atheist taking a course on Christianity may have many
insightful critiques to offer with respect to the Christian
tradition. But the teacher may have some sense that these critiques
and the student's understanding of Christianity in general may
benefit from a more balanced perspective that includes a greater
sense of appreciation. However, there is an important difference
between this scenario and the last. In the previous case, the student
was motivated to develop an appreciative understanding from the very
beginning, whereas in this case the student has already reached
certain conclusions and may find it offensive if she is forced to
acknowledge ideas that she feels are problematic. As long as she
satisfies the requirements for considering various sides of an
argument within the academic parameters of her work, she should be
able to do as well as anyone else in her class. Beyond that point, I
might suggest the possibility of alternate readings, but I must
respect the culture and experiences that have led her to her atheism.
There is sometimes a tendency among teachers and scholars to
oversimplify and overdetermine ideas and traditions which are not
their own and with which they are not very familiar; care must be
taken to recognize the boundaries of one's knowledge.
In yet another scenario, a student who already has a sophisticated
sense of appreciation for his own tradition might be encouraged to
develop critical awareness. A student coming from a Buddhist
background may have important insights to share with his peers, but
without an accompanying critical sense, he is likely to come across
as dogmatic. Critical insights do not necessarily come from without;
in fact, an individual's own tradition often has the most to offer in
this regard, and it is important to help students identify these
resources as well.
There are also students who do not identify themselves with any
one tradition or perspective but are in the process of synthesizing
their own particular self-understanding. In any case, the traditions
with which students identify themselves are rarely closed,
monolithic, and unchanging; they are, as Wittgenstein would say,
forms of life-open and continually changing in interaction with
surrounding traditions and cultures. It is out of this process that
new forms are born, such as feminist and womanist spiritual
traditions, syntheses of Chicano and native American religions, and
even forms that are peculiarly academic.[5]
A Store of Knowledge, an Open Pasture, and the Power of
Constellation. A sense of professionalism, the recognition of
practical goals, and the encouragement of a balanced intellect are
all elements of individualized instruction that come into play at
various levels of pedagogy. However, there are other factors
necessary for helping students in the intellectual process of their
self-discovery.
First, it is necessary for the teacher to have an adequate store
of knowledge. This does not necessarily mean encyclopedic knowledge,
but a basic knowledge of what a student might be looking for and the
knowledge of how to find it. Many undergraduates do not have good
library skills or know what intellectual tools are available to them
in the form of methodologies and general theories. It is, of course,
helpful if one knows specific books and articles, individual
scholars, or even religious teachers who can serve as resource
persons. Beyond this, however, it is still important to have as broad
and sophisticated a knowledge of various ideas, traditions, thinkers,
and issues as possible, because that is what enables us to be
simultaneously aware of just how limited our knowledge really is and
of the vast possibilities waiting to be untapped.
Second, students should be free to explore and experiment with
ideas without feeling forced into a mold. This is more easily said
than done, since there are so many constraints on them from the
start, with respect to time, academic requirements, and the
expectations of others. By showing the relevance of the subject
matter and sharing one's own enthusiasm, it is possible to draw
students' attention away from their preoccupation with these
constraints and to invite them to explore the open pastures of the
intellectual world. Some students have little awareness of the
historical forces that have shaped their lives, and I have sometimes
found it helpful to present the relevance of the course material in
terms of the historical connection it has with key ideas and
assumptions at work in students lives.
Third, the teacher's ability to help constellate various processes
taking place in the student can contribute significantly to
integrating the learning experience. This involves identifying the
issues or concerns that a student is interested in and helping her to
formulate them effectively. These concerns may be related to personal
questions and problems; a sensitivity to underlying themes enables
the teacher to suggest appropriate avenues of exploration, sometimes
even without these themes ever being mentioned explicitly. The
question I often have at the back of my mind is: Given the
limitations in a situation in terms of time, resources and my own
abilities, what is the most that I can do for the individual sitting
before me? At this level, it is important to consider her as a human
being as much as a student in religious studies. In one course I had
a student who seemed somewhat disinterested or even hostile towards
the beginning of the course. She did not speak to me individually at
any time during the course, but I sensed that she was confronting
questions of her self-identity, and I tried to be sensitive to this
in responding to her questions and comments during discussions. Her
attitude to the subject matter gradually changed over the quarter,
and she wrote an excellent final paper. She later told me that she
had hardly known her father and had struggled with this fact as she
worked through the course material; she expressed her appreciation
for the process, saying I had "spoken her language." This does not
reflect any special insight on my part, just an awareness of possible
subtexts hidden within the explicit order of discourse.
Conclusion
The pursuit of religion and the discipline of religious studies
are often described in mutually antagonistic terms, but just as a
sense of professionalism is integral to individualized instruction,
so too, the study of religion can often dovetail with the personal
dimensions of religious self-understanding in the broadest sense of
this term, whether this self-understanding unfolds within a
particular tradition, is being newly synthesized, or leads to a
position that is opposed to religion in the traditional sense of the
term. That is because, at their best, religion and religious studies
are conduits for the vast potential that is being continually refined
and given expression by human beings. It is the meaningful exchange
of these expressions that makes the learning process vital for both
the teacher and the student. As one scholar puts it,
Each person, you and I, must find our own answers in our own lives, and although we are not quite sure exactly what is right or wrong, I can say that I lived my life, that my life is the answer to this question. . . . For each individual there is an answer that expresses that individuality . . . .There is the possibility that I can explain my answer and that others can understand it. In this sense I am opening the way to others while at the same time going my own individual way. . . . [The question of existence] does not allow the human being an exclusive right answer. In this sense it is quite religious.[6]