Comment on McNeil
Greetings,
In our reading today of McNeil (166-170), he comments that defensive teachers in fields such as social studies rely on lists to convey information instead of attempting to interrelate the information. He then identifies the example of the labor-union movement in America. He claims that most teachers would identify major ideas, tools, and people and then have the students define each of the items on the list. The teacher would then move on. A more effective teacher, however, described the conditions that prompted workers to unionize, and then continued with the tools that they used and the people led or opposed the movement.
I would contend that a combination of the two would be the most effective way of organizing the class. I would suggest that the reading would be assigned the night before, along with a list of items to be defined. Then, with the start of class, I would then teach the lesson similar to the latter teacher. I propose that this idea would be more useful simply using the second teacher’s because of the assumption that students, coming into the class, have little or no knowledge of the history of the United States. By giving them a list, the students will have a basic knowledge of what I will be lecturing about, as well as what they are going to be responsible for on tests. This would then give students the ability to have questions to ask me when we get to areas that they did not understand, and might inspire a more in depth discussion of the topic.
Book Sited:
McNeil, L. M. (1986). Defensive teaching and classroom control. In Contradictions of control Boston: Routledge.
