Teaching

List of the courses I taught | Online courses and lectures | List of MA theses I supervised

The best advice on teaching I ever read came from a Javanese shadow puppet play called Dewa Ruci:

There are many pandits [teachers]

who teach half what they know

to their disciples.
The disciples are very sharp.
What is folded up they unfold the secrets of, then
they tell the teacher.

In other words, the trick to teaching is to tell students only half of what there is to tell - and watch them fill in the blanks in exciting ways that you, the teacher, could never predict. I always teach my students that the knowledge they gain from my courses is only the beginning of an exploration that they have to undertake themselves. To this end, my lectures and seminars are intensive for both teacher and students: eliciting is frequently favoured over explaining, questions are returned to students, and students are actively encouraged to take what I tell them further through perusal and critical reflection. 

Students have been very appreciative of my teaching. I have received messages from students, sometimes years after I taught them, telling me of the impression my courses left on them. More than once, a student has told me that one of my courses inspired them to choose to specialise in that subject. Students have commended the fact that they really feel taken seriously and that I have a good rapport with them. My enthusiasm and knowledge are regularly praised by students. But I am most proud of a remark made by one student: she said that I had not only taught her the subject of the course, but managed to help her “see the world in a different way in many respects”. After all, I think that is what a teacher really is supposed to do.