University of Virginia Library

Experiential Docent

We heard yesterday of an experiment in
classroom instruction which members of the
various curriculum evaluation committees
would do well to consider as they come to
their conclusions and make their recommendations
for reform at the University. Cal
Tech's Frederick B. Thompson, visiting
Sesquicentennial Scholar, described in detail
an approach which he has found extremely
successful for teaching one of his courses in
higher logic.

The approach is best characterized as a
total departure from everything associated
with formal classroom procedure. His class of
20 undergraduates, mostly juniors, meets in a
square room which is lushly carpeted on the
floor and three feet up the sides. There is a
blackboard on one side, and the walls are
"gaudily painted;" there are chairs only for
those who are, as he put it, too "hung up" to
sit on the floor. He and most of the students
"sprawl" on the carpet.

In setting up the guidelines for the course
at its outset, he announced to the class that
there would be no tests, papers, or homework,
and that at the end of each term each member
would determine his own grade on a basis of
his own estimate of his own progress. "With
that out of the way," he told them, "let's get
down to work."

Mr. Thompson gives no lectures; he rather
mimeographs in longhand what would be his
lectures and hands them out. The class period
is spent in discussion, mostly of problems
students raise. About every sixth discussion,
he said, invariably ends up devoted to a
consideration of "where it's all going" or
"what it's all coming to."

He does require a weekly statement from
each student of his assessment of his progress
and of whatever problems or "hang ups" have
developed for him. Mr. Thompson brings
these problems up in class for discussion and
resolution without revealing the students who
read them. In many cases, he said, because
of the removal of the pressure to compete and
of the informality of the whole arrangement,
the students voice the problems themselves in
class. He emphasized his own total personal
involvement with his students as, in effect, a
guide and resource, on their level.

He usually brings no material to class other
than relevant papers he has read and xeroxed
to hand out to the students. In one case, for
example, he was asked to prove a theorem on
which he had no notes with him, and so he
had to work it out logically before the class
"just as they do late at night." Members of
the class later told him that watching a
logician work in this way - the chance to
identify with him - was one of the most
valuable experiences they had had. Most
students submit their regular work to him
voluntarily, and he "marks" their papers, not
from a standpoint of right or wrong, but on a
"wouldn't it be better this way?" basis.

The point of this experiment, simply, is
that it transfers the learning process from a
basis of passive receiving of information to
one of active individual seeking for it, but
with a "guide" and a group effort. The result,
Mr. Thompson says: he gets much more work
from his students than he ever did before, and
they seem much more involved and eager to
learn than ever before: "We've had a ball!" As
for the grades they have awarded themselves,
he said that with two exceptions, he has
concurred with their assessments. The exceptions
varied in both directions. Some students
even failed themselves.

Mr. Thompson is a math professor. His
new technique seems to have worked
admirably. His estimate is that it would work
much better for courses of a more subjective
nature, such as in the humanities. The
all-important consideration is that his approach
has brought the course involved "to
life" for his students to a much greater extent
than could possibly have been hoped for with
formal lectures, tests, papers, etc. If, indeed,
"experience is the best teacher," the students
in Mr. Thompson's class are getting the best
education possible, for they are deriving it for
themselves by experience, experience which
the "formal" teacher exists only to facilitate
and guide. We cannot help recalling the
educational methods of ancient Greeks as we
consider this approach.

It is tremendously encouraging to know
that education so informal and unstylized -
and yet so vital and productive - can occur so
successfully in a society such as ours. The
addition of courses operated in such fashion,
even if they were available only for
outstanding or special students, could be a
highly significant factor in "saving" the
curriculum at the University, particularly on
the undergraduate level, from the increasing
dehumanization and impersonalization -
from the sheer dullness - which characterize
its current decline.