Awards and Recognition
Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards
2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
2006-2007 GTA Winners
Teaching Philosphies
Stephen Boyle
January 2007
I spent eighteen years of my professional life thinking I was a commercial lawyer. As it turns out I was as much a teacher as a lawyer, I just didn’t realize it at the time. Law is a profession that is a learned on the job. Years of law school provide little practical understanding of the real stuff of commercial practice. Young lawyers must learn in their own time to think critically and reflectively about what they are doing. With that they have the set of skills necessary to succeed in any branch of the legal profession.
It was not until I began to teach in the formal educational setting of the University that I realized that the skills I had developed through training young lawyers were directly relevant to the teaching of young scholars. The ability to think critically and reflectively is as relevant in the lecture room as it is in the conference room. I seek to develop this skill in the young scholars who pass through my classes, not just to better understand international relations or American government, but to become engaged and concerned citizens who have an appreciation of the nuisances of the world around them. By presenting my scholars with opposing view points and conflicting interpretations of the topics at hand I aim to have them confront political and social alternatives. I engage them in debate and encourage debate amongst themselves so that they can see that opposing view points can be just as valid as their own and that it is important to subject their own convictions to critical thought and analysis. By exposing my scholars to differing theoretical perspectives at an early stage in their academic careers I encourage them to develop their own theoretical perspectives, the better to analyze their world and to assess the performance of their government on the issues that matter to them.
I find that these approaches stimulate debate and understanding among my scholars. I believe that they learn more from active discussion with me and with one another than they do from a simple narrative to a set of PowerPoint slides. I emphasize participation in my class activities and in my grading schemes. I encourage them to work together on readings and have them present their findings and debate them with the class. I believe that these basic principles can be applied to many teaching environments and it is my hope that, whatever classes I teach, my priority will always be to encourage my scholars to think for themselves and to convince them of the enduring value and universal applicability of that skill.
