Try Humble, Positive Modeling, Not Neutrality. On grappling with uncertainty in the classroom.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | March 13, 2024 | Robert E. Wright

[karpov]

The kerfuffle over the relative merit of forcing “viewpoint neutrality” in history classrooms puzzles me. No wonder: Although an historian by Ph.D., I have taught mostly economics for almost three decades!

Historians, and I daresay others teaching the human sciences, could learn much from what I call “econogogy,” specific pedagogical techniques employed by many, though by no means all, economists. Students pay tuition or incur debt to develop independent analytical-thinking skills (and to have some fun), not to learn the political opinions of professors that they could see for free on X or Facebook.

Dramatic current events, from terrorist attacks to global financial meltdowns and pandemics, provide professors across the human sciences with unique opportunities to obtain that most precious of resources, the attention of students, relatively inexpensively. Historic global events therefore tempt many professors to leave the usual confines of their courses.

With that potential reward, however, comes the ample risk that professors will pontificate on political matters instead of providing students with experiences of educational value. By employing the techniques of econogogy, though, professors can leverage current events without subverting their core curricular missions.

For starters, keep it positive. By that, I don’t mean upbeat; I mean not normative. Make claims that, if not empirically supported, are at least inherently testable or falsifiable. Don’t pass moral judgements; just inform students what happened and help them to understand, to the extent possible, why it happened.

[riverrunner]

Just teach them cost benefit analyst.

If what you are learning isn’t going to help pay for it’s self.

Don’t spend money on learning it.

[ClearCase_guy]

1) This guy talks like a classic academic. That’s not a good sign.
2) He seems to not realize that most people in the education field today are there because they WANT to indoctrinate people. They aren’t looking for methods to teach analytical thinking. We all wish they were. But they hate analytical thinking. They want to brainwash.