I'm the Teacher, You're the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom

I had previously enjoyed three of Dr. Allitt's classes through The Teaching Company. His lecturing style is among the best of the manyfine presenters that organization uses, and he had become a favorite. When I came across this book, I hoped that his "style" wouldtranslate into the written word. I really enjoyed this book. As a retired college professor, the subject interested me. Although heteaches at a much more prestigious and selective school than the one I was affiliated with, I was surprised to find that his studentshad some of the same difficulties as mine -- lack of adequate pre-college preparation, difficulty writing standard English, unwillingness togive up memorization as a study technique, etc.Dr. Allitt's thoughtful and dedicated approach to his teaching would be an inspiration to those considering academia as a home,and his humanity and humor in dealing with his students could be an example to all of us in our everyday human relations.

Patrick Allitt is a British-born, Oxford/Berkeley-educated professor of American history at Emory. In this book he details the occurrences in a semester-long course covering U.S. history from 1877-2000 (though he doesn't quite make it to the year 2000). The material is very detailed; he tells us what he has done, class by class, book by book, test by test and he records the students' responses, their strengths, weaknesses, exam howlers, ignorance of geography, and so on. I have tried to think of the book's audience. It will of course be amusing for colleagues, those who share his line of work, his frustrations and his joys. It would also be very interesting to high school students, contemplating college, as well as to their parents who are contemplating paying for it.I have seen citations to the book in which it has been used to demonstrate the lack of preparation and indolence of American students (even at Emory). While he raises problems of contemporary higher education (grade inflation, for example), this is not a theoretical or historical book on higher ed; it is much more of a journal, detailing one professor's experience in one semester of work.How representative is the experience related in the book? I would say that his expectations as a teacher are higher than most, much higher than many. His dedication to the task is also far higher than average. Even though he enjoys the help of a teaching assistant in a relatively small class (40 or so students) he goes out of his way to bring the material to life, with various media presentations and a series of labor-intensive activities. He volunteers to read first drafts of papers, which is something that most would not do. First, you cannot do it for some without doing it for all (and announcing that you are willing to do it for all, which he does). Once you announce that you will read first drafts you are setting yourself up to be the editor/proofreader for your students, an extremely important role which they will have to learn to do for themselves; teachers do not follow them around through life, reading first drafts.His exams and paper requirements strike me as demanding, but then he curves the grades at the end of the process and his allocation of points for various activities within the course is applied in what appears to be a loosey-goosey fashion, something that would set him up for endless challenges by bunkhouse lawyers with calculators and personal claims.The students seem to be like most upper-average students. Some readers may be chagrined to learn what they do not know; very few professors will be surprised. To give the Emory students their due, most professors would consider the course expectations to be extremely high. A course such as this would largely be unthinkable at 90% of American institutions.So read and enjoy, take a few grains of salt, wish that you had teachers as conscientious as Professor Allitt and then read some of the more historical/analytical books on contemporary higher education to discover why we are where we are today.

Prof. Allitt's book recalling a semester of teaching a survey level US History course is the most entertaining and enjoyable thing I've read this year. I had some previous familiarity with his thoughts on academic subjects from several Teaching Company courses which he presented or in which he participated. All were quite good, but I found them generally orthodox, if accurate, approaches to the subject matter. In "I'm the Teacher" he shows a sharper critical edge, not to mention an abundance of dry British wit, each of which makes for entertaining reading while not descending to the "all my students are incomprehensible dullards" level. Nonetheless, Allitt implicitly delivers a powerful critique of American secondary education.Although I've spent 7 years in undergraduate and post-graduate education, I must admit that I've had no idea of the professor's viewpoint, apart from that of a friend or two in law schools, given long after I graduated. In fact, as I read Allitt's book, I experienced a fair amount of guilt over my undergraduate attitudes, work habits and efforts, all of which were largely of the mediocre level of which he complains. Something, however, probably the efforts of the 4 or 5 excellent professors I had, motivated me to attempt continued learning and that pursuit is exceptionally rewarding in middle age. And that heightens the sense of what I missed by not being a better student years ago.More significantly, "I'm the Teacher" led me to realize facts about the educational process nearly 35 years after I ended my undergraduate career. In particular, I feel embarassed about my lousy attitude and the frustration which that may have caused my most able professors and I can understand how a journeyman level of writing skills can compensate for all but the most deficient motivation. If Allitt's concerns were reduced to a single level of complaint, student writing would take the cake distantly followed perhaps by geographical ignorance. All in all, I wish that I either knew then what I now know (much better so, in fact, after reading this text) or at least had the maturity to intuit it. I'm not certain that this would be extremely helpful for a late adolescent about to enter college, but if I had a mature close relative in that position I would give it a try. As a matter of thoughtful reading for pleasure for adults though, I have no question about giving the highest recommendation.

Wonderfully written: full of humour and insight. Well done Professor Allitt ... encore please?