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Teaching with Talk

The University of Guelph recently held its annual Human Library, an event that invites students to “check out” people for 30-minute intervals. The “books” are individuals who willingly open their lives to discuss their experiences with everything from sexual discrimination, mental health issues, serving in Afghanistan and driving a race car.

Guelph’s Human Library is a temporary event, but it has managed to address an issue facing our education system — lack of dialogue. Western is described as a “vibrant centre of learning” on its website, yet for many students, university is merely a pattern of attending lectures, taking notes and regurgitating their knowledge for grades.

The separation between student and subject matter has been a long-standing problem with academia. The current education system offers few formal precedents for conversation with people who have actually experienced the subject of study; instead, studies often rely on analysis of dry theory.

The notion of a living library offers a solution to the ivory tower phenomenon. Imagine the benefits of applying this concept to regular classes — instead of listening to a professor’s theoretical take on Canada’s aboriginal history, students could engage with a member of a local First Nations community. An average history class would mean listening to the personal experiences of a Second World War veteran, and the English department would encourage the use of modern-day writers and critics as sources for assignments.

Some strides have already been made to increase opportunities for student engagement with their texts. Some of Western’s professors are widely-known (and well-liked) for inviting guest speakers to speak to students about their relevant personal experiences. Universities would benefit from taking the lead of innovative professors and working towards institutionalizing student-expert dialogue.

Seminar classes and tutorials are also examples of attempts to bring dialogue to the classroom. Discussing study material with our peers allows us to learn from other perspectives and apply subject matter to more lively debate.

Looking into the future, it would be ideal to see universities moving towards a dialogue-friendly academic setting. Students should also be making efforts to reach outside the classroom setting and pick the brains of experts in their fields.

However, while we progress towards dialogue, textbooks and old-fashioned lectures should not be forgotten.

Consider this: class discussions are pointless if students don’t understand the topic matter. Textbooks are invaluable resources when it comes to learning the basic foundations of any subject.

Only after we have come to understand theoretical foundations and context can we engage and benefit from academic dialogue.

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