Michael E. Urban–Teaching Statement 2000-01
Professor, Politics

Naturally, I was delighted to learn that I have been nominated for an Excellence in Teaching Award. As a statement on teaching, I've set down a few thoughts, below, that I hope will characterize my objectives and methods.

While an undergraduate—a status that I see as happily coincident with a certain vulnerability to ideas—I was rather severely bitten by two bugs: politics and Russia. Although neither is known to be fatal, both (especially in combination) invariably seem to prove fateful. My professional life has thus been consigned to the study and teaching of these subjects, a condition that effectively makes me a carrier of those bugs themselves. In that respect, I have never much seen myself as instilling anything in my students. Rather, the experience has been one of exposing them to my passions for politics and for Russia. Reflectively, one might say that both topics reside at the core of a liberal-arts education. The full diversity of the human condition—from the sublime to the shallow, from the venal to the heroic—is included under what we call "politics". And, as for Russia, what's bigger than that? The sheer variety of life there, as well as the intensity with which it is lived, confronts us with human puzzles that we cannot expect to solve until we take in some of this vastness ourselves, stretching both our intellectual horizons and our own interiors. Of course, this is all said on reflection. In the lecture hall or seminar room—or, for that matter, in my Stevenson office or on the patio there—it is the contagion of conversation that forms the center of the teaching experience.

In my view, politics is language. The investigation of political language, then, serves as an entry point into the political world, especially into other political worlds. Introducing students to the rudiments of discourse analysis enables them to crack political codes, to interpret in non-arbitrary ways the political life of Russia and the other countries about which I teach, our own included. The knowledge thus derived constitutes broad, human-centered understanding. It requires squeezing as much as possible out of our imagination in order to enter into the world of those whom we study, to encounter it, to know it, as they might. On the basis of that understanding, we are in position to seek explanations, to ask questions about why they might apprehend themselves and their world in a particular way, and why they do things in ways not easily intelligible to us (already we become implicated in our own knowledge). But whatever success we might have in attempting those explanations would be directly dependent on our level of understanding.

Along these lines, I have found it extraordinarily useful to supplement the political science readings in my courses with books and articles concerned with culture. These have never been some sort of add-on. Rather—to take a Russian example—knowing the structure of folktales, or the available positions to be taken and enacted in conversation or in workplace relations, unlocks what would otherwise often appear as completely mysterious goings-on in, say, parliamentary debate, voting behavior, legislative activity or national security pronouncements. I have also tried to incorporate relevant anecdotes in my lectures as bridges between concepts and contexts. Stories can arrest our attention and so convey in particularly powerful ways one or another idea, common situation or social practice. They serve as pegs on which students are able to hang more abstract or complex concepts appearing in course readings or lectures. Of course, this works best when the overall atmosphere in the classroom encourages interchange. Therefore, I try to keep that atmosphere as casual as possible without diminishing the serious nature of our business there.

I have relied some on two other resources to promote learning (as understanding). One would be film. My experience in this respect has been somewhat mixed. Students seem to appreciate and enjoy viewing, say, a documentary on Polish Solidarity or the Prague Spring. And they surely learn things in the process. But I am not persuaded that, for my purposes, films are very cost-effective. The mode of reception is passive and discussions following a film usually reveal that most students had some trouble just making sense of what they saw. Therefore, I use film selectively. However, I've found another resource—guest speakers—to be extremely rewarding. Over the past four or five years IÕve had the good fortune to be able to bring to my classes some leading political actors from Russian and East Europe—members of the Russian parliament, a Russian party leader, the last Communist prime minister of Poland—who also happen to be intellectuals and thus disposed to analyze as well as to describe their experiences and surroundings. On these occasions in particular I have sensed that the bugs have been doing their work.

Let me conclude by mentioning the importance that I place on writing in all my courses. I full accept the notion that to write about something is to know it. I therefore require students to write serious research papers in all my courses. In recent years, I have been acting on the idea that cultivating a student's knowledge and writing skills cannot be complete unless we replicate something of the same process that we undergo when writing up our own research. Consequently, I insist that students submit drafts of their papers to me about two weeks before the final due date. As circumstances permit, I also commission other students to read and comment on the papers. I read all drafts very closely and criticize them thoroughly, returning them to their authors well adorned with red ink. Students then revise their work on the basis of my criticism and that of their peers, submitting final versions of their papers at the end of the course. Obviously, this usually does not imply a pain-free experience for them. But it doesn't take much reminder of our purpose for them to see the utility of this enterprise. Students, especially those who have submitted weak first drafts, respond well—although, I'm sure, most of the rejoicing is reserved for the day on which that final draft has (finally) been submitted and, perhaps, for the reading of an evaluation that recounts the obstacles surmounted, the progress made and just how much has been accomplished in the process.