Outstanding Teachers at the University; History Department

[Dave Cosloy] And we continue with our series of outstanding teachers who are going to share with us their views on teaching, and the profession in general. I'd like to welcome John Dreifort to University in Your Community who's in the history department. Thank you for being here. [John Dreifort] Thank you Dave. [Dave Cosloy] First of all why don't we begin with the initial question of what sustains you in teaching? I think that's a good starting point. [John Dreifort] Good place to start. [laughter] I wish I could say it was the pay, which is you know is not the case. I wish I could say it's the fact that there were tremendous numbers of stimulating students, and so forth, and that's not to say there aren't, because there certainly are. But I think that the thing that really sustains me is the bully, frankly, that we're doing a horrible job in education right now, and perhaps a lot of people need to really do some serious soul searching as to why we're in education. What we're trying to do with education. What our graduates should come out knowing, when they graduate from the Wichita State University,

and I think this is really what sustains me, because I think we have been sold a bill of goods by those who repeat the impression that education outta have a cash value. That a graduate ought to have a skill, you know, to come out with vocation, and in the end I think we're doing these students, and our own society a terrible disservice because in the end, they are training for the first job their going to get but they're not training for life very well. And it seems to me this is doing them a very very great disservice. There was a discussion a while back in which the president of Notre Dame or St. Mary's College at Notre Dame, I thought perhaps put it best, when he said that the highest ideal of any education is to be able to distinguish the good from the bad.

The good idea from the bad idea, the good congressional bill from the bad congressional bill, the good leader from the bad leader. And I don't think really teaching people to make those discriminating choices very well. The most discriminating they can do is to try and figure out A, B, C or D on a multiple choice test, and that to me is simply not sufficient in training them to deal with the real world. So, to answer your question, shortly, I think frankly the thing that sustains me is the whole- maybe unrealistically, that perhaps I might be able to do a little better than that, frankly. To really help to educate some students, as opposed to train some students and I think there's a big difference. We need to try to educate these students, not for their first job, but for their last job, okay? The statistics, I think, show recently that people will change their job, perhaps, as many as seven times in their

lives. They'll change their career orientation maybe three or four times in their lives. What kind of college training can you get that will produce us a person who is well enough adjusted to be able to handle this kinds of traumatic changes. [Dave Cosloy] And well-rounded. [John Dreifort] I mean that's the kind of student we need to have, is a well-rounded student who can deal with those problems that come along. I don't think we're doing it very well, frankly. [Dave Cosloy] So, you're saying we should be teaching a thinking process or the process of thinking through things, rather than training them to achieve one task in life? [John Dreifort] Certainly, I think to be able to think critically, to be able to write critically, to read critically, you know the old basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, I think still have a very important value and without those things- those fundamentals, I don't care what else you may know. You will not be able to use them successfully in your own life. [Dave Cosloy] But you need to have those as a

foundation- [John Dreifort] I think so. [Dave Cosloy][Continuing] early on in education to be able to continue on later? [John Dreifort] Exactly and I think that's where we're falling down at the University here, but it's not just here. I think it's all around the country. We do not require students to read enough. We do not require them to think enough. We, in this multiple choice test business. Well frankly, I challenged some of my colleagues to try and get along without the multiple choice test. I think some of them would be completely at a loss if they didn't have the testing center to fall back on. That's ridiculous. But at same time they have their own problems. It's ridiculous that a dean would expect a professor to teach in a class of 100 students or whatever and be able to give them essay examinations, or examinations that would really test the thought process, as well as, the information that these students know. So, I think this is where we really need to do a better job. [Dave Cosloy] Okay, what sort of things has John Dreifort, professor, do in class in order to

create or stimulate the thinking process within a student? [John Dreifort] Much easier asked than answered [laughter]. Well, basically my favorite mode of teaching is to have a good deal of give and take, a good deal of discussion. But that has predicated on the bases that students come to class knowing some information. The thing that bothers me more and more as we have more students, and more teachers of students, who rely more on process rather than on knowledge. They can talk very clearly around things, but they really don't have much information. And this is very difficult in a class. Well one of the questions that was posed earlier, before we started on the air was, should students have a basic knowledge of your class material? I'm

not sure that they need to know history per say, or that particular aspect of history were dealing with, but one of the difficulties, that I think a lot of the faculty is having, is students come in not knowing anything, or not knowing any common ground. There's no common knowledge. You can't go into a class and expect students or even a reasonable percentage of students to know a certain amount of information, or certain part of western heritage. I had a class last semester of 70 students, one of whom ever heard of [inaudible]. Just one, okay not, and that person didn't know what each had to say, just heard of them. Where do you start that class? That poses some terrible problems for a professor. So for me, I really think it's important they come prepared, having done the reading, and then I think that stimulates me. You've been in class enough to know that you're the same person basically in different classes, and yet different classes will be successful and other classes will be totally unsuccessful.

You're the same person, same material. What's the difference? The difference is that some students you can use to really bring out your best instincts and your best performance, where as other students just sit back there and sort of defy you to teach them. Well, there's a difference. There's a certaina chemistry that needs to develop in a class, and that's as much a responsibility as the student as it is for the faculty member. [Dave Cosloy] So what you're saying is then, is that it's much the student's responsibility for how well he is educated, as is your responsibility. [John Dreifort] I agree. [Dave Cosloy] What sort of things does a student do? I mean I realize participate in discussion, try and read material. What sort of things does a person do who realizes that maybe he hasn't had the best background education? Do you just go out and start reading classics? [Dave Cosloy] Well, I think this is where you begin to mind the professor. You talk to the professor, trying get an idea of the kinds of things that can be read to bring you up to speed in that particular class. And it may not be the classics at all. I mean it depends on where the student is and where the faculty

thinks the students should be, and I think they can work out mutually an arranged assignment that can bring them up into a useful participant in class. [Dave Cosloy] Do you think classrooms are the only place to get educated? I know you work with international student program. What sort of things of value coming in education outside class activities? [John Dreifort] Well, I think you're right question. There are many many ways in which you educate yourself, and I think this is one of problems with a commuter campus, like Wichita State University. It's very difficult with students who are working thirty or forty hours a week to expect them to come back to campus to share in the cultural activities that are going on. The cultural activities on this campus, I think, are very poorly attended. Students simply do not take advantage of them often enough. But, I recognize the problems that they have getting back. But this is where

education goes on as well. Education is wherever you find it in a sense. It's on campus and it's off campus. It's in the city. It's in the classroom. It's the ballpark. It's anywhere really. I think a lot of students don't really mine the community or mine the University enough to gain this kind of education. [Dave Cosloy] So for the future of the schools, where do you see them going? Do you see them improving, getting worse? I mean you've already stated that you don't think education is where it should be. Are we going to be, in your mind, start setting some goals? Are people going to sit and say 'I'm not gonna take this anymore. You've gotta change.' [John Dreifort] I'm madder than hell? [laughter] I wish I could say I was optimistic on that. I am not. I think there are a lot of faculty on campus, this campus and other campuses. Harvard, for example, has just gone through a very rigorous reexamination of its

curriculum, and there's a saying, you know, in Wichita State's about 5 years behind the various coasts in a sense. And in about 5 years we may, really, reexamine our own curriculum, enough to the point that we will do some serious changes in it. My own feeling is that I think we do need to go back to a core curriculum in the University where we can expect that a graduate from Wichita State University knows a certain body of information, knows how to do certain things like write and to read and to think. And I think that if we do that, then I think we're going along the right path. I don't see any great movement in that direction right now. We're playing around I think with the curriculum but I'm not optimistic that it will be anything more than moderated cafeteria-style curriculum that we have now. [Dave Cosloy] Also, a related question is, I wonder how you feel about taking somebody in a college and trying to teach them basic skills they supposedly learned in

elementary, junior high, high school things? Are we to teach basic reading, writing, arithmetic skills when they're adults at the college level and should we? [John Dreifort] Well, I think we don't have a choice. As an open admissions university, we do have to teach these people these basic skills. My feeling is that they should be taught at a remedial level. They should not receive college credit for learning how to do something they should have done in high school. The other implication, it seems to me that is if we don't give them the remedial work, there is a tremendous tendency to enroll a student an English class, or a math class, or speech class, whatever, and to feel that 'well that poor student can't do it, but I as a professor, I really wanna have a ball-shaped curve of so many of As, Bs, Cs, and Ds, and regardless of whether that class deserves it or not, you're going to end up with that. I think, if we are putting these students in

these introductory classes of speech, or English, or math, wherever it might be before they're ready, I think there's a tremendous tendency to pass them along when they don't deserve to be passed along. And it seems to me that one of the great problems we have right now is grade inflation. And why is it that we have to pass legislation, or it's now contemplated by the academic standards and practices committee, to increase the requirements for Dean's Honor Roll. Increase the grade point average. Why should we have to do that? It's because we've so inflated the grades around here by passing people along, that the grade is meaningless. Who are we doing a favor to? We're not doing favor to these students who get out, and are on the Dean's Roll, and yet they get out and they can't read or write and I've had a lot of them in my classes. I've just been utterly amazed that they pop up on the honor roll at the end of their academic careers or in various years and here they are. They had a hard time

composing an intelligent sentence in my class. And who's kidding who? Where do those people come from and where are they going to go? In the long run, they're going to come out of here with a degree and anticipations that their going to achieve great things, but eventually it's going to catch up with them. [Dave Cosloy] I see. Well I wish we had more time to explore these things, but I think we have a good idea of how you teach and your approach to education and I thank you for sharing your views here on University in Your Community. I've been speaking to John Dreifort from the history department here at Wichita State. This has been University in Your- [Audio Cuts out]