Outstanding Teachers at the University; Instructional Services

[music] [Cosloy] Hi, welcome to University in Your Community. My name is Dave Cosloy and today I'm speaking with Nancy Millett from the Department of Instructional Services here at Wichita State University. First of all, why don't we talk about the area that you are in because I think it's sort of fascinating, and also let me welcome you, now that I've forgotten to mention that. [laughter] [Millett] Thanks David. Area? What do you mean? [Cosloy] Well in terms of what Instructional Services does. What do you teach? [Millett] Instructional Services includes people were interested in elementary education, secondary education, reading, educational psychology, special education--you name it, we've got it. I happen to teach in two divisions in that department, both in elementary division and in secondary. I'm a retread secondary teacher, a retread administrator also, which got me into the elementary. So I teach language arts for elementary school teachers and literature for adolescents. [Cosloy] So in other words you're actually teaching the teachers? [Millett] That's right. [Cosloy] And your job is to enable them to go out and teach. Is it a specific

curriculum or is it just general curriculum that are available? [Millett] The language arts, from my point of view, encompasses all subject matters that are not- well- that are not characterized by other simple systems. And so I see it as fundamental to any kind of learning process that goes on, whether the elementary or the secondary school level. Thus, I don't really teach you so much a subject as I am processes, ways of using language to examine one's own world and the world outside oneself. [Cosloy] Okay, now in language arts- I remember when I had it- that was the course that was entitled when I was in high school, and a lot of people asked me what the difference was between that and English, and I didn't have a really good answer. What is your answer to language arts? [Millett] [laughter] Language arts is a term that's used more often by elementary school personnel than secondary folk and they actually do mean- or should mean- the same things. The language arts are traditionally described in terms of speaking, listening, and reading, and writing. Which should come as no great shock and no revelation to anyone. [laughter]

English, I think, as it is taught in high school, tends to focus almost always on the written word, wrongly so, but it does. Or if people deal with other dimensions of language, they are liable to do it as drama majors, journalism majors, things like that kind. [Cosloy] Okay, what's the most difficult thing you have to do in terms of teaching people to teach? Whatever subject. [Millett] Getting them to trust questions more than answers, getting them to enjoy taking risks more than believing in certainties, getting them to care immensely about other people's questions more than their own, and putting their egos to bed before they go to work. [Cosloy] [laughter] How do you accomplish all of those things? [Millett] I'm not sure that I do, in fact. [Cosloy] Well, you're here. That must mean something, and you've been chosen as an outstanding educator in some fashion by someone in some way. [Millett] If I am successful at all, I suppose, it's because I try

to teach the way that I would suggest that other people teach. [Cosloy] And that is not the way you teach? Is it different from the way you teach? Is it- [Millett] No, the way I teach is the way that I would like them to teach, not the way I was taught. Perhaps I wasn't clear about that. [Cosloy] Oh I see. And is that unusual? I mean are people taught, generally, still a different process? [Millett] I suspect that you're going to get a different answer, David, from every person who is a teacher. I find teaching an immensely personal and private and selfish act on one hand, even though it is a selfless and public act on the other [laughter]. So that my- my style is me. I find absolutely no difference between myself as a person outside the classroom and in the classroom.t Other teachers do. At least they tell me they do. That they will assume a distance, they'll assume a role because they believe that that technique is more effective in making their students focus on the issues at hand. I can't do that.

It doesn't feel right for me. It's not consistent with the way that I feel about myself or people or learning, which I want to be a human and humorous- as often as possible- playful, playful kind of an experience because I think people invent best that way. I think people are encouraged to ask more questions that way. I think they're liable to play with alternatives more freely than in other structures. [Cosloy] Okay, the students that come to you and say, "I appreciate your style, and I see how that would really work for you, but I don't feel that it works for me.", how do you- do you just expose them to it and say, 'Well I understand you might have your own style and you might prefer to do that, but here's the way I do it'? [Millett] Well that's a fair enough summary. I suspect- [Cosloy] I answered your own question [laughter]. [Millett] That's one answer. I suspect a real answer from some students would be that I frustrate them very deeply. That they want me to tell them. They want me to point to the pages in the textbook where they're going to get the answer, and I'll say, "But I'd prefer for you to think about the question, and I will show you a

method. I will show you as many methods as I can think of for arriving at an answer, but you're going to have to find what fits well for yourself.". [Cosloy] So to that end, what do you do? [Millett] You mean what's a typical kind of format for classroom? Oh, perhaps I can answer the question best by talking about how I get ready to teach a class. Okay. If I have nothing else prepared before I go in, I have questions that I am going to hope are worked into the discussions sooner or later in the course of an hour. I think that typifies my approach, or I will take in a problem and ask other person's to identify what questions they see in that particular problem. For example, if you're going to try to get children to write, you say, a story, what problems are involved in doing that kind of a thing? Which ones are you weakest at? Could

I entice you to lead from your weakness instead of your strength so that you will be inclined to explore and experiment and gain a feeling, also, for that kind of threatened moment when you ask those same kinds of things of children who don't know quote "the answer" unquote? [Cosloy] Interesting. We talked earlier about the fact that you're what we call- what you call a "retread" secondary education, elementary education instructor, and your change to university professor is- must be- an interesting story in and of itself. Why switching? Why the retread? [Millett] Actually, I've been retread a couple of times and maybe it's beginning to show. I don't know. [Cosloy] [laughter] No. [Millett] I started as an English teacher at an eastern university, the University of Rochester, and when we -my ex husband and I- moved to Kansas, I was retread into a high school teacher, because of nepotism rules prevented me from teaching at the university.

I spent several years teaching at Wichita High School East, which are intensely exciting years. And then I left that, although I was very excited by my teaching of the students, because I couldn't stand the rigidity of the bureaucracy. Every time I read about something new or thought about something new, a new way of arranging the curriculum, a way of getting me new students, a way of posing new problems for myself, the answer was, and excuse me, I know self praise stinks, but the answer was, "But you do what you do so well, why should we ask somebody else to do it?", and I said, "Well then I'll stop doing everything.", Nobody has to compete with me. Just give me students who'd never passed anything before in their lives and I'll teach them. I tried every way I could think of and nothing really seemed to work. So, I went back to school, got a middle-aged doctorate. The university asked me to come out here to teach, and I started teaching both in the English department and in adult education, and in education, and finally settled in the college of education. [Cosloy] I see. When you have the

rigidity, do you find anything- I mean is there that much more freedom in the university system? [Millett] Absolutely. [Cosloy] Well when you have a curriculum designed, do they allow you to change it within the course? I mean there must be certain objectives? Like for example - [Millett] I set them. [laughter] [Cosloy] Okay but do they change over time? Don't your objectives and goals for an individual class . . . ? [Millett] Oh, yes I doubt very much that I teach this specifically the same things from semester to semester. The overall goals and purposes may stay relatively the same, emphasis will shift. It's the way that one operates within that larger framework where I find myself very very free. But as far as I'm concerned, you see I've only been teaching elementary division just a few years, and since I'm currently the only person who teaches in the fall and spring semesters there, I can change the whole ball of wax if I want to and I have done so now three times in the last four years. [Cosloy] And what you do is you have the general

framework that is very broad so you have that freedom within that. [Millett] Sure enough. [Cosloy] How do you balance the needs- I mean I realize as a professor at a university you have various needs; [inaudible] you're expected to not only teach, you're expected to keep up in your field, that means usually publishing, that sort of thing. Also you have community service. How do you balance all those things and what sorts of things do you do? [Millett] I work very hard [laughter]. My teaching comes first. Service is, for me, a natural kind of thing to do. It's- I have a strong feeling about being a member of the University, I have a strong belief in service. It suits my notions of collegiality. I do a lot of it. That, to me, hardly seems like work even though I do a great deal of it. My writing comes last, but I always have something going. Right now, for example, I'm just finishing a textbook project on the composing process for "?Hope Mifflin?"

I'm halfway through a small project with Little Brown and Company reviewing some college level language arts materials aimed at an elementary audience. And I'm about to begin, for the second time around, a major textbook project with Scott Foresman on the Literature anthology for secondary school people. [Cosloy] That's very active. You do work very hard. [Millett] Yes [laughter]. [Cosloy] You weren't lying. The question is, and this is just a quick aside, a lot of people have a lot of questions, especially some of our students who get out and have to pay 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 dollars for a textbook sometimes. How lucrative is the textbook industry? [laughter] [Millett] Usually it doesn't pay well it all. The first books- [Cosloy] That's a dirty way of asking how much do you make from the textbook? [laughter] [Millett] I will tell you with one case [laughter]. [Cosloy] Okay. [Millett] The first textbooks that I did, I did in conjunction with a colleague of mine in the English department on campus, Dr. Helen

Throckmorton. She and I did some books for "?Ginnin?" Company: 'How to Read a Short Story' 'How to Read a Poem.' We once figured out that we were paid at the rate of about five dollars an hour for our- the work we put into the book. That wasn't exactly what you call, you know, a good financial investment, but it was a lot of fun to do. Some work I've done since then has been more lucrative, but now you're- when you're talking about Scott Foresman you're talking about the major publisher in the United States and it has captured the market in all of the States at that particular level. [Cosloy] I see. Well enough of that aside [laughter]. Good dodge. [laughter] The last question I think I really want to ask you is: in the teaching profession, would you recommend it to others and what sort of person would you direct toward and away from teaching as a career? [Millett] I wouldn't recommend it to everyone by a long shot. I have some very strong

personal preferences here that run counter to that of some of my colleagues. I think that if I had a litmus test that would let me know if a prospective teacher has a genuine, unabashed love of people, I would make them pass that test first. I think this is absolutely critical for people who are working with children and with teenagers. I would also like to think that it is an extremely important ingredient for university teaching. Although I'm perfectly prepared to recognize that there are persons who are profoundly shy or who's values are such that they really do not want to have any kind of personal involvement with their students at all, and they can be excellent. I don't quarrel that. I want "people" people and I want nice guys and bright guys, and girls [laughter]. [Cosloy] Well I appreciate very much you coming here and discussing teaching with us. Thank you. [Millett] Okay. [Cosloy] Nancy Millett

from Instructional Services. This has been University in your Community. My name is Dave Cosloy and we've had production by Lewis Foster. [music] [music]