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Robert W. Gore |
I am deeply honored to be selected the
recipient of the 2005 Arthur C. Guyton Teacher of the Year Award. I accept
this award with all the grace and dignity that I can muster, and I accept it
on behalf of all the people who have taught, influenced, scolded, nurtured,
and trained me over the years. It is, in a sense, their award.
I want especially to acknowledge the teachers who stimulated my personal
commitment to teaching. I was shaped by my experiences as an undergraduate
trained in the liberal arts at Carleton College, in Northfield, Minnesota,
where I was exposed to excellent Full Professors who were in the classroom
every day. I also had the good fortune to have excellent mentors such as
William J. Whalen, Charles Wunder, Henry B. Bull, G. Edgar Folk and Paul C.
Johnson, among others, during my graduate and postdoctoral years. I also
thank the people who nominated me, and the Teaching Section of the American
Physiological Society that judged me worthy of this prestigious award.
I hope that I can bring honor to The Guyton Award, in the name of teaching,
in the same way that previous awardees have. I believe The Guyton Award is a
symbol of how very important it is for all of us in this discipline to teach
the physiological sciences to this, and future generations, with the same
degree of commitment and energy that we focus on our quest in the research
laboratory, to discover the mysteries of the “normal functions of organs and
organ systems within all living organisms”—(which is the definition of
Physiology).
I have many views and ideas about teaching that have evolved from personal
experiences at all levels in the classroom over a period of nearly 44-years.
I first began teaching from the moment I entered graduate school in the
Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Iowa in the
Fall of 1961. Teaching was a requirement, not an option, of the PhD program
at Iowa when I first entered there. Since then, I have taught grade school
children, high school students, undergraduate and graduate students,
postdoctoral students, physical therapists, physical education majors,
exercise and sports science majors, dentists, nurses, engineers, biomedical
engineers, physicists, optical scientists, biophysicists, physicians’
assistants, medical students, medical residents and more. Thus, to attempt
to tell the whole story in this article would take up far more space then
the pages of The Physiologist will allow, and to do so would surely cause
the readers to tear the pages from this issue to use as fire-starters on a
cold February day. Hence, I will share with you in a general way only a few
of the elements of my rather simple teaching philosophy—ones that I consider
essential features of my teaching style. In the process, I hope the readers
will be able to extract something of value to carry forward in their own
search for better ways to inspire and touch the minds and souls of their
students. Haramati, the Guyton Awardee in 2000, referred to “Lighting a
Fire” within students (2), and Ordway, the Awardee in 2003 extended the
theme and spoke of spreading “The Fire Beyond the Lecture Hall” (4). In the
spirit of their comments, I would like to “Pass The Torch” of some of my
thoughts on to other teachers.
Remind Yourself Why You Teach
A general rule I use to help focus on the essential features of a satisfying
teaching experience is to periodically ask myself: “Why am I teaching?”
“What am I teaching?” How am I teaching?” Self evaluation is good. These
questions remind me to revise and change my approach to teaching and to stay
alert to how the students’ world and mine are changing, sometimes in
different directions. This simple question, “why,” helps me reexamine my
commitment to my students, and to my profession as a Physiologist. Indeed,
it was when I asked these questions of myself in 1996, as director of our
Human Physiology course for freshman medical students, that I realized the
need to fully embrace the World Wide Web. The result was that I developed a
complete, searchable, interactive web site that includes our entire
physiology course, and made it available to the world at:
http://human.physiol.arizona.edu.
The details of its development and the true power of the Internet for
teaching, and how it subsequently evolved in our department are for another
article. Suffice it to say that I encourage everyone who teaches to take
full advantage of the Internet. Stay up with current technology. Learn how
to use it. Contribute to its advancement. Stay in the “now.” It is where all
the students live, and so to be effective, one ought to know how to speak
their language in cyberspace.
Connect Your Teaching and Your Learning
My commitment to teaching is energized by a feeling of excitement when I am
able to return to the classroom from the research laboratory to share my
enthusiasm with anyone who will listen to my tales of the results of a new
observation, or previously unknown phenomenon seen in the laboratory. I
believe that sort of excitement is sustained when one is teaching on a
regular basis and can rush from the laboratory back into the classroom to
tell students what you have just observed. Unfortunately, that experience is
sometimes more difficult to achieve in medical school basic science
curricula, than it is in undergraduate or graduate curricula these days,
simply because of the basic needs of medical students, the time constraints,
and the consequent structure of basic medical curricula.
Share Your Ideas
Because of the competition and stress generated by the increasing emphasis
on gathering more research funds, free “sharing” of ideas sometimes becomes
an issue among colleagues. It is sad, but increasingly evident. However, I
find that to “be” in the classroom among junior and senior level
undergraduates in the physiological sciences, or among graduate students, is
an ideal atmosphere in which to share new observations and ideas because
students, though often less sophisticated than one’s colleagues, are far
less likely to have professional turf to protect.
At Arizona, we have pioneered an undergraduate physiological sciences major
that is part of the college of medicine. It has grown to be the fourth
largest declared major at the University of Arizona. I agreed to join in the
development of the undergraduate program in 1997 and, as a result, changed
my obligations to our medical program. I was skeptical at first, but as a
senior faculty member I was more prepared than our junior faculty to design
and implement full semester courses, cardiovascular in my case. Also, I
could help take some of the teaching load off the younger faculty who needed
to concentrate more on their research careers.
It turned out that to return to the undergraduate classroom was one of the
most rewarding decisions of my career. Indeed, I encourage all
physiologists, especially senior faculty, to consider designing and teaching
an undergraduate course in their discipline. It has been a joyous and
enriching experience for me, and a refreshing and “rediscovered” venue for
the free exchange of ideas about research. Isn’t that partly why we got into
this business in the first place, to work ourselves into an intellectual
froth during the free exchange of new and exciting ideas?
Do Your Job
I am also reminded, when I ask myself why I teach, that when one is
promoted within the academic world, one ought to feel some sense of
obligation to teach. After all, the title of Full Professor is awarded by
one’s academic peers for fulfilling the criteria of excellence,
simultaneously, in three areas: teaching, research and service, and at the
international level. The honor of the title professor is a beginning, not an
end. There is an implied obligation to continue teaching, within reason,
throughout one’s career if one is to retain the privilege of that title.
In the current atmosphere of tight budgets and rising costs there is some
logic to suggest changing the title Full Professor to Research Professor if
one leaves the classroom to do only research with little or no association
with students, except as extra hands in the laboratory. It seems extreme to
suggest this, but if hard state salary dollars were tied more closely to
teaching and soft research dollars tied to research, the role of teaching as
generally viewed in the basic sciences might well change for the better.
Indeed, this concept is beginning to appear in casual administrative
discussions at the University of Arizona, and elsewhere around the country.
Tell “The Story”:
For me, the most important ingredient for effective teaching is simply
to “tell the story.” The telling of a story is the essence of my teaching
style. It has, in my view, broad implications at many levels. Indeed, the
idea of telling the story is the primary message that I hope to pass on to
the readers of this article.
When we teach our own children, we tell them stories. When they are growing
up they say to us: “Tell me a story about the ‘olden’ days.;” When we write
scientific papers and grants, we often are most successful when we grasp the
image of how best to “tell the story.” Our research is driven by a quest to
translate and read nature’s story. Similarly, I have the most success
communicating ideas and concepts to students when I find a way to shape them
in the context of a story or intellectual image, so the student can take
possession of those ideas, internalize them, and so carry them forward and
improve upon them. After all, isn’t that the point of the whole thing?
It is helpful early in the preparation of a good set of lectures to think of
how best to tell the story in a way that will interest students, capture
their imaginations, and help them to understand and retain the concepts.
More importantly, it is one of the better ways I have found to place the
material in the context of the evolution of an idea, or ideas, that I am
helping students to master or grasp. I find that a story helps students to
“connect the dots.” Students really do love history, and they remember
material much better when they have a sense of where a concept came from,
how it was derived, where it is now, and where it might go. Indeed, good
examples of story telling in the teaching process can be found in the works
of James Burke, a British “storyteller” who did a series sometime ago on PBS
entitled “Connections.” In my own case I like to bring the development of an
idea alive by injecting the humanity of a scientist into my presentation of
a concept. For example, I find that almost all my Arizona students are drawn
into thinking about the Fick principle if they learn that Fick was the
author of a concept used by William Hamilton (APS President, 1955) who was
born in Tombstone, AZ, and whose father, Isaac B. Hamilton, was a mining
camp doctor who was thought to have treated the Erp brothers after the
shoot-out at OK corral, and that Isaac just might have been aware of the
importance of osmotic pressure and fluid movement that day in his office
long before Starling and Landis. The truth about the last part of that story
we may never know, but it adds “Cholula” to the mystery and the myth. The
“story” is a way of remembering the facts, and ultimately is part of the
glue that makes science a living art, not a catalog.
Some students will immediately integrate the story into the learning
process, and so the teaching will be enriched. But, it is not really so
important whether individual students listen and hear the story when you
first tell it. Some will hear and some will not but most of them will
remember it when the time is right for them. Sometimes it takes a long time
for the “fire” to light, and the “torch” to be passed. The “Ahh” moment may
not even occur until many years later. I am reminded here of the Zen
concept: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The corollary
to that is: “If the student is not ready, nothing will happen.” Indeed, that
is why I think emphasis on the “method” of teaching is not a particularly
important ingredient. Repeat: “If the student isn’t ready, nothing will
happen.” But trust that something will happen, sometime.
Telling the stories when you teach is a constant reminder to the students,
and to us as teachers, that teaching is both the keystone and the
cornerstone of our civilization and culture. Also, simply embracing the Zen
concept places the responsibility for learning on the student, and the
responsibility for teaching on you. It is important to remember that the two
responsibilities, teaching and learning, are separate. Education, after all,
is a redemptive enterprise. The student should feel rewarded and involved in
the classroom experience. Ultimately, however, what happens for them may
have little to do with you, at the moment you are teaching, and more to do
with the seeds that are sewn. I should add parenthetically, that although
“Student Evaluations” are informative in one sense, it is important to place
them in a context that recognizes the short-term and the long-term effects
and affects of teaching. Don’t worry too much about student evaluations.
Over emphasis on them, in the extreme, is like asking your three-year old
child where the family should take their summer vacation.
Why do I believe “telling the story” is the very essence of teaching? Well,
to explain, I shall tell you my story about when I first internalized the
idea that telling the story is for me the fundamental ingredient for
effective teaching.
I was born in North Dakota in 1939. While growing up there, I went hunting a
lot with my father. It is an integral part of the culture in the Dakotas.
One of our favorite places to hunt was along the Cannonball River in the
southwestern corner of the state. On one of our trips when I was eight we
stopped for a few hours to visit a Native American friend of my father’s,
Vine Deloria, Sr. (3), on the Standing Rock Reservation near Fort Yates, ND.
I remember very little about those few hours, except that my father held
Vine in high esteem and was visibly inspired by him. I, being eight, was
more interested in visiting the burial site of Tatanka Yotanka (Chief
Sitting Bull).
Forty years later, I reconnected with this fascinating and accomplished man
in Tucson, AZ, at the end of his life. Vine, Sr., was born 11 years after
the massacre at Wounded Knee and grew up during the very traumatic period of
transition as the Sioux Nation adjusted to the end of the buffalo and
equestrian period that was their world, and the onset of assimilation.
During our conversations Vine made the simple observation: “The people who
tell the story, shape the culture.”
His words shot through me like an arrow and connected to the very core of
what I now believe is the essence of teaching and its real importance. He
was talking about what happened to his people, but his insight suddenly made
me profoundly aware that communication is the human imperative, and that it
is the writers and storytellers in all cultures who are the teachers. Living
in Arizona in the southwest, I was surrounded by the culture of “the
storyteller,” but he brought new meaning for me to the word, “storyteller,”
in a single sentence.
I was a Full Professor by then, and I thought I was Mr. “Cool,” or Mr.
“Hot,” depending upon the day. I was at the peak of my career in teaching,
research and service. I was serving on “important” research and peer review
committees. I was involved in telling the world about what constituted
“good” research versus “bad” research (I had gotten one of the first NIH-MERIT
Awards). I was deeply involved in curricular affairs. I had all kinds of
complex ideas about what was “good” versus “bad” teaching. I felt strongly
about teaching and the application of cool, special methods. I would tell
you all about my certainties, even if you didn’t ask. The word hubris comes
to mind.
Suddenly, Vine’s simple, profound comment made all that noise vanish. The
Full Professor was ready, and so the teacher appeared. What I realized was
that when one stops telling and sharing the stories that are the foundations
of a culture or a scientific discipline (physiology for example), then that
culture will cease to evolve and will surely die. You don’t have to tell the
whole story or even the old story. The point is that the telling of the
story is the beginning, the end, and the motivation for teaching. The
classroom elements are all interwoven. The story is the teacher, but the
teacher tells the story. The teacher need not be a person, but could as well
be an event at a critical moment that is long remembered (student
laboratories?). So, the story that you tell in the classroom will trigger at
some time, the fusion of the bits and pieces of students’ individual life
experiences, into their story that will someday inspire them. In the process
of fusion the discipline is sustained.
Vine’s words are now a constant reminder to me that teaching has profound
and deep implications. The details of “Method” and “How To” and “Problem
Based” and “PowerPoint,” though important in their own right, often just
contribute more to the noise, than to the signal. I am reminded of the words
of Jonathan Miller (3), a British neurologist and well known “storyteller”
who once said: “First know your subject. Audiovisual aids alone are simply
orthopedic devices for the didactically disabled.” So, rather than focus on
method, I tell the students to listen to the story I want to share, and I
tell them why. I try to help them connect to the origins of the idea I am
presenting, to help them see where that idea came from, where it is now, and
to challenge them to think about how they may move the story forward, or
change it, or yes, even rewrite it. In that regard, I have my students write
papers and I read them all.
Remember Those Who Taught You
I want now to end my comments about “the story” and teaching by
remembering the man in whose name this award is given. To do so, I must ask
a question, in the classic Guytonian style of teaching, but with a North
Dakota accent:
“So, why was Dr. Guyton such a renowned teacher, then?”
“Oh ya. Now that’s a good question.”
I was fortunate to have known Dr. Guyton, to converse with him, and to
observe him in the classroom. He used, what I call “The Southern Socratic
Method” because he would always ask or state a question to begin the
presentation of a concept or idea. But unlike Socrates, he would not wait
for you to answer, but rather he would answer it for you in his special way
that was a distinguishing feature of his style. His style was that of “the
storyteller.”
Guyton was from Mississippi, and grew up in the great tradition of famous
and very talented storytellers from the south like Eudora Welty, Tennessee
Williams, Walker Percy, Shelby Foote, and William Faulkner, among many
others. Indeed, Guyton maintained a long friendship with Faulkner and played
chess with him. He understood the power and importance of “telling the
story.”
Whether you agreed with the details of some of Guyton’s ideas or not—and I
admit that I have never been a fan of his venous return approach to cardiac
function—he was without question a great teacher because he “told the story”
whenever he taught. And consequently, he shaped the culture of physiology
for nearly 50 years. It is for that reason that I feel deeply honored to
have received an award for teaching in the name of a man whose teaching
skills and deep motivation to “telling the story,” shaped a significant
portion of our scientific culture and tradition in physiology during the
second half of the 20th century.
In closing let me again express my pride in being chosen for a teaching
award, and this award in particular. I am proud because I think often about
how teaching and teachers shape the culture. We must not let that notion be
trivialized in an academic world that seems to be driven more and more by
the quest for ever increasing research dollars, sometimes at the expense of
teaching and those who “pass the torch” of ideas in the classroom to the
next generation. I say to those teachers, especially younger faculty, who
may sometimes be made to feel “less than” by tribes of senior research
colleagues demanding more space. Remember the words of Tatanka Yotanka of
the Lakota: “It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.”
The people who tell the story, shape the culture. They are the eagles.
References:
1. Encyclopedia of North American Indians. See Web Site Address:
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_010200_deloriavines.htm
2. “Haramati, A. Teaching Physiology: Filling a Bucket or Lighting a Fire?’
The Physiologist 43(3): 117; 119-121, 2000.
3. Miller, Jonathan. “The Body In Question.” Random House, New York, 1978.
4. Ordway, G. Education Outreach: Taking the “Fire” Beyond the Lecture Hall
and Lab. The Physiologist 46(6): 351; 353-354, 2003.
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