Teaching Methods in Turkey

Last week I had a disagreement with my professor. She was arguing that since Haiti hadn’t developed under neo-liberal policies of the Washington Consensus, we might conclude that developing countries shouldn’t adopt neo-liberalism. I didn’t defend neo-liberalism, but I gave some convoluted comment that Haiti’s unemployment, corruption, and political instability were too insurmountable for any development policy to succeed. I eventually clarified: “I think that any policy path that Haiti followed could only lead to varying levels of failure,” a view which my professor called “very dark.”

This was as close to a discussion as I’ve come in most of my seven political science classes at Boğaziçi University. My professors here are probably more well-educated and more talented than my teachers at Arizona State University. But they’re generally not better teachers.

To explain this point, I’ll classify my teachers into four categories: Egalitarian Facilitators, Structured and Participation-based Lecturers, the Charismatic Professors, and the Uncharismatic Lecturers.

My best educational experiences have come from Egalitarian Facilitators. These teachers, inspired by a romantic Socratic tradition, often emphasize to their students, “I really don’t know anything.” They make students sit in a circle and then sit down next to us, rather than standing at the front of the room. The class discusses ideas, from which important points organically emerge. Students get to know each other’s ideas better, and teachers can better gauge what ideas have connected and which ones haven’t.

I haven’t looked into it, but I assume this style is better for retention. Active discussion or debate will make the class and the ideas more memorable. I’ve often left such classes still arguing with the other students in my head. There’s also social pressure to learn and present one’s ideas in an organized, coherent, and persuasive fashion. Indeed, in those instances where I make a fool of myself in a class discussion, my ego drives me to learn the material even better.

Unfortunately, I have not had any classes like this at Boğaziçi University, although I have heard they exist. Perhaps the reason more professors don’t use this strategy is that it’s high risk. For instance one of my Global Studies professors at ASU invited class discussion and tried to be casual with the students. But he actually didn’t know anything. It was a problem.

The second category is Structured and Participation-based Lecturers. These professors cling to their role as the teacher, rather than a “first among equals” position, but they recognize the value of student discussion and comments. Class discussion is an addendum to the lecture, if necessary.

Two of my younger professors here at Boğaziçi employ this style almost identically. Both use power-point presentations that communicate the broad strokes, and then they draw in the details themselves. At the end, or intermittently throughout the lecture, the teachers will ask if there are any questions. It’s sometimes a discussion or sometimes a test of who’s been paying attention.

Importantly, these tenders for questions are often met with silence. My Turkish classmates seem loathe to participate, and my impression is that many don’t do the readings. Often exchange students, though an extreme minority in the class, make up a majority of the class discussion. If I were one of these professors, I would be skeptical of using the Egalitarian Facilitation approach.

The third category is that of the Charismatic Professor. He or she is an expert from upon high. I do not mind this approach at all, as long as the professor is moderately entertaining and truly an expert.

At Arizona State this approach was used by my National Security professor. He spoke clearly, concisely, and fairly about US foreign policy and national security in the late twentieth century. Two of my professors at Boğaziçi also belong in this category, including my professor for Turkish Politics, who is also the chair of the department. He’s a dynamic speaker. He makes jokes (usually in Turkish sadly) and even uses profanity. He lectures on very big ideas in a way that guarantees retention. That said, his lectures are highly repetitive and unwieldy—he could benefit from a little more of the structured and participation-based method.

I think that many a doctoral candidate dreams of being the charismatic professor. It’s a position of power and prestige, and it promises a payoff similar to a recital or a monologue. But only some have the talent to actually be a charismatic professor.

Those that fail in this regard fall into the lowly fourth category—the Uncharismatic Lecturer. This speaker may well be an expert, but regardless he or she is unable to communicate and educate.

This often entails a specific deficiency in public speaking. For example, my first political science professor at ASU used an impossibly slow rate of speech. He told long stories to explain twenty-second ideas. I would hear the beginning of a sentence, anticipate where it was going, work a little on my Sudoku puzzle, and return my attention just as he concluded.

Sadly, I have had several professors like this at Boğaziçi, including a teacher whose sentences are so long that by the time she finishes her thought its beginning could be published in history books. In one class period I counted the number of words she used in seven randomly chosen sentences. The shortest had 90 words, while the longest had 170. Never in my life have I used a sentence with 170 words. There are probably fewer than ten people in the world with this same affliction. It would be the equivalent of converting this entire blog post to nine sentences. Following her is a feat of patience, focus, and intelligence. Two hours would kill lesser beings.

For Uncharismatic Lecturers, I recommend they switch to the structured and participation-based lecture method. A power-point presentation with bullet points at least gives students a chance of getting back into the lecture when their minds wander. If students are encouraged to participate, topics of interest to the students are more likely to come up, and the monotony is at least occasionally disrupted.

For those teachers who successfully use structured and participation-based lectures, I encourage them to experiment more with the approach of Egalitarian Facilitation. Even in Boğaziçi, where many of the students enter and leave class speaking no words in between, I believe that this method could work. A friend attends a seminar where the students can speak in Turkish, and he says jokes and intelligent points abound. Another friend has a German professor who encourages class presentations and discussion. Apparently the students operate fine with these expectations.

Broadly speaking, my American teachers more often fall in the first three categories, including several extremely good experiences with Egalitarian Facilitation. My Turkish teachers are more likely to fall into the final three, and my best teachers here use the Structured and Participation-based teaching method. Especially now that I’m leaving Turkey soon and I have already registered for next semester’s classes at ASU, I am acutely aware of how much I will miss Istanbul, Boğaziçi, and Turkey. But I will be quite glad to be back with American teachers.