A Learning Experience?

As most people who know me are aware, I have some major issues this semester with one of my professors at SFSU, who teaches AAS502 (Asian American Children/Teen Literature) whose name I withhold for the time being. Right now I'm not going to blog about the more personal ways she's offended me (I'll save those for venting about in a more private venue) but rather, the flaws I see in the way she runs her class.

First of all, on the first day of class, she pointed out that she did not allow anyone to bring laptops to class to take notes, or to bring in tape recorders of any kind to record her lectures. While I'm not in the habit of utilizing tape recorders, I know a lot of people who simply can't write quickly enough to take thorough notes by hand. I have also had classes with people who have been injured or otherwise unable to to use their hands and have actually needed a tape recorder in order to take information from the class. What about them?

Next, right off the bat on the first day of class, she announced that the class, understandably, was mostly oriented towards people who were planning on become elementary school teachers. Imagine my surprise when today (22 April, 2010), she announced in front of the whole class that she had never really studied child/developmental psychology. As I pointed out to her, I think it's somewhat inappropriate for someone who has never extensively studied child psychology to be teaching a class that aims on influencing the way that potential future teachers present information to their students.

Another problem is the lack of diversity in the class - Professor Dong's background is in Chinese history and culture, which, although extremely fascinating, is not the only aspect of Asian American culture. She will spend entire class periods focusing only on Chinese and Japanese Americans, but can hardly spare ten or twenty minutes on a regular basis on other groups such as Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, or Filipino Americans, saying that their history in the United States is not "extensive" enough to have a whole class period devoted to them.

Over spring break, she went all the way to China to find books to use in class, but she says she has never been to Arkipelago Books, in San Francisco right off of Mission Street, to find books to use in class that represent Filipino Americans.

I personally feel stifled in a class where we are simply expected to regurgitate her opinion back to her - Professor Dong gets extremely defensive and in borderline attack-mode when someone brings up a perspective that is not completely in line with her own. She repeats herself constantly, it does not feel like she has introduced any new material in the class for a very long time. She simply repeats all of the same themes every class period. She does not conduct her class in a way that encourages critical thinking or fosters active discussion, which is what I thought classes in a university were supposed to be about.