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Reports from the Front: The Adjuncting Experience

In this special section... The Tensions of Teaching Marriah Star Critical Adjuncting Kimora Reflections of an Adjunct Teacher Daphna El-Roy On Love, Hate and Adjuncting Dan Skinner Graduate Students: Sign your Union Cards! Andrea Morrell Against Tuition Remission, Against PSC Adjunct Unionization Spencer Sunshine The Value of Student Evaluations Jonathan R. Wynn Experts Ask: Do We Need Adjunct Pedagogy? Mark Wilson The New Proletarian Academy James Hoff Teaching Shakespeare with an Eastern European Accent Szidonia Haragos

Critical Adjuncting

Kimora

Since adjuncts spend so much time "in the field," they are uniquely qualified to enhance students' critical thinking skills. This allows students to not only learn practical applications of the lectures, but to become more actively involved in our changing world.

What are critical thinking skills? As a researcher of prison reform, I have been challenged with teaching inmates how to think carefully, logically, and rationally. 'Critical' here refers to a kind of thinking which judges or evaluates the logic and rationality of thought itself, and is applicable to both a person's own thoughts as was as to the thoughts of others. It analyzes conclusions by looking for both flaws in logic and seeing if the conclusions are based on sufficient and correct premises (rather than on biases, unwarranted assumptions, distortions of facts, or untested opinions).

Offenders often think emotionally rather than rationally. As a result, they stubbornly cling to erroneous beliefs and unreasonable attitudes, and are often impervious to new information (or advice or counseling) because they are unable to critically evaluate their own opinions. Ironically, the same lack of critical reasoning may make them easily misled by others because they are unable to adequately judge the reasonableness of information and suggestions that are presented to them.

As participants become skilled at critical thinking, they are better able to evaluate their own and others' attitudes. They also tend to withhold judgments and consider all the evidence in a careful and orderly manner. Training in critical reasoning also helps foster:

• Intellectual curiosity
• Objectivity
• Flexibility (avoiding dogma and rigidity)
• Sound judgment
• Open-mindedness
• Relevance (avoiding irrelevancies)
• Persistence (in seeking evidence)
• Decisiveness (accepting conclusions only when evidence warrants it)
• Respect for other points of view (humility and accurate consideration of contradictory views) (D'Angelo, 1971)

Adjunct professors can help their students develop critical thinking skills. Group discussions can help students practice these skills in four areas:

• Persuasion - The ability to critically assess ideas presented to them by others
• Thinking errors - Learning to detect errors in their own thinking and that of others, which lead to wrong conclusions
• Assumptions, Facts, and Inferences - Learning to check the basic concepts (words, facts, opinions, etc.) that are being used in their thinking and others' thinking so that they can fully understand what is being said
• Open-mindedness - Learning to suspend judgment and consider views, issues and arguments rather than one's own before reaching a conclusion

Once students master these skills listed above, teachers can aid them in a variety of areas to build community. Help them to: 1) relate what they read and hear in the news to your classes. Make sure they see both sides of the story before they come to a decision, and ensure that the decision fosters good-will in the world; 2) enhance their personal life so they respect themselves and others; 3) foster self-assessment in their reasoning by teaching them to think rationally and with joy; 4) see the importance of respecting diversity in the world; 5) learn to ask pertinent questions that cause other students to step forward and proclaim that people's civil rights are important; 6) appreciate the importance of developing effective communication skills; 7) appreciate the importance of learning various languages; 8) think more precisely and relevantly about the problems of the world; 9) engage in meaningful and respectful conversations with other people about the importance of taking an active role in our environment; 10) learn to discourage apathy on all fronts; 11) relate your expertise in the field so they learn to love learning; 12) become better thinkers so they become better speakers and writers; 13) understand the importance of lifelong learning.

According to the Foundation for Critical Thinking, educators who think critically want their "content" to take root in the thinking of the students, to live in the minds of students, to transform the way they think, to put them into possession of a new mode of thinking, to become a perpetual generator of new thoughts, understandings and beliefs, and to become an instrument of insight. Therefore, they design instruction with these ends continually in view so that students take charge of their thinking and continually upgrade it (www.criticalthinking.org).

I utilize the concept of "critical teaching for social change," an approach explained at length in Ira Shor's book Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. If you want to see transformation in your students, you may wish to follow these guidelines: One, begin every lecture with a problem. I do this by asking students to reflect on the legal, social and political news of the day. I naturally have to stop the dialogue after just a few minutes, lest the class lose focus. The trick is to not alienate the students. You want them to learn. You want them to appreciate the world around them. You want to avoid apathy. Ask them how they would solve the issue if they were the leader in that situation. Finally, relate the news of the day to your lecture. Make the discussion timely and your students will remember the material and see that they are interconnected to the world around them. Two, use your position as an adjunct to entice your students to join your field someday. Relate the topic in the text to your field. Give your students examples of how YOU solve the problem. It is important for students to realize that problems can be solved. Just because some members of the media give us the impression the world is falling apart, does not mean that it is! This is a cognitive distortion! If you examine history, you will find misery through time. Point out to your students problems that existed (and exist) in your field. Examine how the solutions were found. You are the expert. Your students want to learn how YOU or your colleagues made the difference. Three, encourage your students to read the material out loud in class, either in groups (to foster cooperation) or as a large group so that students learn in a subtle way that it is important to bring the book and/or documents to class. This enhancement of literacy skills develops a meaningful context with which to analyze your subject and the students' involvement in it. You are not just lecturing now. Four, encourage class participation. If all you do is lecture, you will lose your audience. The students will not want to be in class, and more importantly, they will not be developing an appreciation of the topic and your expertise in the field. By asking their feedback, you can utilize critical thinking skills to allow your students to "think outside the box," to think for themselves and realize that independent thought is honored in your classroom. Later, that kind of respect that is fostered may translate into the students feeling comfortable with a leadership role. Five, have the students evaluate you long before the end of the class. By asking them to respond anonymously on paper to your teaching style, you can find out what they like and/or dislike about what you are doing. They will also feel good that their concerns are being addressed before the semester ends.

In conclusion, as an adjunct professor you are in a great position to foster critical thinking skills in the classroom. If you do, then you have the opportunity to see education used a tool for positive change, where students and faculty become active learners and leaders to improve our world.

References

D'Angelo, E. The Teaching of Critical Thinking (Amsterdam: Gruner, 1971).

Shor, Ira Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

www.criticalthinking.org (1999). Critical Thinking: Basic Theory and Instructional Structures. Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Dr. Kimora is a prison reformer who is also an adjunct assistant professor at John Jay College in NYC, researching the impact of cognitive skills education on sociopaths in prisons.