Marten Brienen

In my mind, teaching is more than leading classroom discussions or transmitting knowledge and skills in that setting. Students must learn to engage, not just with the material that we assign, but with their instructors and their fellow students as well. My role is not just to lecture about the things that I know, but to create an environment – both in and out of the classroom – in which students feel that they can engage in discussion and in which ideas and sources can be challenged. In undergraduate education we strive to have students absorb basic knowledge and methodological skills in their chosen field of study, so that they will have at their disposal a good understanding of their field. In teaching graduate students, I want them to question and interrogate the books and articles they read. I want them, in effect, to be full of doubt about the things they think they know and the things I think I know. Methodology often trumps knowledge in graduate education in that the biggest challenge for students is often to figure out how to ask questions and how to find answers to them in a replicable way.