Visiting associate professor Yorke Brown, who teaches two physics classes taken predominantly by pre-health students, has a different style of teaching than most other professors. Brown, who moved to Hanover in 1993, began teaching Physics 3 in the summer of 2003. The Dartmouth sat down with Brown to talk about his unique classroom methods and philosophy on education.
Why do you enjoy teaching?
YB: It’s a challenge that makes you make you reconsider what you’re thinking. It makes you reconsider how you communicate. It enforces a kind of constant intellectual and personal growth. And of course that’s the same thing that I’m trying to get the students to do — is to use this opportunity that they have here for their own personal growth and not just for gathering credentials and getting themselves set up for some kind of career or four years of extended adolescence. So, that’s really the attraction.
Can you describe your pedagogical technique and the rationale behind it?
YB: That’s a very complicated question. It’s very easy to oversimplify or miss the point of what I attempt to do to. I do think I take a somewhat unusual approach, and there is implicit in this approach a critique of the orthodox approach to teaching and education. Through that critique, I do not mean to criticize any of my colleagues. The message is I don’t criticize what they do. That doesn’t mean I would adopt it.
The students are also different. Every student is an individual person and has different needs, different expectations, and is susceptible to different approaches. I like to think, however, that I offer something that many students are hungry for. It’s also true that there’s a significant fraction of students who really resent what I do. They feel betrayed because they’ve learned to get value from the approach that they take and the approach that most professors take, and then I just pull the rug right out from under them. I’m very sympathetic to how they feel, but at the same time, I think they ought to land on their feet.
Why are we here? What is it we’re trying to accomplish? What’s a liberal education all about? A lot of people think of it is as a preparation for your career. You need knowledge and skills to be able to function in society. And that’s certainly a value of education, but that’s not the main purpose of the four years that you spend here at Dartmouth in my view. Education is life itself. That’s a very deep statement. It gets to the idea that humans are learning machines. One of the things that makes us human is the way in which we learn. Sure, rats can learn how navigate a maze, and that’s learning, but people learn intentionally.
They need to learn things not just in order to be able to navigate the maze — and trust me, life is a maze — but they need to learn how to how to enhance their their emotional lives and their spiritual lives. They need to learn how to grow to become fully formed human beings, and that’s a never-ending process. So, my overarching goal is to give the students the opportunity to have the experience of taking education as a motivation for living, not just something they have to do.
My deal is that I don’t want your experience in my class to be just more school, so I try to take away all the trappings of school. I can’t take them all away. We live within constraints.
I assume you still grade?
YB: We have grades. Grade toxicity is a great impediment to what I try to do. They’ve learned how to get good grades. All of you here are valedictorians of your high school classes and leaders of the student assembly and so forth. You’ve figured out how to get good grades, and I take that away from you deliberately, to get you to think in a different way. Getting the grade is not the objective. I tell students if you’ll follow me and embrace this concept of what I’m trying to do, the grade will follow. But that’s really hard to believe.
Are your classes themselves structured differently? Do you lecture? Are they discussion based? If I were to walk in today, would I detect a difference?
YB: To me, it’s not about technique. The real thing is what is the attitude you bring to class.
Maybe I should talk about the game of school a little bit. I think that many of you have learned to view school as a game. I don’t mean that in derogatory sense. You ask, “What’s the objective, what are the rules, and how do you optimize the outcome?” You learn pretty quickly how to play that game. You learn that if you write the papers, read the books and do what your teachers expect of you, then you’ll do well. The teachers, with all the best intentions, say, “I have to get my students to do the things that are good for them.” The students, in high school and elementary school, are somewhat rebellious, and don’t want to do what they’re told. There is this tension between trying to get the kids to do what they’re supposed to do and the kids wanting to do other things. A lot of the things that they’re asked to do are tedious. They’re not fun. The successful students are the ones who figure out, “All I have to do is do these chores, and I’ll get the reward.” That’s the game. It has certain deficiencies. What I’m trying to do is undo the game. I tell the students to put the game aside, and instead seek the thing of value. What do you want to get out of this course? It’s not the same for everybody.
It’s not about the technique. It’s about the relationships. If I can do that, the students will find find the value. They will do the work. They will engage in that process of learning. Because I can’t teach. I can’t tell you what you need to know. I can’t give you exercises. I can’t provide for you an experience. You have to provide the experience for yourself, and that comes from us having a relationship. You can’t teach, but the great thing about humans is that they can learn. You will learn anything that you need to learn in order to survive. Physical survival, emotional survival, spiritual survival. How do you survive as a human being? How do you maintain and enhance your humanity? You learn anything you need to know to do that. Where do you get the motivation to do that? From relationships. And that’s what I try to do.
Are students tested on the material that you address in class or on material covered outside of class?
YB: The only way you ever learn is by testing yourself. You have to challenge your understanding. They’re not quizzed. Students quiz themselves on anything and everything. The quiz is not a test in the sense of, “Here’s a question. Can you answer this question? If you get the answer right, you get a point.” It’s, “Here’s a question on something we haven’t talked about. It’s not in the book. It’s completely new.” I don’t too much of that because I can only go so far before I have a rebellion on my hands. But that’s the idea. I ask the student to ask, “What is the question trying to teach me?” Often they work together. Sometimes, I’ll do a demonstration and ask them to analyze it.
So there’s not one right answer?
YB: Well, it’s physics, so if the answer is 27 joules, the answer is 27 joules. However, my issue is not can you get the right answer. It’s how did you get there. And not only that, it’s how did you use this question to help you construct your understanding of the theory.
What do you think is the importance of learning physics, particularly for students who are pre-health? What way of approaching the world or skill sets do you think it provides?
YB: One of the great things about physics is that it’s very demanding. There’s no wiggle room about whether you’re right. The habits of thoughts associated with that very demanding kind of thinking are absolutely invaluable no matter what you do.It’s those habits of thought and the ability to face this very daunting intellectual challenge that is extremely valuable. The ability to think clearly and distinguish between what you understand and don’t understand is invaluable. If you can’t say, “I don’t know,” you’re never going to learn anything.
Can you fake with physics if you have to get a precise answer?
YB: Sure. All you have to do is guess what the right formula is to use here. This carries over into people’s professional lives. Doctors come through this very demanding system that always insists you have to be right all the time. You can never make mistakes. Well sure, I don’t want my doctors to make mistakes. But that’s what school is for. While you’re here, you can make mistakes. And you shouldn’t be criticized for making mistakes. You shouldn’t have some lifelong label attached to you, like a grade, because you made a mistake. A mistake is a learning experience. Make your mistakes now. I’m trying to break down those barriers through a trusting and caring relationship so that you can flourish, seek the value, eschew the game, confront your ignorance, be brave, be bold and grow us a human being. That’s what it’s all about.
This article has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
