On classes and such

Good to be back.

I was kind of shocked (well, at least surprised) to read that some of your colleagues are blind to the all-American Presidency. Yes, of course American thought (and art, and customs, and so on) was influenced by that of Europe... how could it not? But here is the thing: all later thought is derived from earlier thought. Not to derive it in some way would be a slap in the face to all the effort humanity has put into constructing and developing. Just as Locke could sit, have a cigar and care about Property -even if it includes life- only BECAUSE Hobbes had dealt with Safety/Order (whichever you prefer - that is a whole other topic that at least in our University is still controversial) before him.

America could very well have instituted a Parliamentary system and be done with the matter. But it did not. It came up with a different type of Constitutional Democracy that later other (not very important - I will give your colleagues that: mostly Latin American) countries followed or copied or imported. And even if that creation was rooted on practicality it has gone far beyond it. (We may need to be reminded that the very figure of the English Prime Minister started out because a German Dude needed a primus inter pares among his Ministers who, unlike him, spoke English - also very practical if you ask me). Even contemporary European theorists such as Sartori analyse how the American and European systems can (and did) give birth to a third type of government (and Catherine should be able to help me out here), what he calls a Semi-Presidency.

All that may not be the strongest argument, but I still think it is valid (particularly at 6.55 am...). And I believe that specially when it comes to these topics one cannot take things out of context. European countries have been around longer, it was Europeans that arrived in the US and started out a new home away from home. Things learned and taken into consideration are not, to me, simply "derived". As I see it, there are degrees of complexity that need to be thoroughly considered to speak of such derivation. One could argue that everything is derived from something else... but that does not explain much, now does it?

One thing that really sounded familiar to me was the "approach" issue. I have found that I could not get the best results possible using a thematic approach with first-year students (I would say Freshmen, but then it would get complicated - we have a 5 to 6 year program to get a degree in Poli Sci). This last semester I tried to illustrate a point using the 1982 Falkland War with England as an example... and found many of my students consider it ancient history. That is one problem. The other big bump along that road, in my experience, is that in order for students to understand and be able to cross-compare concepts throughout different historical contexts they need to have a good grounding in history. Sadly, most don´t. So they end up making an huge effort to get their time lines right, they try not mix up dates and periods and by the time they get to concepts they are worn out and confused - a few years ago I ended up postponing everything they had to learn just to teach them some basic history. Fifth- or 6th-year students, however, have already been through several history classes so they actually enjoy using previous knowledge to question and discuss certain topics.

And that is just what has worked for me: I take freshmen by the hand and walk them through the different periods, so they can see how A led to B and so on and leave the thematic approach for the older students.