Description
Book SynopsisThe first full-length history of college teaching in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, this book sheds new light on the ongoing tension between the modern scholarly idealscientific, objective, and dispassionateand the inevitably subjective nature of day-to-day instruction.
American college teaching is in crisis, or so we are told. But we''ve heard that complaint for the past 150 years, as critics have denounced the poor quality of instruction in undergraduate classrooms. Students daydream in gigantic lecture halls while a professor drones on, or they meet with a teaching assistant for an hour of aimless discussion. The modern university does not reward teaching, so faculty members at every level neglect it in favor of research and publication.
In the first book-length history of American college teaching, Jonathan Zimmerman confirms but also contradicts these perennial complaints. Drawing upon a wide range of previously unexamined sour
Trade Review
In his provocative new book, The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America, historian Jonathan Zimmerman chronicles more than 200 years of the quality of instruction in higher education. It's a history filled with noble but failed efforts to improve and reform college teaching, marked by student-led protests and solitary campaigns led by individual professors or administrators.
—The Association of College and University Educators
His story is not for pollyannas, but rather for those who relish absurdity, black humor, irony, and, I fear, dashed dreams and heartbreak.
—Inside Higher Ed
The Amateur Hour is the book to read now as we ponder our post-COVID higher education future.
—Joshua Kim
Zimmerman excels in discussing the stories of great lecturers and efforts for reform.
—Daniel A. Clark, Indiana State University, History of Education Quarterly
This is a great book and a worthy read for those interested in college teaching.
—Bookmarked Reads
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Personality over Bureaucracy: The Paradox of College Teaching in America
Chapter One. Between the Two Ends of the Log: Teaching and Learning in the Nineteenth Century
Chapter Two. Scholarship and Its Discontents: Teaching and Learning in the Progressive Era
Chapter Three. The Curse of Gigantism: Mass-Produced Education and Its Critics in Interwar America
Chapter Four. "Teaching Made Personal": Reform and Its Limits in Interwar College Teaching
Chapter Five. Expansion and Repression: Cold War Challenges for College Teaching
Chapter Six. TV or Not TV? Reforming Cold War College Teaching
Chapter Seven. The University under Attack: College Teaching in the 1960s and 1970s
Chapter Eight. Experimentation and Improvement: Reforming Teaching in the 1960s and 1970s
Epilogue. The Decade of the Undergraduate? College Teaching in the 1990s and Beyond
Appendix. Archives of College Teaching
Notes
Index
