Nice post on the Political Studies Association blog by my colleague Steve Fisher about the Q-Step initiative and teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate politics students. What he says applies just as well to sociologists.
Whenever I'm tempted to think that I am wasting my time, banging my head against a brick wall I think back 15 years to an aggressively unhappy student forced to take an introductory quantitative methods course. They were full of the Frankfurt School, Foucault, Giddens and worse as well as full of themselves. They thought that having to take the course was demeaning and pointless. They gave the impression that they thought the teachers of the course were morons. At the end of the last lecture the student walked up to me and said, with complete sincerity: "Thank you. I didn't think I would like this course, but actually I've been empowered by it."
That is success.
Posts
1 comment:
While I was a student I knew what was best now. I have graduated I am glad a few people forced me to look at certain subjects. It was all part of the challenge.
Post a Comment