Immeasurable Outcomes
Teaching Shakespeare in the Age of the Algorithm
Published on 14. March 2023
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-1-4214-4460-4 (ISBN)
Description
What is the purpose of education? The answer might be found in a Shakespeare class at a small liberal arts college.
In this engaging account of teaching a Shakespeare class at a small liberal arts college, Gayle Greene illustrates what is so vital and urgent about the humanities. Follow along with Greene as she introduces us to her students and showcases their strengths, needs, and vulnerabilities, so we can experience the magic of her classroom. In Immeasurable Outcomes, Greene's class builds a complex human ecosystem that pushes students to think more deeply and discover their own interests and potential, all while recognizing the inherent dignity in other people's views and values.
Grounding her analyses in half a century of teaching, Greene pushes back against the demand for measurable student learning outcomes and the standardization imposed on K-12 schools in the name of reform. Instead, she draws her conclusions about education directly from the students themselves. Alumni testimonials describe the transformative power of a liberal arts education, recounting how their experience of community and engagement has provided them the tools to navigate the uncertainties of a rapidly changing world while also inspiring the social awareness our democracy depends on.
Immeasurable Outcomes rejects claims that the liberal arts are impractical, exposing the political agendas of technocrats and ideologues who would transform higher education into vocational training and programs focused only on profitability. Greene reminds us that the liberal arts have been the basis for the most successful educational system in the world and provides a powerful demonstration that education at a human scale that is relationship-rich and humanities-based should be the model for education in the future.
In this engaging account of teaching a Shakespeare class at a small liberal arts college, Gayle Greene illustrates what is so vital and urgent about the humanities. Follow along with Greene as she introduces us to her students and showcases their strengths, needs, and vulnerabilities, so we can experience the magic of her classroom. In Immeasurable Outcomes, Greene's class builds a complex human ecosystem that pushes students to think more deeply and discover their own interests and potential, all while recognizing the inherent dignity in other people's views and values.
Grounding her analyses in half a century of teaching, Greene pushes back against the demand for measurable student learning outcomes and the standardization imposed on K-12 schools in the name of reform. Instead, she draws her conclusions about education directly from the students themselves. Alumni testimonials describe the transformative power of a liberal arts education, recounting how their experience of community and engagement has provided them the tools to navigate the uncertainties of a rapidly changing world while also inspiring the social awareness our democracy depends on.
Immeasurable Outcomes rejects claims that the liberal arts are impractical, exposing the political agendas of technocrats and ideologues who would transform higher education into vocational training and programs focused only on profitability. Greene reminds us that the liberal arts have been the basis for the most successful educational system in the world and provides a powerful demonstration that education at a human scale that is relationship-rich and humanities-based should be the model for education in the future.
Reviews / Votes
Greene's book is fun.The point of Greene's performances and those of her students is not to present a final view of any of Shakespeare's characters, still less of his plays. Rather, it is to show what jargon-laden course outlines cannot encompass. It is to show that over the course of a semester, students who are willing to follow a trained, dedicated teacher develop finely tuned reading skills and link what they read to their lives.-University World News [Greene's] defense of the humanities is as philosophically rigorous as it is affectingly impassioned....an important contribution to today's education debates and a sterling example of the intellectual virtues it valorizes...edifying and inspiring.
-Kirkus Reviews A spirited work in defense of a heartfelt humanist approach to teaching and learning....This book argues for the human touch in education....A tour de force in terms of capturing a hugely complicated process on the page.
-Forbes An impassioned manifesto to revive quality, democratic education that redeems college teaching and re-seeds enlightened, disaster-averting voters.
-Nation of Change Delightful.K-12 educators will find a great deal of common ground in Greene's book and, overall, a largely shared understanding of the goals and value of a liberal arts education, as well as a keen evaluation of contemporary problems in education more generally.
-ClassicalEd Review Gayle Greene's Immeasurable Outcomes: Teaching Shakespeare in the Age of the Algorithmoffers a provocation: Good teaching matters, but it can't be measured. No one has recently captured as well as Greene the experience of being a humanities professor-what we hope to do, what happens (and doesn't) during our classes, what gives us joy, and what makes us sad. The classroom is threatened by false understandings of what can and should be assessed, by online education, and by the world's distractions. It needs to be protected.
-Chronicle of Higher Education
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore, MD
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
660 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4214-4460-4 (9781421444604)
DOI
10.56021/9781421444611
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2023
Johns Hopkins University Press
€30.49
Available for download
Person
Gayle Greene is a professor emerita at Scripps College. She is the author of books on Shakespeare, women writers, and feminist criticism. Her memoirs include Missing Persons: A Memoir and Insomniac.
Content
Introduction
Chapter 1. First Day
Chapter 2. Once Upon A Time In The Twentieth Century: How The Humanities Took A Great Fall
Chapter 3. What's Trust Got to Do with It?
Chapter 4. "The Reading Thing": Attending, Remembering, Connecting
Chapter 5. The Play's The Thing: Taming Of The Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Chapter 6. Teaching Is an Art, Not an Algorithm
Chapter 7. De-grading the Professors: Outcomes Assessment Assessed
Chapter 8. Growing Up Human: Hamlet, King Lear
Chapter 9. Ask a Graduate
Acknowledgments
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Chapter 1. First Day
Chapter 2. Once Upon A Time In The Twentieth Century: How The Humanities Took A Great Fall
Chapter 3. What's Trust Got to Do with It?
Chapter 4. "The Reading Thing": Attending, Remembering, Connecting
Chapter 5. The Play's The Thing: Taming Of The Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Chapter 6. Teaching Is an Art, Not an Algorithm
Chapter 7. De-grading the Professors: Outcomes Assessment Assessed
Chapter 8. Growing Up Human: Hamlet, King Lear
Chapter 9. Ask a Graduate
Acknowledgments
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index