How to Teach College
Secrets from a Master of the Craft
Published on 5. June 2025
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-62097-920-4 (ISBN)
Description
From the bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me comes a profound and practical road map for cultivating a rewarding, empowering classroom experience for both teachers and students-brimming with lessons for lifelong learners
"Not a few professors teach solely because they have to, to hold a position that lets them do what they really want to do, which is 'their work'-their research, their writing. . . . Those professors miss the joys of teaching." -from the introduction to How to Teach College
Widely known as a bestselling author and an award-winning college professor for over fifty years, James W. Loewen passed away in 2021, but his words and wisdom live on in How to Teach College. Full of strategies and secrets to inspire and invigorate students, this is a must-read for educational leaders at every level looking to deepen the impact of their teaching and inspire students to stay curious, vigilant, and engaged.
How to Teach College is an invaluable resource for professors teaching in increasingly fraught American classrooms. With a special emphasis on teaching students from diverse backgrounds and potentially controversial subjects, this posthumously published book comes to us in Loewen's vibrant, original, and inimitable voice. In it, he offers advice on:
How to make content come alive with vibrancy, leading to knowledge retention, comprehension, and student engagement
How to convey a love of one's topic and motivate students to become lifelong learners-both in the classroom and outside of it
How to efficiently design a syllabus, manage the classroom, and optimize testing and grading
The importance of ethics and open-mindedness when it comes to shaping young minds, and how to incorporate freedom of thought into each and every lesson
As a leading sociologist of race relations and a prizewinning college educator with a teaching career spanning over half a century at Tougaloo College, Harvard University, University of Vermont, and Catholic University, Loewen taught the way he wrote: with creativity, humor, and a high expectation that students can handle the truth. Edited by Loewen's son, himself a fellow educator and longtime high school teacher, as well as sociology professor Michael Dawson, How to Teach College comes as a pivotal moment in history and is sure to inspire and motivate generations of teachers to come.
"Not a few professors teach solely because they have to, to hold a position that lets them do what they really want to do, which is 'their work'-their research, their writing. . . . Those professors miss the joys of teaching." -from the introduction to How to Teach College
Widely known as a bestselling author and an award-winning college professor for over fifty years, James W. Loewen passed away in 2021, but his words and wisdom live on in How to Teach College. Full of strategies and secrets to inspire and invigorate students, this is a must-read for educational leaders at every level looking to deepen the impact of their teaching and inspire students to stay curious, vigilant, and engaged.
How to Teach College is an invaluable resource for professors teaching in increasingly fraught American classrooms. With a special emphasis on teaching students from diverse backgrounds and potentially controversial subjects, this posthumously published book comes to us in Loewen's vibrant, original, and inimitable voice. In it, he offers advice on:
How to make content come alive with vibrancy, leading to knowledge retention, comprehension, and student engagement
How to convey a love of one's topic and motivate students to become lifelong learners-both in the classroom and outside of it
How to efficiently design a syllabus, manage the classroom, and optimize testing and grading
The importance of ethics and open-mindedness when it comes to shaping young minds, and how to incorporate freedom of thought into each and every lesson
As a leading sociologist of race relations and a prizewinning college educator with a teaching career spanning over half a century at Tougaloo College, Harvard University, University of Vermont, and Catholic University, Loewen taught the way he wrote: with creativity, humor, and a high expectation that students can handle the truth. Edited by Loewen's son, himself a fellow educator and longtime high school teacher, as well as sociology professor Michael Dawson, How to Teach College comes as a pivotal moment in history and is sure to inspire and motivate generations of teachers to come.
Reviews / Votes
Praise for How to Teach College:"This insightful volume by one of this nation's greatest teachers reminds us that 'learning how to learn' is the most important lesson. Never afraid to speak truth to power, Professor Loewen taught our history the way it really happened and inspired countless students to do the same. While answers are important, sometimes asking the right questions is even more important."-Donzell Lee, PhD, president, Tougaloo College
"James Loewen is a legend among educators because of his lifelong defense of the right to teach, the right to learn, and the right to think at all-which is often in doubt, and is now under serious and sustained assault. A model truth-teller in the classroom, Loewen's How to Teach College offers a dazzling profusion of practical teaching ideas built upon rock-solid ethical principles. He shows teachers at every level how to create a culture of curiosity, creativity, and courage, how to reduce the distance between content and experience, and how to challenge and nourish learners in the same gesture. James Loewen left us several years ago, but in this posthumously published text Nicholas Loewen and Michael Dawson have brilliantly captured his voice and simultaneously reanimated his essential wisdom. This is an urgent and necessary book for these times. James Loewen presente!"
-William Ayers, retired Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago
"How to Teach College is a 'cookbook' of over one hundred (I counted!) practical lessons, techniques, tricks, and gimmicks that Jim learned in his fifty-year career as a college teacher. It provides a clear road map that will make teaching easier, more effective, and more rewarding for students and professors alike. While it speaks directly to teachers, I hope that educational leaders at every level will read-and absorb-this brilliant, eminently sensible, and highly readable book."
-John Merrow, former PBS Education correspondent
"While most of us know Jim Loewen for unearthing important yet hidden aspects of history and culture so that we can have more robust content, in this volume he unearths the real challenge of what happens in classrooms . . . ensuring good teaching. He reminds us that content cannot teach itself. Outstanding college teachers make the content come alive and ensure that students are engaged. This volume is a real treasure!"
-Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-62097-920-4 (9781620979204)
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
Persons
James W. Loewen (1942-2021) was the bestselling and award-winning author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, Lies Across America, Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus, Sundown Towns, and Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition (all from The New Press). He also wrote Teaching What Really Happened and The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White and edited The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader. He won the American Book Award, the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, the Spirit of America Award from the National Council for the Social Studies, and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award.
Nicholas Loewen teaches high school English in Washington, DC. He is the co-editor (with Michael Dawson) of James W. Loewen's How to Teach College.
Michael Dawson is an independent sociologist who has taught a wide variety of courses at Portland Community College, Lewis & Clark College, Portland State University, and the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life and the co-editor (with Nick Loewen) of James W. Loewen's How to Teach College. He lives in Portland, OR.
Nicholas Loewen teaches high school English in Washington, DC. He is the co-editor (with Michael Dawson) of James W. Loewen's How to Teach College.
Michael Dawson is an independent sociologist who has taught a wide variety of courses at Portland Community College, Lewis & Clark College, Portland State University, and the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life and the co-editor (with Nick Loewen) of James W. Loewen's How to Teach College. He lives in Portland, OR.