Brenda Schildgen, shown here in Florence, Italy, with students from the UC Education Abroad Program, says she’s never had any trouble getting students excited about literature from centuries ago. (Brenda Schildgen/courtesy photo)
Q&A on dead writers, ethics and great teachers
The News Service’s Claudia Morain interviewed Brenda Schildgen, our 2008 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement, about her teaching philosophy. Here are some of her answers.
Is it hard to get undergraduates interested in dead writers?
I’ve never had any trouble getting them excited about old stuff. I think there are reasons it has stayed around. Many of the things that are dealt with in this literature are still important today, are the same things we are dealing with: love, death, war, suffering, loss, happiness, passions, envy, vindictiveness.
What classics should every college student read?
This is very hard, but there are some ancient works from around the world that form part of cultural consciousness. So here goes: Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad; Plato; the Greek poet Sappho; Greek tragedies like Oedipus Rex and The Bacchae; Virgil's Aeneid; Augustine's Confessions; the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata; the medieval Japanese Lady Murasaki's Tale of Genji; the Bible (Hebrew and New Testament); Dante’s Divine Comedy; the Chinese poets Tu Fu and Confucius; Thousand and One Nights; Cervantes’ Don Quixote; Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest and Twelfth Night; Montaigne; Descartes’ Discourse on Method; and Popol Vu.
What makes a great teacher?
You have to really care about your students. You have to be passionate about what you’re doing. You have to love the materials you’re dealing with.
How do you motivate your students to do their best?
By making them know that they can always outdo their own expectations.
If you had to name just one, what experience has most shaped your teaching?
Students.
What do you most hope that your students will take away from your classes?
To think clearly, to be able to express ideas clearly, to be able to challenge the teacher.
Your colleagues praise your emphasis on literature’s “ethical function.” What is literature’s ethical function?
I like to look at authors and promote the ways that literature encourages us to think about ethical behavior. Literature makes us think about right and wrong.
At UC Davis, you were instrumental in building the University Writing Program, which was recognized by U.S. News & World Report last year as one of the 15 best in the nation. Why is it important for undergraduates to be able to write well?
When students learn to write, that’s when they really learn to think. That’s how they learn to formulate ideas, challenge propositions, see where ideas are going.
What do you like most about undergraduate teaching?
Undergraduate students are open to exploring. They want to be expanded. You get to wake them up to some things that they didn’t know before. It’s thrilling to see them learning and thriving and going on in their lives.
What do you find most challenging about teaching? Most rewarding?
Making sure I am still thinking afresh about the material I teach; having students feel they have learned something important.