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| Dr. Ted Steinberg taught in Fredonia's English department from 1971 - 2015 |
I only need one hand to count the number of classes I was excited to attend during my four years of college. One of them was "Bible as Literature," taught by Dr. Ted Steinberg. Technically I wasn't taking the class, I just heard he was a good professor so I asked if I could sit in on some lectures.
A short man with a clean-shaven head, Steinberg exuded a passion for his students. I obviously wasn't required to be in class, but on days I was too busy to attend he would ask my friends where I was.
On the days I was there, some of my deepest held beliefs were challenged by a man fluent in Hebrew and Greek, the author of six books, and who was one of the most respected professors on campus until his retirement last year.
Seven years later, I remember little of what he taught me about the Bible, but I do remember some ideas that maybe he didn't mean to teach me: think critically, create change, do what you love.
In a country where the quality of the educational system is being called into question, Dr. Steinberg's teaching was a gift to Fredonia.
Maloney: I remember you saying in class that if you didn't have to give grades you wouldn't.
Steinberg: Oh, yeah (laughs).
RM: Can you explain why?
Steinberg: I love teaching. I even
love reading the (student) papers. But giving grades drove me crazy, because to
reduce everything that a person has done over the course of 15 weeks to a
single letter grade didn’t strike me as legitimate. How do you know you’re
right? And what does it even mean to be right?
RM: You, the teacher being right?
Steinberg: Yeah. I was teaching a
composition course in one of my first years at Fredonia. There were two
students who stand out in my mind. One was a young man who came into the class
as a decent writer, about a ‘B’ level and he didn’t put forth very much effort in
the class. Then there was a young woman who
couldn’t put a sentence together at the beginning of the semester, just a
terrible writer. But she worked like the devil over the course of the semester. By the end
of the semester she was writing at maybe a ‘C’ or ‘C+’ level.
What grades do I
give them? Do I give a B and a C+? But that doesn’t tell you much. If you were
an employer, which one would you want to hire?
RM: The one who worked harder?
Steinberg: Well, I think you can
make an argument either way, but it’s not that clear. So it just drove me
crazy. What grades do I give? And what do those grades mean? How does anyone
who looks at a grade that I give know what I think it means?
RM: I remember sometimes you wouldn’t
even give a grade.
Steinberg: I always had anxiety about giving grades, so I changed what I was doing. If a paper were below a certain level, I wouldn’t give
it a grade but I would give it back with lots of comments. If you didn’t get a
grade you had to rewrite it. Almost
always when students would re-write papers they would be significantly better. And
so I was then free to give better grades, I think the students were learning
from that experience, and I stopped having anxiety about grading.
RM: Do you think it reduced the
student anxiety too? Because there’s so much anxiety in school about grades.
Steinberg: One of the things I
realized is how much anxiety is imposed on students, and it’s starting earlier
and earlier now with all the stupid standardized tests. Education shouldn’t
create that anxiety.
There was a 16th Century poet named Philip
Sidney, who in one of his books said that poetry should do two things: it
should teach and it should delight. You should enjoy it! And I think education
should do the same thing, it should teach and it should delight. It should be
enjoyable.
RM: I don’t see a lot of students
waking up Monday morning excited to go to class.
Steinberg: Yeah, I know. Given what
happens in so many classes, why would they be excited? Education has taken a
number of wrong turns recently, and it all comes down to the idea that education is only measurable by monetary measures.
That is, will you get a really high paying job? If you have a really high
paying job and you don’t like that job, you’re not going to have a happy life.
The money isn’t going to make up for you having to go spend 40 hours a week
doing something you don’t like.
RM: That’s probably the biggest
thing I took away from your class.
Steinberg: Well, you have to do
what you love. This is what I always tell students. They’re never sure what
they should do. Just do what you love, you’ll get an income.
My son is a good example. He majored in history
and political science, and after graduating he lucked into a journalism
internship. Today he’s a sports columnist for the Washington Post. He never
took a journalism course, but he found something that he really liked.
Perfectly accidental, because that’s how things happen.
RM: We talk to a lot of parents
when we recruit for volleyball and many of them just want their daughter to be
able to get a job. There’s not always a lot of focus on what they love.
Steinberg: Parents are caught up in
the hype and it’s really unfortunate. Their child will get a job when they graduate.
Because that’s what happens!
RM: With any degree?
Steinberg: With any degree!
RM: Does it matter what you major
in?
Steinberg: No. Unless you know
specifically what you want to go into, like medicine, what you major in is relatively
insignificant.
I once had a girl in my class who was a business major. She came
to my office to see me in early November and said that she really wanted to be
an English major, and so we worked out a way that she could do that. Then after
Thanksgiving break she came back to my office and she started crying. She had
told her dad about her plans, and he said it was perfectly fine if she wanted
to be an English major, he just wouldn’t pay for it. He was a businessman and
she had to do what he said. What kind of a life was he preparing her for?
RM: So do you have
a way that you would change the education process? Because it seems very
industrial right now.
Steinberg: Oh, it is. It’s become
more so. To me, the most important thing was the relationship between the
teacher and the students. There has to be that personal relationship.
That
means, for one thing, you need to know the names of your students. In a big
lecture class, you don’t know names. I have a friend who’s teaching a big
lecture class of 400 students. I said, “Russ, how can you do that? That’s not
teaching!” So much of it
depends on reading the students’ writing.
RM: In any kind of class?
Steinberg: Oh, yes absolutely.
Writing is one of the most important skills a student can develop.
RM: There don’t seem to be a lot of
students who can write well.
Steinberg: Well, that’s one of the
problems that we’re having. Taking standardized tests isn’t going to teach you
to write well. The SAT has a writing section, but there’s no personal
expression, no investigation. It’s cookie-cutter, you have to write how they
want you to write.
RM: Speaking of money, you have people wondering today if
college is even worth it.
Steinberg: Every study shows that college is worth it.
RM: Financially, right?
Steinberg: Financially, but there’s more to it than
financial. It’s quality of life. And you don’t want to be crazy and think you
have to go to the most expensive college because it will give you a better
quality of life. In fact, it won’t. Are they getting a better education at these
more expensive schools?
RM: I think it’s up to them.
Steinberg: Well, that’s exactly right. You’ll get the kind
of education you put into it.
RM: But do the students have control over that?
Steinberg: Yes. professors here are accessible. I was always amused when students would
come to my office and say, “am I bothering you?” I’d say, “no, this is my job!”
Take advantage of talking to your professors.
RM: What do the students get out of that?
Steinberg: It establishes that personal contact with the
teacher. There has to be that real human contact. Professors are open to this
kind of thing. It makes the student a participant in the education rather than just an observer.