Summer Reading

At CA, we have a schoolwide faculty read, and each department assigned a summer read as well. For the English Department, I read Why Teach?: In Defense of a Real Education by Mark Edmundson. I generally enjoy books on teaching and find them thought provoking and inspirational. However, I had a few problems with this book (the first being the question mark followed by the colon in the intro -- clunky!). It was not truly a full-length book (which is what I was expecting) but instead a collection of essays or speeches (one a transcription of a commencement speech he gave, for example). And the whole thing was rather speechy, a lot of speechifying throughout. Also, the author repeated himself a lot as if perhaps someone might just read one of the essays or the introduction alone and not feel annoyed at the repetition. I began to feel as if the author was just being lazy and recycling old ideas. There were some interesting nuggets in there that I am sure we will pull out in our department discussion and use to get us thinking productively about teaching. But as to the form, the often condescending tone, and constant references to the dangers of technology, it just wasn't my favorite.