February 19, 2009
Class Notes: Students investigate lives of young people around the world
Class title: GEOG/SIS 111: Global Youth, taught by Dr. Craig Jeffrey, associate professor in Geography and International Studies.
Description: Students reflect on their own young lives and compare them to the lives of their classmates and other young people around the world. Using scholarly readings, videos and media reports, students investigate how youth respond to global opportunities and threats in different settings, with options to focus on themes of education, work, politics, health, relationships or environmental change. Students are encouraged to engage in discussion with each other in class and on the course discussion board, and to think differently about their youth in the context of other young people’s lives and circumstances.
Instructor’s views: Jeffrey often incorporates into the class his 15 years of research on social inequality, education and youth in north India. “I think it’s really valuable for students to see what has brought the professor to the classroom — to see the professor as a curious person, someone who’s interested in what’s happening in the world,” he said. “India is an area of the world I feel very engaged in, very keen to explore and talk to students about.”
Jeffrey is just as interested in learning from his students as he is in teaching them. “The course is about youth, so in a way the students are positioned as experts in the topic under study,” he said. “I’ve learned a huge amount already from students about the challenges that young people face here, the ways in which young people are communicating and organizing socially and politically in the Seattle region. A lot of the students in the course are international students, so I benefit a lot from their perspectives and hearing about their experiences or the experiences of their parents.”
The class is “very much a shared process of discovery rather than me standing at the front telling students how it is; that’s something I try to get away from,” Jeffrey said.
Unexpected experiences: Jeffrey previously taught Global Youth as a smaller 300-level course, but this is his first time teaching it as a 100-level course to nearly 300 students. Despite the large class size, Jeffrey said students have been surprisingly energetic and willing to start conversations with him and other students.
“I think there’s an atmosphere of excitement and interest in the large lecture setting that I haven’t experienced before in other teaching,” he said.
Students’ enthusiasm extends to the class discussion board, as well. One student posted a question that quickly became a popular debate topic: Should parents have Facebook pages? Jeffrey said it raised an interesting question about the politics of generations and how different generations relate to each other.
“It’s not something I expected to be a big theme of the course, but because it’s come up on the discussion board, I want to make it a feature of the last part of the course,” he said.
It’s no wonder the students in Global Youth are so excited to be there, as they’re the lucky few who were able to enroll in the class. About 200 other hopefuls were turned away.
“I’d really like to make sure all the people who want to do the course can do it next year,” Jeffrey said about expanding the class to fit 500 students. He also plans to work with the Carlson Center to add a service-learning component to the course, in which students work with youth organizations in Seattle.
Student views: Students praised Jeffrey’s enthusiasm for the course subject, particularly noting his research in north India as an engaging discussion topic.
“I like showing up to class because the person who is teaching me is passionate about his work,” junior Taryn Hall wrote in an e-mail. “This class is … not hierarchical, but rather a cultivated environment geared toward learning from each other and past experiences.”
Junior Lizzie Dameron agreed. “[Jeffrey’s] wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm is an inspiration and never fails to spark interesting conversations,” she wrote in an e-mail. “The information covered is uniquely important. Global Youth is a class that helps to foster an attitude of global responsibility and awareness in students.”
Reading: The course text is Telling Young Lives: Portraits of Global Youth, edited by Jeffrey and Jane Dyson, affiliate assistant professor at the Jackson School of International Studies. Each of the book’s 13 portraits tells the story of a young person living in a different part of the world, from the Indian Himalayas to the streets of New York City. The book and supplementary readings focus on the course themes of education, work, politics, health, relationships and environmental change.
Assignments: Students first write a 1,000-word personal portrait — a story about their own youth, as they choose to define it. They can choose to emphasize any of the above course themes. Students post their narratives on the class Web site and discuss common themes with their peers.
In groups, students develop poster presentations that explain links between their personal portraits and those of their peers. The final assignment is a 2,000-word essay on a topic of their choice, which should incorporate one or more of the course themes and draw heavily on their personal portraits and peer discussions.
Class Notes is an occasional column that describes interesting or unusual classes at the UW.
