One of the persistent problems of teaching politics is that it’s not a steady target: things keep happening.
There has been much discussion of this, both generally and on this blog, but it’s something that come back into my consideration of late as I think about how I’m teaching.
In the past weeks, I have several classes that have started from a specific trigger. That’s either been a news event, or some material that I’ve come across that prompts a question (and a discussion).
Last week, my students sourcing some campaigning materials from the 2016 referendum and then used them in class to consider what that told them about framing and rhetoric more generally.
Tomorrow, I’m running a public event where people can ask any question about Brexit of me and my colleagues: there we’ll find ourselves very much wherever the audience want.
This connection to events (and to symbols) is important. Firstly, it helps those we’re helping to learn to see how academic study fits with the world in practice. And secondly, it provides a hook on to which we tie ourselves as we explore the issues surrounding it.
In many ways this is analogous to the use of theory to anchor our debate: in that case, we seek out master-ideas that pull together disparate phenomena and – hopefully – make them cohere. In the event-led model, we’re focusing on a phenomenon as a site of interaction for multiple concepts and ideas.
Putting it like that makes me think about why it’s important to have a balance between the two approaches. It’s good to have a rounded set of perspectives on any one event, but equally it’s important to see the structural processes that transcend it.
It might be that in the appreciation of the mixture of specificity and sameness of the world around us that we can gain the fullest understanding.
Something to talk about with class, perhaps.