Both Students and Faculty Must Work To Fix Sections

To the editors:



Rebecca D. O’Brien’s comment about what’s wrong with sections (“Awkward Silences,” Dec. 16) is welcome because there should be more discussion about this issue at Harvard. Nothing in the curricular review would improve a Harvard education more than measures to reduce the size of sections and improve the training of teaching fellows (TFs). Her observations that TFs must be skilled and focused are surely right.

But two of her points are alarming. Is it really true that students cannot be expected to do the reading? If so, we need to reexamine how much is assigned and the norms about what will be read.

The purpose of a section varies across disciplines. But in many courses in the humanities and social sciences, it should not be for the TF to summarize readings and provide context. Sections should be sites in which students learn to argue cogently about the arguments and perspectives of the readings. If they do not learn such skills here, where will they learn them? A good section is one in which students are listening to and arguing with each other. Such interchange is not as useless as O’Brien implies. To achieve it requires a good TF and students willing to do the reading, to listen to others, and to speak about the material, even if they do not understand it perfectly. If Harvard is not achieving this, we should be asking why it is not.



PETER A. HALL

December 16, 2005



The writer is director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.