Teaching Anthropology

The “educated teacher”: Joint (self-)reflection on translatability between anthropology and teacher education

Christa Markom, Jelena Tošić — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 00:56:14 -0700

Building on the core epistemological features and aims of Educational Anthropology, in this paper we explore the perception of anthropological educational knowledge among teachers and their related reflections on the educational standards of their profession, as well as their own role in society. Following an overview of (the emerging) intersections between teacher education and Educational Anthropology in Austria, the paper focuses on conversations with teachers in Austria on the outputs of an educational anthropological project (TRANSCA) and their applicability. Two of the project outputs – a Concept Book and a Whiteboard Animation (on “Worldmaking”) – serve as the ground for focusing on three aspects emerging from the conversations with teachers: firstly, the concept of the “educated teacher”; secondly, conceptualization as a form of translation of anthropological knowledge via both text and animation; and thirdly, the differentiation between teaching in terms of schooling versus pedagogy. The latter is explored as a crucial dimension of the discussions among and with teachers and lies at the heart of potential future synergies between anthropology and education.

Access, Privacy, and Gender divides in Teaching Online: Reflections from India

Rituparna Patgiri — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 03:31:13 -0700

The entry of the COVID-19 pandemic into our lives meant that the process of teaching and learning shifted online. While issues of digital divide have been in the limelight, some other problems related to online teaching have remained under the radar. For instance, are there are any privacy concerns associated with online teaching and learning? How does one discuss sensitive matters like gender, religion and caste in an online class? Also, most importantly, how does one ‘teach’ and/or ‘learn’ during a crisis? In this piece, I wish to explore some of these issues drawing from my teaching experiences in New Delhi – India’s capital city, in the past year.

‘Covid-19 and Me’. A Serendipitous Teaching and Learning Opportunity in a 1st Year Undergraduate Medical Anthropology Course

Thu, 20 May 2021 01:05:17 -0700

‘Covid-19 and Me’ was an affective learning blog post exercise assigned to 1^st year undergraduate students taking a medical anthropology module at the start of academic year 2020-21. We describe the way in which a collective analysis of the accounts was undertaken and how these were presented and discussed in a set of online and face-to-face seminars. We discuss whether Covid-19 was indeed a ‘portal’ in Arundhati Roy’s use of the term, arguing that it was the written reflection and collective anthropological analysis of their accounts, rather than the virus itself, that enabled students to ‘imagine the world anew’.

Plagiarism, rote memorizing and other "bad" habits in the Greek University and beyond.

Alexandra Bakalaki — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 01:30:42 -0800

Drawing on my experience as professor of Anthropology in Greece, this paper focuses on student practices like rote learning and plagiarism academics commonly consider inimical to meaningful learning, intellectual empowerment and the cultivation of critical independent thinking. In this paper I refrain from viewing such practices from the standard academic perspective according to which they must be eradicated, and try to appreciate them from the perspective of the students who engage in them. I suggest that they serve as means through which students navigate in and cope with the university environment, but they also provide a point of view from which the university appears as a setting within which the “bad habits” academics so despise are sensible and helpful.