by Katharine Napora, Anthropology, ’18-19
I don’t care if, in a year from now, my students remember which hominin is associated with the Acheulean stone tool tradition, which dicotyledon species have semi ring-porous wood, or what the appropriate symbology is for relationships in a kinship chart. What I do care about is that all students come away from a course in my discipline (anthropology) knowing why the discipline matters, and that they retain that knowledge throughout their lives.
Non-majors, exposed to anthropology for the first—and quite likely last—time in their lives, should come away with the following five thoughts:
- I see how vital it is to understand cultural differences and values in our globalized world.
- I understand that the human past can provide us with valuable insight into modern issues, and I can say why archaeological sites deserve to be protected.
- So these are peer-reviewed articles! Now I have the skill set to understand and synthesize articles like this in the future.
- This class has really improved my ability to clearly articulate my thoughts and support my arguments with evidence.
- Anthropology is awesome! I’d like to get to hear more about anthropology!
This last thought is probably the most critical take-away. Drawing students to our disciplines as class enrollees, minors, or majors is obviously financially necessary for departments. (Side note: We really don’t want everyone to decide to become an academic anthropologist—see Speakman et al. 2018) More importantly, we need the support of these now-students who in the coming decades will comprise the culturally and politically dominant generation.
Let’s make sure that our students have the opportunity to analyze scientific papers and learn about the peer-review process. Let’s have our students conduct research, formulate outlines, and develop well-supported arguments so they have the chance to get the gist of the creation process for such a paper.
Our current students, the next generation, are the people who will decide, by their votes and by their voices, what is worth funding. If we as teachers fail to impress upon students the value of our fields, what are the chances that our now-students will support funding in 30 years to preserve, for example, an eroding Late Archaic coastal shell midden? Without the background that an anthropology class provides (among other information, shell middens contain details concerning human use of resources and habitats, shed light on changes in human-environment interactions during periods of climate change, and can provide deep-time insight for modern resource management), such a project would sound to many like a waste of money—after all, where’s the value in some old pile of seashells and bones? I fervently hope that a student who has taken my class will be able to answer that question and clearly articulate the answer to others.
This brings us to the importance of writing—and reading others’ writing—in our disciplines. Delving into a scientific paper is intimidating if you’ve never done it before. Let’s make sure that our students have the opportunity to analyze scientific papers and learn about the peer-review process. Let’s have our students conduct research, formulate outlines, and develop well-supported arguments so they have the chance to get the gist of the creation process for such a paper. Years from now, our students probably won’t be able to recall off the top of their heads that Homo erectusmade the hand-axes characteristic of the Acheulean tradition, but they should be able to read a newly-published article on early hominin tool use, understand the main argument and evidence, and go about their lives, a little more skilled and a little more knowledgeable for having been exposed to my discipline.
References:
Speakman, Robert J., Carla S. Hadden, Matthew H. Colvin, Justin Cramb, K.C. Jones, Travis W. Jones, Corbin L. Kling, Isabelle Lulewicz, Katharine G. Napora, Katherine L. Reinberger, Brandon T. Ritchison, Maria Jose Rivera-Araya, April K. Smith, and Victor D. Thompson. Choosing a Path to the Ancient World in a Modern Market: The Reality of Faculty Jobs In Archaeology. American Antiquity 83(1): 1-12.