Making My Day Better
This was one of my student evaluations from my Roman history course this quarter:
Professor Ori is without a doubt one of my three favorite professors with whom I have taken a class at S-. I had never taken a course in the Classics before this one, so I came in knowing next to nothing about the Romans - but by the time I walked out of the final exam, I realized just how effective a teacher Professor Ori had been. Thinking about the questions on the exam, about how I wouldn't have been able to answer a single one prior to taking the course, and about how much knowledge I was able to marshal in answering them nine weeks later - all that spoke to me forcefully not of my own talent for exam-taking, but rather of Professor Oris talent for imparting knowledge in an accessible yet professional, humorous yet info-packed, way that fascinated our entire class of students in lecture. (cont. in next box)
Suggestions for Improvement:
(cont. from box above b/c I ran out of space, NOT a suggestion for improvement): I could go on and on about how much I loved this class, but for brevity's sake, I'll stick to a few basic points. Perhaps my favorite thing about Professor Ori's teaching style was the way in which she managed to convey a perfect sense of broader themes in Roman history by appeal to anecdote - crystallizing the nuance and complexity of history in her stories about a single fascinating Roman general, or the tale of one consul's rise to power, or an explanation of the story behind a painting or a Roman monument. Since she had the tremendously difficult task of imparting to us the entire scope of Roman history - between 1000 and 2000 years, depending on how you slice it - this was a brilliant pedagogical choice on her part. (cont. in final box)
(cont. from first box): I really have no idea how she was able to teach so much material so well in so little time. I have never learned so much so worth learning in one quarter of school from one class. I think it may have had to do with the way in which Professor Ori blended fact with theme; it was really the perfect mixture. Some history professors overemphasize factual knowledge without grounding dates and names in larger concepts and ideas, making them difficult to remember if not meaningless; some teach history by appeal to amorphous theory without providing any facts, figures, or stories to go along with it, making me feel like I haven't actually learned anything. Professor Ori did neither, mixing just the right amount of both. (continued)
Suggestions for Improvement:
(continued) All this and more contributed to making Roman history lecture a pleasure to attend. You'll hear about this from other students, so I won't speak for them, but I think I can say with confidence that the entire class was consistently fascinated by the material we were learning. People raised their hands almost constantly to ask questions, but unlike in many classes, this wasn't because the professor was doing a poor job of teaching or was being unclear; much the opposite. Professor Ori had us so into the material that we were constantly thinking one step ahead, wanting to know more (she always knew the answers, by the way). Overall, I am tremendously disappointed that Professor Ori will be leaving next year for M-, since I was looking forward to taking another class with her next year. I very much wish she were staying, because S- is losing an excellent Classics instructor.