Reading Response# 6

 

“Normalism”

          I am very impressed by the “normalism” approach that describes William Mayo’s way of instruction—his mainstream. The students of his are common students who might be poor, rural, but absolutely who are thirsty of knowledge. Mayo understood this and followed this approach to meet the needs of those longing students. He did not confide his teaching to a specific well-known method because they might not match with his students’ needs and interests. Instead, he brought down the curriculum to be congenial for the levels of the students, which therefore enabled them to feel it and touch it, and consequently enabled them to think about it instead of waiting for the professor to tell them what it was.

         Mayo’s philosophy in teaching encourages students to think about what they learn. By thinking, they can live what they study. Hence, they could practice what they learned every day and everywhere—because it became part of their lives. Also, “each Friday or Saturday evening, students met to discuss literary and political topics, present orations, speeches, essays, poetry, and drama, and hold debates and parliamentary activities” (Rhetoric p. 134). This would not take place unless the instructor encouraged the students to mingle with the live topics whether they are religious, social or political. And this is exactly what Mayo did when he paid a little (or no) attention to the textbooks because mainly they are repetitive and do not speak to the students as they are commonly good only in giving instructions, the thing that Mayo’s philosophy tried to evade.

           Finally, I believe that this “normalism” approach sparks my interest because, as a teacher, I always sympathize with students who complain that they are unable to think because of the high level of the subject matter. So, I encourage teachers, especially in rhetoric and composition classes to find subjects that intrigue the students’ interests, and then to ask them to tell what they think about it; in other words, to produce something new, instead of repeating what the authors of their textbooks already said. By doing that, I believe we will have a generation who can add new insightful methods and techniques in a variable number of fields.

Note: The photo of William Mayo was taken from www.tamu-commerce.edu/library

The photo of Mayo among his class in 1909 was taken from http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/User/TAMU-C Digital Collections