 "Photo: Brian Tedder, Collegian")
When junior Steve Hoeschele found out there was no class on propaganda offered this spring, he decided to teach his own.
Like Hoeschele, several students at the University of Massachusetts have taken the reins from professors and decided to create their own classes, syllabi and assignments through programs in both the anthropology and Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC) departments.
According to Hoeschele, his class will critique the ways in which we receive information through propaganda. The class also gives a broader meaning to the word "propaganda."
"Some say our education is a form of 'pre-propaganda' that paves the way for us to accept direct orders in life," he said.
According to Hoeschele, creating his propaganda class was a simple but work-intensive process.
"I drafted a syllabus and made a pitch to the STPEC program. STPEC is a major that offers an array of learning opportunities and places a great value on critical thinking skills, so they gave me the go-ahead," said Hoeschele, who worked about six hours a day over winter break preparing for the class.
"STPEC gave me full academic license. There's a high level of trust and respect that I execute this academic pursuit responsibly," said Hoeschele.
The two-credit pass/fail class will include media of pop culture, war propaganda and an assignment of creating one's own propaganda.
"Many classes will include some kind of medium which we'll analyze, whether it's a Bob Marley song, WWII posters, a vegan brochure, or a 1960s anti-drug film," he said.
Like Hoeschele's class in the STPEC major, the Grassroots Community Development (GCD) program offers student-run classes through the anthropology department.
Amy Kent and Molly Coon are two of the six peer-facilitators for the GCD program. Facilitators lead class discussions, reading-based activities and group presentations.
According to Coon, the GCD class materials prepare students to create community change with limited resources. Materials include books and packets detailing the specific histories of community organizations, ethnographies, and essays.
"All address issues of structural inequality, although many focus most strongly on race and class," she said.
According to both Kent and Hoeschele, student-run classes provide an alternative approach to learning than the one traditionally seen at large universities, and thus pose obstacles for the administration.
"I think they [GCD supervisors] face some challenges because GCD is a non-traditional classroom, and so we have to work hard to demonstrate that good learning is going on [in order] to get funding," said Kent.
"I think if people are skeptical of being 'taught' by a student, it's because the banking model of education, where facts are handed down from an authority for us to memorize, has taught them [skeptics] that their own experience and self knowledge is irrelevant," she said.
According to Hoeschele, student-taught classes can fill the gaps left by traditional classes taught by professors.
"Courses should be student-run," he said. "We're the customers here. We ought to speak up when the product is defective… push your professors and other authority figures when they're not giving you what you paid for."
Student-run classes not only provide opportunities for new courses, but according to Kent, they also offer a unique peer experience.
"This program is beneficial to UMass because it is a unique opportunity for students to find meaningful community in the classroom, to talk honestly about serious social issues, to take responsibility for their own learning, to connect theory to experience and to be empowered in the classroom rather than intimidated, bored, or both," she said.
According to Hoeschele, running his own class not only offers an opportunity to teach UMass students about propaganda, but will also be good preparation for his graduate plans.
"I want a teaching experience," he said. "Having taught a course from scratch will surely look better to grad schools than taking a regular independent study."
Cara Grannemann can be reached at cgrannem@student.umass.edu.
Be the first to comment on this article!