Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America

The first full-length history of college teaching in the US from the 19th century to the present, "The Amateur Hour" by Jonathan Zimmerman, sheds new light on the tension between the modern scholarly ideal and the subjective nature of day-to-day instruction. He confirms that complaints about poor quality instruction have been heard for 150 years but also contradicts them by showing how undergraduates have indicted the weak instruction they received and institutional efforts to improve it. Zimmerman argues that the emphasis on the personal inhibited the professionalization of college teaching and that shared standards for it need to be developed. He calls for restoring intimate learning communities, especially for America's least privileged students.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 27 October 2020
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

The first comprehensive history of college teaching in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, this book sheds new light on the ongoing tension between the modern scholarly ideal – scientific, objective, and dispassionate – and the inevitably subjective nature of day-to-day instruction.

American college teaching is in crisis, or so we are told. But we've heard that complaint for the past 150 years, as critics have denounced the poor quality of instruction in undergraduate classrooms. Students daydream in gigantic lecture halls while a professor drones on, or they meet with a teaching assistant for an hour of aimless discussion. The modern university does not reward teaching, so faculty members at every level neglect it in favor of research and publication.

In the first book-length history of American college teaching, Jonathan Zimmerman confirms but also contradicts these perennial complaints. Drawing upon a wide range of previously unexamined sources, The Amateur Hour shows how generations of undergraduates indicted the weak instruction they received. But Zimmerman also chronicles institutional efforts to improve it, especially by making teaching more personal. As higher education grew into a gigantic industry, he writes, American colleges and universities introduced small-group activities and other reforms designed to counter the anonymity of mass instruction. They also experimented with new technologies like television and computers, which promised to personalize teaching by tailoring it to the individual interests and abilities of each student.

But, Zimmerman reveals, the emphasis on the personal inhibited the professionalization of college teaching, which remains, ultimately, an amateur enterprise. The more that Americans treated teaching as a hobby, the less they invested in it, and the worse it became. Zimmerman's book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the challenges facing American college teaching and the efforts to address them. It is a must-read for anyone interested in higher education and the future of American society.

Weight: 644g
Dimension: 161 x 238 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781421439099