Teaching Philosophy
Charles E. Muntz, University of Arkansas
Teaching is rewarding for me because it provides an outlet
for my enthusiasm for knowledge and learning and a chance
to impart that passion to students. Over the years, as I
have moved from being a tutor in college to a graduate
instructor to an assistant professor, I have come to
realize how much teaching also furthers my own learning
experience and research. I did not truly understand the
intricacies of Greek and Latin until I had to explain them
to others. Teaching the ancient texts in translation has
forced me to consider and reconsider what I thought I knew
about the Greeks and the Romans and how to present them. In
spite of the considerable planning I undertook in preparing
my classes before a single student had signed up, I was
constantly rethinking my approach and looking forward to
the next time I could teach a similar course and try out
some of these ideas.
I have three fundamental teaching objectives. First, to
impart basic factual information. The second is to build on
this foundation by stimulating students to think critically
and interpret the materials for themselves. Finally, I want
to convey, at a minimum, enthusiasm both for the particular
subject matter and for the classics in general, helping to
transform my students into critical thinkers with an
appreciation of the classics.
The honors colloquium I developed and taught last year at
Arkansas provided me with both the widest scope and the
biggest challenge for achieving my goals as a teacher. In
approaching the topic of Romans & Provincials I wanted
not simply to explore a wide array of historical and
cultural issues, but also to foster critical thinking and
active analysis by my students. Towards this end I taught
the class primarily in a seminar format to allow the
students to interact and exchange ideas with one another as
well as with me. I have found that starting and managing
class discussions is the most difficult aspect of teaching,
and in all my classes I have used different techniques and
approaches. My position as instructor is like that of a
symphony conductor trying to coordinate a group of
musicians. I need to get all the players to make their own
individual contributions to the piece while ensuring that
no one person dominates and that everyone can benefit from
each other’s contributions. Also, I need to be mindful that
I do not dominate the discussion. It is tricky, and I am
still working to gain experience and find the means and
techniques that work best both for my students and myself.
In the case of Romans & Provincials I was able to
establish some overarching themes and topics, such as the
role of the elite in Romanization or the application of
postcolonial theory, at the start of the course to help
provide unity as we examined many different regions and
societies over several hundred years of Roman history. For
each class’s readings I provided open-ended questions to
help spur students to think harder about the texts and
prepare them to make connections with other works we had
read, such as the view of Rome in the works of Plutarch
versus those of Dio Chrysostom. I also had each student
give several oral reports on recent articles and papers to
give them practice reading and analyzing modern scholarship
as well as practice presenting in front of the class. Based
on the quality of the class discussion and the final papers
I felt that I had a great deal of success achieving my aims
and look forward to revising and teaching the course again
in the future.
Teaching at Arkansas has naturally forced me to confront
new challenges in my instruction. While I have taken a
chronological approach to my Greek and Roman History
classes, I have also been trying to integrate material
culture and art into them. I have found that the visual
imagery of the ancient world, whether in the form of
architecture, vase paintings, statues, coins, or other
objects of everyday life, is one of the most effective
elements of my lectures, and I have built up a library of
nearly 2000 images. Not only do images enliven the ancient
texts, they also shows students that iconography was just
as powerful a tool for rulers, leaders, and nations in the
ancient world, from Pisistratus to Constantine, as it is
today. It is much easier to explain the historical impact
of, for instance, Augustus, when I can show my students the
imagery he employed on everything from coins to temples to
help define a new “Golden Age” in Rome.
Drawing on some of my own research, I have also been
focusing on our sources for ancient history and the
problems that historians must confront in using them. Too
often I have seen that students want to treat an ancient
historian as someone to be consulted for the necessary
information and then put aside. In both my lectures and
paper assignments I have illustrated the many problems of
context, literary interpretation, and ancient traditions
that we must deal with in using our sources, such as the
importance of the sophistic movement for understanding
Thucydides, or the impact of Domitian’s reign on the
outlook of Tacitus. I always require students to write a
short paper analyzing the relationship between passages in
two ancient sources, such as two of the histories of
Alexander the Great, without the use of modern scholarship
to help them better understand the nature of ancient
historiography. Even though these are lecture classes, not
seminars, I try to set aside several class periods for
discussion of texts we are reading. It is harder to do this
with a class of 35 than a class of 12, but I think the
effort is worth it if I can get even some of the students
to think harder and more critically about our sources for
ancient history.
I have been fortunate in having been able to teach both
introductory Greek and introductory Latin. My approach has
been strongly influenced by my own experiences as a student
in college. The professor of my Latin 1 class freshman year
strongly emphasized a methodical approach to the language,
with particular attention to understanding and using the
grammar to translate accurately. The end result was that I
had an excellent foundation for advancing to upper level
Latin classes and was able to progress from translating to
understanding and analyzing. By contrast, when I took Greek
1 my sophomore year the class focused on reading connected
passages of simplified Greek, with little emphasis on
grammar or forms. This time, when I moved on and was
confronted with actual ancient Greek texts I found myself
ill-equipped to deal with them and spent a substantial
portion of that semester teaching myself grammar and forms
that I should have learned in Greek 1. As a result of these
experiences, I have emphasized the fundamentals and a
methodical approach to my own students, leading up to
reading an actual ancient text for the final few weeks of
the second semester. In the case of introductory Greek, I
taught it first in a summer session, and was able draw on
that experience when I taught it over a full year. This was
especially helpful in knowing when and how to supplement a
textbook with my own written materials, which I had to do
quite frequently. I was very pleased to learn that my Greek
students who moved on to the next level, including one who
went on to graduate school, were very well prepared. When
teaching intermediate Greek, I focused much more on reading
skills, but still made certain that my students understood
both the nuances of the language and the basic grammar. I
have found that it is very important to be flexible and
adjust my syllabus as necessary for the abilities of the
students in a particular class.
Ultimately, I view both the language classes and the survey
classes as part of my own growth as a teacher and a
scholar. I am eager to teach more intermediate and upper
level language courses, where I can focus less on the
basics of translating and more on the nuances of the
language and the thoughts and themes of specific authors
through close, critical readings of the texts. From broad
Greek and Roman history courses I look forward to teaching
classes covering both narrower time periods and narrower
topics. I see the two paths converging, and in a few years
hope to teach advanced courses that fully incorporate the
texts in the original languages with history, civilization,
and culture.