"I believe that constant and vigorous engagement with one's subject is the foundation of good instruction," says Professor Donald Friedman of English. "So I read as much current scholarship, in books and journals, as I can."
Students are the recipients of this engagement and understand its power. Says one, "He is passionate about his work, and his incredible knowledge also adds to the effectiveness of his classes." Another student simply says, "Professor Friedman knows EVERYTHING."
In his classes, Friedman works to put the literature into context. "It is important for students to realize," he says, "that 'Shakespeare' and 'Milton' aren't the same as a set of ideas, but rather that they were individuals whose thinking changed over time in response to the events of their lives and to the history that was happening around them." "I came away from the course," says a student, "feeling that I understood not just the poetry but the period in ways that I hadn't anticipated."
Students admire him not only for his knowledge but for his attention to them. A student says, "His interest in his students'; thoughts was evident and joyful," and another admires his "sincere interest in the individual student, with the result that one always feels helped in one's project rather than intellectually bulldozed."
"It is people like Professor Friedman who distinguish Berkeley from 90% of other universities," says one student, and other adds that Friedman's greatest strength is "The sheer generosity with which he shares his erudition with graduate students and undergraduates alike."
A specialist in Milton, Shakespeare, and the 16th and 17th Centuries, Friedman joined the English Department in 1961. He received a B.A. from Columbia College, a B.A. and M.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Statement Of Teaching Philosophy
I am regularly bemused by having to respond to the question on our annual biobibliography form that asks about "systematic efforts undertaken to improve instruction," perhaps because I am inclined to assume that it has in mind primarily new technologies, course websites and the like. I am tempted to fill in the blank simply by saying, "I read a lot," not in a Luddite spirit but because I believe that constant and vigorous engagement with one's subject is the foundation of good instruction.
So I read as much current scholarship, in books and journals, as I can. I also reread the texts I teach for every course, no matter how many times I have read them before, not as a matter of principle but because what I thought last year about a passage of Paradise Lost, say, almost never makes convincing sense to me this year.
All my courses are based on the assumption that the primary subject of literary study is what language has done and can do. It follows that we spend a good deal of time in class discussion attending to the particulars of individual texts. But I spend a good deal of time, too, talking about religious, political, and social matters. It is important for students to realize that "Shakespeare" and "Milton" aren't the same as a set of ideas, but rather that they were individuals whose thinking changed over time in response to the events of their lives and to the history that was happening around them.
But it always comes back to paying attention to language both in its "gross and scope" and in its minute details; and so the students' own writing is the center of my concern. They are encouraged to submit drafts, to consult as often as needed, and to try to respond to the writers they are reading by striving for comparable command of their own voices and ideas.
At the last meeting of an upper-division seminar last Spring,
I thanked the members of the class for what they had taught me, not only in
the sense of pointing out things in Milton I had not thought of, but more
profoundly, in having changed my ways of thinking about the poet. It is not
a remark I am accustomed to making, but on this occasion it was not only true but unmistakably
and deeply true. It was one of the most satisfying moments I have had in over
thirty years of teaching.