by MERLIN CROSSLEY

As a biologist I keep going back to what is natural in an attempt to determine what is best – it’s a perilous approach and I don’t recommend it. A lot of what is natural is – flat out bad.

But I can’t help it.

When I think about teaching, I think about how humans have learnt over the centuries. Children learn naturally from listening to elders. Often what they hear is a monologue. Stories, epic poems, and, of course, songs are typically monologues. I guess there are a few songs that are duets – but relatively few stand out as successes!

When paper and the printing press materialised then students could learn from books. Again, it was a fairly solo affair. Reading is an individual pursuit.

But learning needn’t be.

One can listen to lectures or even watch videos of lectures with others. Over the years as a family we’ve occasionally read stories round a fire, or have more often watched films and television together. From time to time one can interject or there is time for discussion afterwards. This is how humans share other life experiences – we go through things together and then reflect on them later, again often together.

Of course, delivering lectures, monologues, reading epic poems, singing songs, was not how Socrates started. He began with dialogues. I love listening to dialogues. A few weeks ago I watched David Wenham interviewing Ita Buttrose. It was captivating. My mother always admired Ita and suddenly I understood why. I found it so easy to watch the dialogue. I started wondering why I hadn’t used dialogues more in my teaching.

Some lecturers do use dialogues. I have one colleague who has done a series of tutorials where the lecturer engages with a student – they discuss questions in much the same way as Socrates set out. I’ve also been invited to be part of a dialogue by a few friends. I’ve absolutely loved it. I don’t know for sure how the students felt or how it facilitated their learning – but I’m reasonably confident that it worked.

There is a risk that one goes off-piste – anything can happen in a dialogue. Straying can be interesting, but it can also be inefficient, if one is trying to set down a comprehensive foundation for future learning first. I can imagine a good dialogue might help students explore Camus’s writing but might be less effective in explaining the conjugation of the verb ‘to be’. I wouldn’t recommend dialogues for everything, but I certainly recommend that they be in the mix.

There were two reasons I didn’t harness dialogues more in my own teaching. Firstly, I was trapped in the convention of lecture, lecture, prac, tutorial, lecture, lecture, prac, tutorial etc. The second reason was that I didn’t want to impose on others. We are all so busy these days. Time is money – why have two academics when one will do?

But if I were starting again, I’d seek colleagues out. I’ve loved it when I’ve been invited. It is a time commitment but if the person who invites me is well-prepared I don’t have to do too much prior work, so it is one of those things one can do without it being a burden.

In the future, I will be accepting invitations and I’ll also be looking to consider whom I might invite to participate in my teaching. I could invite students to partner in dialogues, and that can happen in tutorials, but I think two teachers talking is the option I’ll explore first.

It’s so natural. Humans love listening to conversations – when reading I like it when I see dialogue coming, I like listening to interviews (Andrew Denton, Michael Parkinson, David Wenham recently). I like panels too (Q&A, QI). I can even watch films that entail nothing but a dialogue – if you have never seen Locke I recommend it. Tom Hardy takes a series of phone calls as he drives to London. It is mesmerising.

Monologues have a place but they needn’t be the only way of teaching. Others will have other suggestions about how to innovate in the infinite world of possibilities available with respect to teaching in the modern world – my recommendation is to re-awaken Socrates’ approach and kick off a few dialogues in class.

Professor Merlin Crossley is Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic and Student Life, UNSW Sydney