Choosing a Book, for Me

I will be picking a new book for my professional responsibility class next year (sorry future students!) because I just can't tolerate the touchy feely, problem-oriented approach of the book I picked this year.  I picked it because I thought, "Well, I don't write in this area, and perhaps it will be better if I go easy on myself with a subject about which I know comparatively little and my students, nearly to a one, find agonizingly, exquisitely dull."  As I've learned about the course and the material, I've actually enjoyed both its technical and theoretical contours.  I don't know (and often doubt) whether the same can be said of my students.

But I've decided to change books.  And most of the reasons I'm doing so have little to do with making PR a "fun" learning experience, or with making it seem more alive, or real-life-problem-y, or anything so insufferably "pedagogical."  I am not looking for a book that somehow conveys the tone of a schoolmarmish scold: "This is really important stuff!!  You ought to be paying attention to this, and tsk tsk if you don't, you irresponsible so and so!!  You know, you may not realize it now, but this is the most important course in the whole curriculum!!"  What a horrible bore -- the model of education as cod-liver oil, or law professor as Sir Galahad.  At all events, even if I did have these sorts of aims in mind for students, I have a feeling that there would be something counter-productive about this approach.  Who can blame them for rolling their eyes at such rubbish?

No, I'm changing books because I want a book that suits my style and interests, that will keep me more engaged with the material.  I'm changing books for me, not for them.  My hope, of course, is that changing books for me will make me able to teach the course with more verve, with greater gusto, and that in doing so, students' interest in the course will rise.  But the thing to focus on is my interests, the ideas, material, and style of instruction that turns me on (or against which I can teach with relish), not on what my students may or may not find of interest.  Especially with a course like this, that's far too difficult to predict.  But more importantly, the book and I are constant companions -- year after year, we'll be there, keeping each other company.  We ought to enjoy that relationship.