Excellence in Teaching

Robyn Honey is an associate lecturer in the Faculty of Law. She received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 1999. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

I did not expect to love teaching. Like most law graduates, I expected to practice law. In 1988, while pregnant with my first child, I was asked to give some tutorials at the Law School. My baby is now a teenager and I am still teaching - and loving it! Initially, my teaching was driven by my interest in the subject matter: equity and property law. Somewhere along the way, the teaching itself became my primary focus.

I think that my passion for teaching is driven by a love of learning. I never ever want to know it all. It is the unknown that makes tomorrow enticing. I vividly remember my first year as a student at this University. Turned loose with a licence to explore in a garden full of libraries, inhabited by people who valued the pursuit of wisdom. A place where "intellectual" was not a dirty word. Heaven!

My understanding of the process of education has been shaped by these experiences. I believe that a university education should enrich the student's life in as many ways as possible. Ideally, it should yield wisdom, confidence, discernment, intellectual courage, friendships, enjoyment ... and, most importantly, a lifelong love of learning. No teacher can "give" any of these things to a student. However, we can provide an environment that is conducive to their attainment.

My primary objective as a teacher is to stimulate and nurture the student's interest in learning. To this end, my chief strategy is to approach the teaching itself as a learning experience. I can view equity and property law afresh by looking at them through the eyes of my students. This helps me to nurture my own enthusiasm for them. I take every opportunity that I can to learn from my students. Some simple, but effective ways to learn while teaching include:

• asking for the students' opinions on matters of interest and considering (rather than assessing) their response;
• ·strongly encouraging students to be inquisitive and providing ample opportunity in class for discussion between students;
• taking a reasonably liberal approach to questions asked in class, allowing questions to stray somewhat from the "topic".I have found that this is usually time well spent;
• strongly encouraging students to put down their pens and engage (and doing as much as possible to make them to feel free to do so e.g. making tapes of classes available on the web and (sometimes) handing out copies of my lecture notes);
• ignoring the old adage about cross-examination and regularly asking questions to which I do not know the answer;
• setting assessment questions on contentious issues and/or on questions to which I don't (but would like to) know the answer; and openly and unashamedly admitting when I don't know "the answer" and if I "get it wrong". I find it harder to learn if I am inhibited by the fear of making a mistake. If I can err in safety, then so can they - and our exchange of ideas can flow more freely.

If you love learning, then you will love teaching. Not only because of the vicarious enjoyment that may be derived from participating in the learning experiences of your students. But because of the thrill of exploring your chosen field of interest with many keen intellects each of whom are looking at it for the first time and from a unique perspective.