Excellence in teaching

Professor Norman Etherington is the Head of Department of History. He received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2000 for the Faculty of Arts. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

I came to Australia in 1968 with the aim of improving my teaching. Of course, at that time I had little experience in the lecture theatre. I expected that following completion of my PhD thesis at Yale University I would settle down to instruct American students about the history of the British Empire. Having worked on Canadian, British, and South African history, I wanted to see something of the Pacific/Southeast Asian region.

Even as a young scholar I had a strong belief that if you want to teach about a region, you should see it. So I applied for jobs in New Zealand, Malaysia and Australia (in that order, I’m afraid) and was lucky enough to land one at the University of Adelaide. My intention was to spend three years here and then return to America. But Australia won my heart and I never applied for another job until UWA beckoned in 1988.

I still believe in the close connection between personal experience and teaching. Over the years my interests gravitated more and more towards Africa. Economists tell us that Africa is not very important to Australia. I disagree. Africa is a vibrant continent - the cradle of the human race - which still has much to teach the rest of the world. It has suffered many hard knocks over the last 30 years as economies geared to commodity exports got hammered by declining prices. The advent of HIV-Aids didn’t help matters. My personal mission in teaching has been to counter the media image of Africa as the bad news continent. I use a lot of my own photos and recordings made in Africa to illustrate my lectures. I’ve been to some difficult and dangerous places and have come back with pictures that tell some important tales.

The basic message has not changed much over the years. I tell my students that if they - the elite of their generation in Australia - don’t care about Africa, this most fascinating part of the world will be in danger of dropping off the agenda. We dwell too much on our own woes. Our continent is a lucky country. The best and brightest of our wonderful student body need to pay attention to less fortunate places. I make no apologies for demanding a lot from my students. They need to learn so they can carry important messages to the larger community. My greatest joy has been the large number of my students who have learned the lessons I could teach and have not been satisfied to leave it at that. They have made their own personal journeys of discovery to Africa. Some of them have made Africa their life’s work. Nothing could be more rewarding to me as a teacher.