Teaching time

This last week I have been back teaching students, holding two seminars, one on British History 1815-1924 and the other on Britain in the twentieth century. This was an introductory course for two sets of students on the OPUS course here in Oxford from Azusa Pacific University, which is, I understand, in the outer parts of Los Angeles. This was a very enjoyable series because they were all talented students, who were very well organised to research the topics I set them, and who were also good company. I have taught students from Azusa before and it does seem to attract very likeable recruits, and it is always a pleasure to teach them.

In my comments found I was often delving into my own family history to illustrate topics such as the agricultural depression, women's changing fashion, Nonconformity and temperance (great grandfather Whitehead was very keen on both, but more on him another day) and the fact that they could now say they had been taught by someone whose mother saw a Zeppelin on a bombing raid fly over her home town in 1917...

End of Term

This morning I was at the final presentation by two of my students from this term. This was an event organised by their home university, Azusa Pacific, which is based in California, and it consisted of the students each giving a summary of what they had learned. These two students had chosen the topic I had taught over the other subject they had studied. One spoke about his work on the Intellectual Background to the Reformation which he had studied with me, and the other about her course on Elizabethan England. They and all the other students I heard spoke very positively about their experience of Oxford tuition, and also of its impact on their religious faith. An impressive group.

I have had four other students from other two US universities - The Catholic University of America in Washington and George Mason - to teach this term. With them I studied Papal artistic patronage in the Renaissance, for which we covered the pontificates from Nicolas V to Urban VIII, on a comparative history of the English and French monarchies over the centuries, on British architecture in the nineteenth century and on the architectural history of Oxford.

I have taught such courses for a number of years and it is always a pleasure to share my interests with others, and to learn through teaching. The students, who do two courses of tutorials per term, are always likeable and conscientious. I admire their resolve and dedication to do a term, or possibly a year, abroad as part of their course, and their energy in getting as much out of their time in Oxford as possible. I wish them all well, and am still in contact with some I taught in past years - some even follow this blog I understand.