Well-spoken and expressive, English professor Jane Tompkins hardly seems the stressed-out, self-absorbed individual she claims she once was. After teaching at Columbia University and the City University of New York, Tompkins arrived at Duke to do what most professors do: run from meeting to meeting, prepare lectures and work her way up in the ranks of academic scholarship.
In 1988, however, the pressure of self-motivation and a desire to rise to the top reached a breaking point.
While teaching a course entitled "Feminist Theory of Emotions," Tompkins had an epiphany. "I had invited people to express their emotions in the classroom, which is not a place where we normally are supposed to bring in our feelings," Tompkins said. She was surprised that students responded passionately, and she soon found the class traumatic because of its unusual emotional nature.
She began suffering headaches afterwards, not due to the class, but rather her perspective on life, she said. Tompkins heard a mental alarm go off, prompting her to change her life-and the way she envisioned academics and education. "I realized that these migraines weren't just about the course. There was more to it, and I began to do whatever I could to change my life," she said.
She also started to pay attention to her body, friends, environment and inner-spirit. Consequently, Tompkins' attention to healing herself led to the reevaluation of her academic drive. "From having been someone who was very driven in career terms, I very slowly began to let go of some of that," she said.
Emerging from this period of uncertainty, Tompkins began to view teaching as a more holistic process rather than an impersonal climb on the faculty promotion ladder.
Although many critics have scorned Tompkins' ideals she does not come bearing crystals. Rather than a New-Age hippie, Tompkins is merely a "risk-taker, in many ways," according to visiting professor Martha Simmons, who co-teaches a course with Tompkins entitled "Writing Spiritual Autobiography."
"She believes in the education of the mind, body, heart and soul as a package," Simmons said.
Perhaps the best way to understand the teaching style of Simmons and Tompkins is to observe the creativity and imagination that embody the class. "The course evolved pretty much out of our sense that Duke students... generally do not have a chance during their four years to come to know themselves very well because they are so busy meeting the external requirements of the University," Tompkins said.
Therefore, the 15 class members develop their own spiritual practice-whether it be going for a walk, making a cup of tea, or listening to music-and follow that practice daily for the entire semester. Writing at least one paragraph a day, they learn "how to be aware of what's happening in a more refined way than is possible when [they] haven't carved out a space to just relax," Tompkins said. With a myriad of other activities, "students gradually realize that they can call upon themselves as a resource and as a source of knowledge," Simmons said.
Yet not everyone is convinced. A fire storm of criticism arose on the opinion pages of The Chronicle of Higher Education after the publication ran an extensive profile on Tompkins and her pedagogical ideas this summer. Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Chicago said, "On the one hand, she complains that academic institutions fail to create an atmosphere of lively intellectual debate-I think she's absolutely right about that. On the other hand, when she turns to her holistic model, sometimes it seems that model itself veers away from intellectual debate."
Tompkins also noted some critics have tried to pigeonhole her theories on learning as applicable only to small, creative humanities classes.
Wendy Kaminer, author of I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional, and a public policy fellow at Radcliffe College is one of those skeptics. A critic of personal development movements and new age spiritual movements, Kaminer said that she is leery of Tompkins' approach to teaching not only because the teacher may be unqualified to address students' spiritual concerns, but also because, "Teachers who are attending to a spiritual life are apt to interfere with [students] private lives."
Tompkins, in contrast, believes that whether it be in a seminar or lecture, a chemistry course or an English course, education can always involve the student to a greater extent. She asserts that "integrating a person's sense of himself in the world with the pursuit of the discipline, whatever it may be," is the first step in changing the way students and professors think about learning.
Having penned "A Life at School," a book that describes her views of education and the need for a more personal, holistic approach, Tompkins is moving forward with her life in a new arena. With her husband and University English professor Stanley Fish's move to the University of Illinois at Chicago to become the dean of Arts and Sciences, Tompkins will jump from an English career to one in Education. While teaching one course in the school of education at the University, she tentatively plans to participate in a program that helps poor black citizens of Chicago "find their voices and find themselves through writing." Tompkins also hopes to enroll in a clinical pastoral education program and become a hospital chaplain.
As her future prospects begin to take shape, Tompkins says she is leaving the University with a better sense of herself than when she arrived. "If you start simply to listen to your body, at some point your intuition is going to start to kick in," she said.
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