Henry L. Tischler

As a freshman at Temple University, my first experience with a college textbook was in my sociology course. I dutifully read the assigned chapter during my first week of class hoping to become familiar with the subject matter of this required course. The only problem was that I had no idea what the author was saying. The writing level was advanced, the style dense, and the book downright threatening, without photos or illustrations. After several hours of reading I felt frustrated and stupid, and I knew no more about sociology than when I started.

If this was what college was going to be like, I was not going to make it, I thought. I remember admitting reluctantly that I was probably not what guidance counselors in that day referred to as “college material.” I could picture myself dropping out after the first semester and looking for a job selling furniture or driving a cab. My family would be disappointed, but my father was a factory worker, and there was no family history of college attendance to live up to. I continued to struggle with the book and earned a D on the mid-term exam. After much effort, I managed to finish the course with a C, and a burning disinterest in the field of sociology. I did not take another sociology course for two years, and when I did it was “Marriage and the Family,” considered the easiest course on campus.

I often wonder how I came from this inauspicious beginning to become a sociology professor, let alone the author of a widely used introductory sociology textbook. Then again, maybe it is not all that unusual, because that experience continues to have an effect on me each day. Those 15 weeks helped to develop my view that little is to be gained by presenting knowledge in an incomprehensible or unnecessarily complicated way, or by making yourself unapproachable. Pompous instructors and intimidating books are a disservice to education. Learning should be an exciting, challenging, and eye-opening experience, not a threatening one.