Beyond the Podium: Dr. Finney Cherrian

If you meandered through the halls of the Faculty of Education this spring, you would have seen the sunshineyellow posters promoting the 2008 TV Ontario’s Big Ideas Best Lecturer Competition. Proudly displaying the smiling face of our very own Dr. Finney Cherian — complete with suit jacket and signature bowtie — the posters call to passers-by for support for one of the University of Windsor’s most recognized and distinguished lecturers.  A two-time nominee for this Ontario-wide teaching award, Cherian has enjoyed the humbling aspects of such recognition.  

“I’m truly honoured by the nomination — that the students see me this way,” says Cherian. “I am extremely proud to represent the University of Windsor and Faculty of Education in this competition.” An impish grin begins, and then he adds, “And of course, there are also bragging rights involved.”  

The hardest thing about the publicity surrounding his position as a finalist, however, has been Cherian’s own struggle with the concept of being labeled a “Best Lecturer.”  As an Education professor, he eschews the concept of “The Lecture,” and indeed he feels his job is to unseat the practice of lecturing from its central role in too much education.

For Cherian, powerful education is not about lecturing, but about moving away from the fixed, central podium towards a model that puts mentoring and supporting student learning at its core. “Teaching is about relationships,” he explains. “It is a relational act, a growth process, for myself and for the students. It’s paradoxical, this idea of being rewarded for ‘lecturing’ — I do not lecture my students. I engage them, turning them into idea makers, critical participants, who learn to question their own learning and teaching practice. My goal in the classroom has always been to create an inquiry environment.”

So where does one of the top-ten finalists for “best lecturer” receive inspiration for his thought-provoking classes? “The world. Where else should knowledge be situated? I try to bring the real world into my classroom, and encourage these future teachers to do the same with their own students.”