Who is your favorite teacher? ——Professor Druehl is my choice, how about you?
De Anza College has nearly 1000 faculty members, both full time and part time. Under such a large pool of faculty members, who will be your favorite one? Who will be really inspired you most? Of course, there are different choices but here I would like to share my choice with all my readers. Who is he? Here are some clues.
He has spent most of his professional life working on education and most recently he teaches United States Government and International Relations at De Anza. By the way, he also serves as the Chairperson of the Political Science Department. Well, the answer is very clear, that is our honorable Prof. Greg Druehl.
I am taking his United States Government honors class in this quarter. In order not to show any bias, I will just make an overall analysis of his teaching method and I am sure readers will be inspired by him and appreciate for his utmost effort in teaching us.
If you pay a visit to Prof. Druehl’s class, you will undoubtedly be flooded by tons of information about United States Government apart from your textbook. His charismatic teaching style that is neither preachy nor proselytizing, students are attentive, engaged and vocal. There are lots of interaction between students and Prof. Druehl, where they discussed about the daily political affairs. Apart from discussion in his lectures, he also required students to read the articles related to US government in the Sunday New York Times and then discuss these articles in class, in which students can gain credits for class participation. In my opinion, this teaching method is very beneficial to students, especially international students, since they are not familiar with the US government. Reading New York Times definitely plays an important role in helping them to learn and explore the complexity and multiculturalism of US politics. Well, I am an international student, too, who comes from Hong Kong. I would like to let my readers know that this teaching method is rarely adopted in Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong adopts a so-called “Duck-stuffing type of teaching” for more than two decades, which severely spoiled the critical thing skills of students; students are not allowed to express their thinking in the classes. If they did so, then the teachers could not complete the examination syllabuses. As a matter of fact, students in Hong Kong usually are conceived as an “examination machine”.
However, I am sure students (both local and international) will not become an examination machine if you take Prof. Druehl’s classes since they will be encouraged to express their opinion and their critical thinking skills can be developed. There aren’t any model answers for the questions. For instance, in the essay examination, the question is called “Democracy versus Dictatorship”, in which students are required to write a background paragraph on both of them, including origins, trends, types, definitions and the good and bad. As a matter of fact, students are required to possess critical thinking and analysis between these two major ideologies in politics. Students and I will definitely enjoy this essay examination because many of them learned the differences between them and happily got extra points in the examination unless they pay a great deal of effort in the preparation. Prof. Druehl encouraged students to participate in the political events in our community; therefore he offered an extra credit for visiting court room and city council meeting for the regular session, whereas these two assignments will be served as off-campus assignment for the honors session. Through visiting court room in either Santa Clara County Superior Court or US Courts of appeal, students can learn about the mechanism of the legislative branch, which is one of the most important branches in US government. Also, students will be inspired by the majestic and solemn atmosphere of the components of the legislative branch.
How about City council? Well, city council is the major political event in our community, like Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors or Cupertino City Council, in which students can know about the mechanism of a city, which is one of the components of US government. Through visiting, students can explore the city government thoroughly. We can conclude that Prof. Druehl’s teaching method is unique among De Anza faculty members, making him as my favorite and I am sure the majority of De Anza students would say Prof. Druehl is their cup of tea if they have taken Druehl’s class before.
Prof Druehl not only devotes himself in teaching, but also dedicates himself in caring students’ future by sharing precious information about transfer. He always informs the detail of transfer days at De Anza. He also offers a lot of references and aids that support students. He undoubtedly cares his students, no wonder his reputation in De Anza is very high; different ethic students filled up his classes because Druehl cares every students and want them to succeed. Recently, there are many students inviting Prof. Druehl for writing a recommendation letter for applying universities or scholarship. We can conclude that he is definitely caring his students. Even it is not during the peak season of application, students are gathered in front of his office and would like to visit Druehl for giving them advice.
In my opinion, Prof. Druehl is one of most outstanding faculty staffs in De Anza that I have ever met and with the aforementioned teaching method and daily situation. I proudly recommend him to all of you and hope you will enjoy his class in the future.
P.S. Apart from Prof. Druehl, I have another choice of faculty member. If I were given an opportunity to write, I will definitely introduce him to all of you. (Hint: He is a Doctor of Economics, who shared the same background of Prof. Druehl—they all have relationship with Stanford University. Then, who is he?)
