Introduction to Lesson Plans
Archaeological Ethics and Law, by its very subject matter, is a course about ideas and values, many of them contested and controversial. It cannot be taught through prescription or memorization: the point, after all, is to stimulate archaeology students—some of whom will become professional archaeologists—to think about, discuss, and debate what archaeology is all about, to formulate their own values as they walk through the minefield of competing interests and values of the many groups that have some concern with the past. This process of coming to grips with archaeology is best done in an informal setting with a small group of highly motivated students who have already had a fair amount of academic training in archaeology.
In presenting the lesson plans that follow I run the risk of creating a false impression—an impression of rigidity and inflexibility. Topics appear in clearly enumerated headings and subheadings, suggesting that class presentations and discussions took place in some inevitable or inexorable order. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the joys of this class is the many sidesteps, alternate paths, and digressions that are taken as one idea suggests another or one situation recalls a different one. Every student is different, and each group of students offers a unique set of backgrounds and perspectives. As a teacher your challenge is to sense when to guide students down one path or steer them away from another that is unlikely to be productive.
Ideas are wonderful, but facts are also important. One of the difficulties of this course is that, although you are trying to encourage students to use critical thinking and engage in discussion and debate, you are also presenting subject matter that is largely unknown to them. In my experience, undergraduate archaeology majors are almost completely unfamiliar with topics like archaeological ethics, professionalism, archaeology and law, and heritage management. (Graduate students in archaeology are only marginally better acquainted with the material, by the way.) That means that there is a lot of factual material that needs to be comprehended by the students before they can reasonably analyze, evaluate, and make judgments for themselves. For the instructor, therefore, there may be a tendency to lecture on facts—ethical codes, laws, etc.—rather than give the students the tools that will allow them to process the factual material in a critical manner so that they can make informed analyses. This tendency is natural, but must be avoided like the plague.
My course is divided into weekly topics. The class meets twice a week for 1.5 hours each time. I find it convenient to spend most of the first class each week presenting the topic in general terms and including the bulk of the factual material that needs to be covered. In the second class there is time for student presentations and discussion. But the distinction between the two classes is not a hard and fast one.
The lesson plans include the following categories:
• Title of lesson.
• Description: This is the description that appears for each weekly class in the course syllabus.
• Learning Objectives: Two to four objectives are articulated for each class.
• Reading: These are the required readings, as listed in the syllabus; students need to read them before coming to class.
• The content of the lesson plan is then presented in outline form, using 1, 2, 3, etc., for major headings; a, b, c, etc., for subheadings; and bullets (•) for itemized lists within subheadings. For a quick appreciation of the basic lesson plan, scan the numbered headings.
I have incorporated into the content of the lesson plans the various class discussions, worksheets, and questionnaires that are used to elicit information or provoke discussion from the class.
To capture some of the sense of the class discussions and student responses, I periodically include a section in square brackets called " [Notes for Instructors]." Occasionally when there are several of these I simply present the information in square brackets. I also include suggestions for questions to ask the students or topics of discussion.
• Slides: In some of the classes I show slides to accompany the discussion. To give the reader a sense of the illustrative material, I include a list of slides shown at the end of the lesson plan.
Lesson plans are provided for all classes listed in the syllabus with the following exceptions:
• Class 6. Attend "The International Art Trade and the Ethics of Collecting" symposium at the Harvard Law School (Feb. 21, 2001).
The class attended the symposium as a group, and the students agreed that the experience was one of the best of the course. Sponsored by the Harvard Law School Arts Panel, the symposium involved representatives of the pro-market side of the art market debate: Ashton Hawkins, former general counsel and executive vice president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; James Cuno, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and director of the Harvard University Art Museums; James Fitzpatrick, senior partner of the law firm Arnold & Porter; and Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore.
The students were shocked to discover that no archaeologists, preservationists, or representatives of source countries were included in the symposium. In fact, I later learned from one of the graduate student organizers that they were deliberately excluded; also, some participants expressed a concern for security in case archaeologists attended (!). Audience comments and questions were controlled by having people write questions on index cards; some of these were then chosen by the student moderators and the questions presented to the panel. No audience discussion was permitted. Several of my students wrote cogent questions that were selected for reading.
• Class 7. Discussion: On Being an Archaeologist
Due to scheduling reasons, this class was reduced to a single 1.5 hour session. It was originally designed to be a freewheeling discussion on what it means to be an archaeologist by way of summarizing the first six weeks of classroom consideration of archaeological ethics. Because it was the first time we met as a class after the Harvard symposium, it turned into an animated critique of that symposium. I was gratified to observe that the students had fully absorbed the legal and ethical differences between archaeologists and the "market forces" (dealers, collectors, and museums) and were able to clearly articulate those differences. Ironically, when I designed the course schedule I had hoped that by this class the students would, on their own, be espousing a strong archaeological ethic, grounded in an assessment of archaeological values and contrasted to some of the other groups who have an interest in the past. As it turned out, that is exactly what happened, but I think it came about as a direct result of sitting in that room full of future lawyers at Harvard who were being exposed to only one point of view—a most non-archaeological point of view at that! My students came away angry, shocked, and passionate about the value of archaeology.
• Class 15. Summation and Review
By the last class we were rushing to complete the last student presentations, cover all the material from the syllabus, and do a quick review for the final exam. There was, unfortunately, little time for the calm, thoughtful look forward to the future of the profession of archaeology with which I had hoped to end the class.