From Anatomy and Histology to Poetry and Electronic Music
Vol 1 no. 3 | May 2014
We recently farewelled Professor Ian Gibbins, former head of Anatomy and Histology, and long-time lecturer, topic coordinator and researcher in the School of Medicine. Before his departure, we caught up with Ian for some words of wisdom about his time teaching in the School. What will you miss most about your time here? The excitement of discovery. Being able to carry out high level basic research is a huge privilege. I’ve been fortunate indeed to have been funded continuously for nearly 40 years to do this kind of research. Coming from a background in zoology, my primary research focus has been to figure out how biological systems work normally in all their complexity, rather than focus on some specific disease process. The simple fact is that, against all odds, biology works really well most of the time, and we still don’t know very much about what keeps the whole system running so effectively. For most of my research career, I have had the amazing experience of seeing things that no one had ever seen before week in, week out, for years, nearly every time I looked down a microscope or turned on an oscilloscope. That experience is matchless. What do you love most about teaching? The students (mostly!). It’s very hard to put into words the satisfaction you get when someone you’ve been teaching understands something about the way the world works that they previously did not know. It is always a challenge no matter what the topic is and what the backgrounds of the students are. I’ve enjoyed teaching in different courses at Flinders as well as doing sessions outside the University to various community groups or in open public lectures. The other great thing about teaching is that you learn so much. Sometimes it is just from preparing the subject matter, sometimes it comes as a result of a student question, but it’s best when in the midst of a class, you suddenly hit on an insight you’ve never had before.
Even after 30 years of teaching, these magic moments still happen – as indeed they should: if anyone ever thinks they know all there is to know about a topic, they are wrong, and are probably not going to be top level teachers. Although I have rarely taught in the area of my core research expertise, this has turned out to be a good thing. There have been innumerable instances when something I had to find out for teaching purposes ended up being valuable in some way for my research. Similarly, bringing insights from the laboratory to the classroom usually adds an extra spark to a teaching session. How have you seen teaching change over the years (if at all)? Teaching has changed a lot in many areas, such as the technology of content delivery and assessment methods. When I was cleaning out my office, I found a box of my original teaching materials: hand written notes and hand-drawn over-head transparencies, with not a computer generated diagram or set of notes in sight. It was tedious, but you necessarily learnt the material very well! However, for all of the new technology as well as changes in the student demographics, course structure, professional expectations etc, the basic problems remain: students need to be convinced that it’s worthwhile learning material with a level of understanding deeper than that required simply to meet assessment requirements. Good teachers can do that and good students appreciate it. Do you have any amusing stories about your time teaching at Flinders? Not for public release…
Any words of wisdom/a piece of advice for your teaching colleagues? Manage your time well; research cannot take second place to teaching for very long without suffering a serious hit , however, don’t take shortcuts; quality takes time; assessment matters; good assessment methods facilitate good teaching and learning; most students are keen to learn if given half a chance: so give it to them, you can learn a lot from teaching... but don’t take my word for it, find out for yourself! What are your plans in retirement? I will spending a lot of time on my artscience collaborations and writing my poetry and electronic music. We have a big collaborative art-science project based on some old microscopes that is due for exhibition in July this year. During March I was the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at the Adelaide City Library, as well as contributing poetry, music and video to an Adelaide Festival Fringe show. For several years, I’ve been collaborating with the Australian Dance Theatre and I expect to spend more time with them. I’ll still pop into Flinders from time to time, mainly to help with research projects I’m collaborating on. But regardless of all these, the best thing is that I’ll be able to go windsurfing whenever there are strong winds and big waves...