Dr. Jeffrey Kopstein, one of the professors behind POL101, feels like he’s on display when he lectures in Convocation Hall.

“It’s kind of like being in a Roman colosseum, but good thing students are better behaved than the audience in ancient Rome!” jokes Kopstein, as he sits cross-legged in his office at the Centre for Jewish Studies in Sidney Smith Hall.

The course is attended by around 1200 students every lecture and although it is about political science, the class’s topic of conversation sometimes drifts elesewhere.

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“One time, somebody brought a puppy to class. Of course, I wanted my students to like me and the last thing I wanted was to be portrayed as was a puppy hater. I tried to let it go but the puppy was being pretty uncooperative. In the end, I had to tell the student to give it to someone outside the lecture,” he says.

Bizarre scenarios like these aside, Kopstein says that teaching in front of a large audience is a stimulating experience. To keep such a large group interested, he uses humour in an effort to get the students to see him in a friendlier and less intimidating way.

“The big secret that students don’t necessarily know is that professors learn more from their colleagues and their students than their students learn from them.”

U of T, he explains, has professors that are at the cutting edge of new ideas within their fields. In his department, he is lucky to have fantastic colleagues that can help. Students also help by simply being in lecture and reacting to the material.

After covering a point in a certain way, for example, Kopstein can tell from the students’ facial expressions what works and what doesn’t. If the way he has taught something is not suitable, he modifies his teaching method for next class.

The new course, which was only created last year, has been taught by Kopstein since its beginnings. “I get to help shape the way so many first-year students get to think about politics. What I teach them will stick with them for the rest of their careers, maybe even the rest of their lives,” he says.

He emphasizes that the University of Toronto is filled with very intelligent students that may have read the material beforehand. His job is to try to unsettle their opinions and allow them to read the works of great scholars with an open mind.

Not only does he enjoy teaching students, he enjoys meeting them as well. Kopstein is happy to chat anywhere, whether grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon or meeting a student on a trip to Romania.

“To get through these big lectures, it’s really important to make that effort to get to know your professor. I love meeting my students and I wish they came to my office hours more,” he remarks.

Kopstein also tries to get students in his big classes to ask questions. In his lectures, he dedicates 45 minutes to lecturing and 15 minutes to asking questions. In such a large group, the old cliché of other people having the same question is, statistically speaking, almost certain.
Kopstein says that he understands how it is to be a freshman and recommends students ask questions to help clarify lecture material and build public speaking skills.

“I went to Berkeley at the University of California, and I was a first-year student once too,” he recalled. “It took me a while to overcome my intimidation, but after I did, it really helped. First year students need to keep in mind that our job, as professors, is to be less intimidating and more open.”

Kopstein is also Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies. In his role, he focuses on questions about ethnic violence, and specifically on the politics behind the Holocaust. He bases most of his published research on this topic and draws conclusions from his work to present in his lectures. He emphasizes that the only way to prevent political upheaval is to understand it from a scholarly point of view.

“This course is like a buffet. Students are able to come up and try different types of foods and see which ones they like enough to go back for seconds.”