Cristina Masters, Humanities Teacher of the Year

You’ve recently been announced as the Faculty of Humanities Teacher of the Year in the Distinguished Achievement Awards. What does it mean to you to be recognised in this way?

Considering the number of brilliant teachers at the University, many of my colleagues in Politics amongst them, it is truly an honour. Like others, I do this work not for the recognition, but because it matters and is meaningful. Over the course of our careers we have access to hundreds and thousands of individuals who sit in our classrooms and learn from us, and us from them, and where we have so much power to shift perspectives, jar common senses, and reshape world views. I take it seriously because of this. Teaching is such a privilege and being recognised for it by the Faculty is simply the icing on the cake.   

What is it about teaching that you find most rewarding?

The messages I receive from former students a year or two, sometimes five, after graduation saying how the course I taught has stayed with them, changed how they think and move through the world, is by far what I find most rewarding. I know I’ve done my job well when these traces live on.

What would you say has made a real impact on your students’ learning over the past year? 

I think it’s the simple stuff – such as treating students with respect, open communication, approachability, and holding things lightly – that has had the most impact on my students’ learning and ultimately what I think matters most. I also bring a lot of passion to what I teach; maybe it’s infectious or at the very least they pay attention!

What’s the last book you read, did you enjoy it and would you recommend it?

Not quite the last book I’ve read, I read a lot, but Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a must read, particularly if you’re interested in the missing voices/bodies/embodiments from the stories we too often tell about war.