My Unique Approach to Education

“The best educational approach has always been tutorial teaching. Students learn most abundantly one-on-one with the professor or in small groups of professor and students. However, given the enormous cost of  teaching in the pure tutorial manner, other approaches need to be explored. Certainly,  the next best procedure is always attempting to make a direct connection in any class with each student as well as helping students  connect with each other. Even a lecture class holds golden opportunities for direct student engagement if the course is structured correctly. Online teaching is especially challenging, but one-on-one live conferences are not only possible, but essential. Learning, of course, can take place in almost any educational venue, but the best and most successful learning experience for students will always involve some level of personal contact with the professor.”

– Dr. Paul Benson

From his beginning in 1965 as a teacher in the Freedom Schools of rural Alabama run by Tuskegee Institute and the US Department of Education to his appointment as Director of the National Endowment for the Humanities Workshops on Thomas Jefferson at the Library of Congress in 2011, Paul Benson has dedicated his career to enriching the lives of others through education. Dr. Paul Benson is a long-time Professor of Humanities at Mountain View College in Dallas, Texas and Adjunct Professor at Amberton University and Northwood University. Having graduated with a BA from Pacific Lutheran University and a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas, Dr. Benson is a frequent lecturer in history and humanities with special interest in Egyptian, Greek – Roman, and Asian mythology. Another area of fascination for Dr. Benson is American culture and homegrown American religious sects.

Winner of four national teaching awards including the National Humanities Distinguished Educator Award from the Community College Humanities Association, National Innovator of the Year from the League of Innovation and Western Regional Winner of the American Community College Trustees Faculty Award, and National Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Institute of Staff and Organizational Development, he is also the recipient of numerous local, state, and regional teaching awards. In 2005 Professor Benson received the Outstanding Humanities Educator Award jointly from the North Texas Consortium of Community Colleges and the Community College Humanities Association/Southwest Division. In 2006 & 2008, the National Endowment for the Humanities appointed Dr. Benson Director of the Landmarks Workshops on Concord, Massachusetts and Transcendentalism. In 2011 he was Director of NEH’s Thomas Jefferson Workshops at the Library of Congress. And the 2012 Dr. Benson won the DCCCD’s highest teaching honor, the Minnie Piper/Miles Production Teaching Excellence Award as well as the Association of Community College Trustees’ Western Region Faculty Award.

Professor Benson lives in Irving, Texas with his wife Pam, also a college professor, and has two children: a daughter Robin who lives in New York City and a son Taylor who is a Mountain View College student.