The Evolution of Fatherhood

I am currently a preceptor for a class I took last semester called FSHD150B1: Men, Fatherhood and Families: A Bio-cultural Perspective. It is an awesome class about the unique state of fatherhood in humans. Even within the Family Studies major, we tend to only look at the social aspect of fathering in terms of parenting or child development. But what is overlooked is that the degree of fathering we see in humans is relatively unique compared to other species, including our closest relatives, the great apes. The professors for this class are primatologists so they bring an anthropological and evolutionary perspective to explain when, why and how human fathering came to be what it is today and to explain the function of fathering. 
The 'bio-cultural perspective' that they are referring to in the title of the course is actually the basis for understanding fathering in this evolutionary approach. What this means is that it is necessary to look at the interplay between biological and socio-cultural factors, biological meaning the physical adaptive functions and mechanisms, and socio-cultural meaning the different practices of different human groups. Following from this, the professors teach the students to use a comparative method with three dimensions: culture, species and time to understand the function of human families/fathers. The first dimension, culture is important because comparing across different human groups can tell us something about what is universally human. Comparing across species on the other hand, can tell us what is uniquely human interms of families and fathers. Finally, the time dimension can be useful in telling us when and why human families/fathering appeared in the course of human evolution. 
I would like to know what others think about this evolutionary perspective of fatherhood. Do you think it is insightful? Confusing? Interesting? Unnecessary? Drop a comment and let me know what you think!
If you need a Tier I Indiv. I highly recommend this class (it also fills the Bio/Human Behavior requirement for the FSHD pre-major!)

About Me

My name is Julie Nguyen (although you will find me in d2l under Julie Roger.) I am a Junior at the University of Arizona. I am majoring in Family Studies and Human Development with a minor in Adolescents, Community and Education. I know, it is a mouthful but I absolutely love my course of study. It took me almost three years to finally find a major that was right for me and though it has set me back by a semester, I feel it was worth it.

I am developing this blog for a class called Teaching with New Technologies. It is part of my Education minor. I think it is a great class to take for anyone who plans to work with kids. This is because today's youth are extremely tech savvy and as technology becomes more available and widespread, we are seeing the integration of technology in the classroom. Future educators need to be ready to connect with their students in that way in order to effectively teach them. I had assumed that my peers are already quite 'connected' but after completing a few group projects, for this class specifically, I found a lot of resistance to the technological tools available to us all. For example, there are people who insist on meeting in person for things that can easily be done over Google Docs. It was very frustrating and I just imagine how much more frustrating it would be for their students. Its great that they are taking this class so that they can get over their fear of technology and hopefully integrate some of the many useful programs and tools we are learning to use like interactive whiteboards, Wikis, podcasts and of course, blogs!

I have posted a poll asking whether you think integrating technology in the classroom is important. Cast your vote and tell me why you think so (or not so) in the comments!