Friday, January 23, 2004
A Lady of Little Faith
One week down, fourteen to go. My morning classroom is, hopefully, about as close to a cell in Alcatraz as I'll ever get; its defining feature is a high, narrow window in the corner where I could have sworn I saw a seagull go by, today. Given that this is a landlocked state, however, and my classroom's in the basement, that's not too likely.
I think I scared my students; that is, the course description and amount of work I anticipate them doing (which they may not) was probably less disturbing than my first-day personality, which is a fairly exaggerated version of my teachery self, and which bears no relation to who I really am. If I had the misfortune to be in my own class, I wouldn't like me very much. The college version of me (bookish, shy in the please-God-don't-let-him-call-on-me, live-and-let-live manner) would truly despise the Robin Williams-ish, wildly-gesturing, teacher me. That's schizophrenia right there, friends.
So why be a larger-than-life version of yourself when you're teaching? Why take the effort? Well, otherwise, your--ok, in this case, my--students will fall asleep. Guaranteed. Why shouldn't the pace of a class keep you guessing? I get the sense that most students here are used to slumping into a chair in an auditorium (or a classroom), taking notes from a professor who lectures for fifty minutes, keeping quiet, and then simply slapping the notebook shut at the end and walking out. There's got to be more to it than that, right? Disrupt the status quo! Why not try to make the subject matter and the way you deliver it interesting--even if that's "interesting, and slightly on the crazy/weird side"?
I heartily concede that this crazy, big-top, fast-paced classroom may not work for all disciplines. And it sure seems to be a uniquely American (for better or worse) approach. Critics argue that, for a culture of kids raised on MTV, it makes perfect (awful) sense to switch to a new activity every ten minutes. Perhaps, if you're only catering to the limits of a short attention span--but if you can adapt this style (speed it up; slow it down; but always keep kids engaged), then why not do it? Why be normal?
Maybe it's too ambitious to think, and get your students to believe, "This ain't your typical writing class." My fear is that the way I teach never lives up to my ideal, or what the class expects after the fireworks of the first day....
Other matters of note:
There's a drummer living in the house behind us. A pretty good one, too--or so I think because I can't hear him from my room. I stopped tinkering with my bike in the driveway this afternoon to listen--whoever is was, was flailing away, pounding out a rhythm more worthy of attention than your average cobbled-together khaki student band. I saw one or two kids stop in front of the house, one street over, pull off their headphones, cock their heads, grin, and nod appreciatively, for a second.
Started The Brothers Karamazov this week--a vast work that requires more than the hour I can give it at the end of the day. And certainly not the best book to attempt reading in bed, if you value your wrists much. The characters don't seem to move; they careen. The brothers don't talk; they have epic, seige-length shouting matches as an entire family, in a monastery, in front of a cadre of stunned, speechless monks.
Reading: that, and The History of the Brain, for the radio station book reviews--a book that makes my brain feel smaller each time I sit down to read.
Listening to: NPR's imagined "Battlebots" scenario between the ESA's Beagle and NASA's Rover.
(Post title from The Brothers Karamazov)
I think I scared my students; that is, the course description and amount of work I anticipate them doing (which they may not) was probably less disturbing than my first-day personality, which is a fairly exaggerated version of my teachery self, and which bears no relation to who I really am. If I had the misfortune to be in my own class, I wouldn't like me very much. The college version of me (bookish, shy in the please-God-don't-let-him-call-on-me, live-and-let-live manner) would truly despise the Robin Williams-ish, wildly-gesturing, teacher me. That's schizophrenia right there, friends.
So why be a larger-than-life version of yourself when you're teaching? Why take the effort? Well, otherwise, your--ok, in this case, my--students will fall asleep. Guaranteed. Why shouldn't the pace of a class keep you guessing? I get the sense that most students here are used to slumping into a chair in an auditorium (or a classroom), taking notes from a professor who lectures for fifty minutes, keeping quiet, and then simply slapping the notebook shut at the end and walking out. There's got to be more to it than that, right? Disrupt the status quo! Why not try to make the subject matter and the way you deliver it interesting--even if that's "interesting, and slightly on the crazy/weird side"?
I heartily concede that this crazy, big-top, fast-paced classroom may not work for all disciplines. And it sure seems to be a uniquely American (for better or worse) approach. Critics argue that, for a culture of kids raised on MTV, it makes perfect (awful) sense to switch to a new activity every ten minutes. Perhaps, if you're only catering to the limits of a short attention span--but if you can adapt this style (speed it up; slow it down; but always keep kids engaged), then why not do it? Why be normal?
Maybe it's too ambitious to think, and get your students to believe, "This ain't your typical writing class." My fear is that the way I teach never lives up to my ideal, or what the class expects after the fireworks of the first day....
Other matters of note:
There's a drummer living in the house behind us. A pretty good one, too--or so I think because I can't hear him from my room. I stopped tinkering with my bike in the driveway this afternoon to listen--whoever is was, was flailing away, pounding out a rhythm more worthy of attention than your average cobbled-together khaki student band. I saw one or two kids stop in front of the house, one street over, pull off their headphones, cock their heads, grin, and nod appreciatively, for a second.
Started The Brothers Karamazov this week--a vast work that requires more than the hour I can give it at the end of the day. And certainly not the best book to attempt reading in bed, if you value your wrists much. The characters don't seem to move; they careen. The brothers don't talk; they have epic, seige-length shouting matches as an entire family, in a monastery, in front of a cadre of stunned, speechless monks.
Reading: that, and The History of the Brain, for the radio station book reviews--a book that makes my brain feel smaller each time I sit down to read.
Listening to: NPR's imagined "Battlebots" scenario between the ESA's Beagle and NASA's Rover.
(Post title from The Brothers Karamazov)
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Returns to the Genteel World
Abruptly and bitterly cold, here, today. A good day to stay inside and read the New York Times, although about four hours of that is enough to send one yelping into the twenty-degree outdoors. So I read for about four hours and then fled into the freezing cold.
I only read about 80% of any particular section. Used to read more, but, in the last year or so, my intellect has rebelled and set lower standards.
Interesting article on the Elgin/Parthenon marbles (I didn't know they had an alternate name) in the NYT arts section. The Greeks have commissioned a museum (to be built beneath the Acropolis) that would house the marbles, in anticipation of the British returning them before the Summer Olympics. However, the museum is nowhere near completion, and the chances of getting the marbles back appear to be slim. Unfortunate timing, to open the Olympics around a giant construction pit, with the treasured stones nowhere in sight.
I'm not sure where I stand on this issue (frankly, not even sure I should have a stance), but it does seem as though the British--if they have been serving as custodians/trustees of the marbles *until* such time when the Greeks could provide suitable housing for them--don't exactly help the cause of international cultural diplomacy by keeping them.
And speaking of culture...there's a truly odd attempt, here, south of town, to erect what appears to be a town square in the middle of nowhere, complete with "lofts" and retail space. I can't tell if they're trying to fill the place up, still, or if the effort began a while ago, and the villagers have pulled up stakes and moved to the City...three miles away. The village boasts exactly one restaurant, one bakery, a handful of unoccupied shops, and about forty townhomes, all smushed up against one another, bordered on all sides by vast swaths of prairie. The bakery was closed, as was everything else; and just when I thought I'd found a coffeeshop not populated by students (grad or otherwise). So the initial sortie served only to reveal a whole lot of nothing.
Cheap decorating trick #47: The NYT "Travel" section invariably boasts giant color photos, this week of remote, verdant jungle locations in Central America; two pages cover about four square feet of an otherwise-bare wall. All right, so it's not Elle Decor(which I confess to liking), but it is color. And in the latter half of January, that's about as scarce here as good conversation.
###
Listening to: Sinatra, "Night and Day" (check out the lyrics)
Reading: instructions on a frozen package of spinach
Contemplating: 3 epistemological positions; taking Irish step dancing classes
(Post title: Vanity Fair)
I only read about 80% of any particular section. Used to read more, but, in the last year or so, my intellect has rebelled and set lower standards.
Interesting article on the Elgin/Parthenon marbles (I didn't know they had an alternate name) in the NYT arts section. The Greeks have commissioned a museum (to be built beneath the Acropolis) that would house the marbles, in anticipation of the British returning them before the Summer Olympics. However, the museum is nowhere near completion, and the chances of getting the marbles back appear to be slim. Unfortunate timing, to open the Olympics around a giant construction pit, with the treasured stones nowhere in sight.
I'm not sure where I stand on this issue (frankly, not even sure I should have a stance), but it does seem as though the British--if they have been serving as custodians/trustees of the marbles *until* such time when the Greeks could provide suitable housing for them--don't exactly help the cause of international cultural diplomacy by keeping them.
And speaking of culture...there's a truly odd attempt, here, south of town, to erect what appears to be a town square in the middle of nowhere, complete with "lofts" and retail space. I can't tell if they're trying to fill the place up, still, or if the effort began a while ago, and the villagers have pulled up stakes and moved to the City...three miles away. The village boasts exactly one restaurant, one bakery, a handful of unoccupied shops, and about forty townhomes, all smushed up against one another, bordered on all sides by vast swaths of prairie. The bakery was closed, as was everything else; and just when I thought I'd found a coffeeshop not populated by students (grad or otherwise). So the initial sortie served only to reveal a whole lot of nothing.
Cheap decorating trick #47: The NYT "Travel" section invariably boasts giant color photos, this week of remote, verdant jungle locations in Central America; two pages cover about four square feet of an otherwise-bare wall. All right, so it's not Elle Decor(which I confess to liking), but it is color. And in the latter half of January, that's about as scarce here as good conversation.
###
Listening to: Sinatra, "Night and Day" (check out the lyrics)
Reading: instructions on a frozen package of spinach
Contemplating: 3 epistemological positions; taking Irish step dancing classes
(Post title: Vanity Fair)
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Struggles and Trials
It has rained here now for two days. Still, that hasn't stopped returning students from beginning to party, tonight. What possible reason (not motive) could they have for partying?
"YeeeeeeeeHA!!! Classes are.......starting again. (Pause.) Oh."
Meanwhile, I partake of the one cultural event the Town is offering on a winter Saturday night (a packed house for folk music), but am completely distracted by everyone's lack of applauding abilities, including my own. There's a fourteen- or fifteen-year old boy sitting in the row ahead of me, to my right, and he and I are both mortified by the distinctly arrhythmic clapping that the Townsfolk gleefully perpetuate, oblivious to our horror. Why, it's knee-slappin' fun!!
The boy and I fear for our countrymen.
The semester slouches inexorably toward its beginning. I just slouch, mostly, remembering the last winter class I taught--who nearly strung me up for assigning them an eight-page article to read in the first week. Another class mutinied. Problem is, second-semester freshmen think they're much more worldly-wise for having survived the first semester, and regard with some hostility anyone (i.e., the Instructor) who gently attempts to make them question their ways. Lucky for me, I learned in my prior teaching assignment that a little bribery goes a long way.
Reading: Thackeray's Vanity Fair
Listening to: KBCO Studio C archives via the web; Dvorak's 9th Symphony
Contemplating: how long one can live on omlettes
(Post title: Vanity Fair)
"YeeeeeeeeHA!!! Classes are.......starting again. (Pause.) Oh."
Meanwhile, I partake of the one cultural event the Town is offering on a winter Saturday night (a packed house for folk music), but am completely distracted by everyone's lack of applauding abilities, including my own. There's a fourteen- or fifteen-year old boy sitting in the row ahead of me, to my right, and he and I are both mortified by the distinctly arrhythmic clapping that the Townsfolk gleefully perpetuate, oblivious to our horror. Why, it's knee-slappin' fun!!
The boy and I fear for our countrymen.
The semester slouches inexorably toward its beginning. I just slouch, mostly, remembering the last winter class I taught--who nearly strung me up for assigning them an eight-page article to read in the first week. Another class mutinied. Problem is, second-semester freshmen think they're much more worldly-wise for having survived the first semester, and regard with some hostility anyone (i.e., the Instructor) who gently attempts to make them question their ways. Lucky for me, I learned in my prior teaching assignment that a little bribery goes a long way.
Reading: Thackeray's Vanity Fair
Listening to: KBCO Studio C archives via the web; Dvorak's 9th Symphony
Contemplating: how long one can live on omlettes
(Post title: Vanity Fair)
Friday, January 16, 2004
A Cynical Chapter
In Baudelaire's most famous portrait, he looks as though he's about twelve years old and has just been told by his teacher to go stand in the hallway. His expression is a mixture of disgust, chagrin, and grudging obedience.
I'm twenty-seven, but this is pretty much how I feel about starting the second semester in an unnamed small, Midwestern college town.
Hence the name.
(Post title from Vanity Fair)
I'm twenty-seven, but this is pretty much how I feel about starting the second semester in an unnamed small, Midwestern college town.
Hence the name.
(Post title from Vanity Fair)
