...and that's not just because it's hot as hell in here. Every year, when we're in this in-between weather, those of us on the "old" side of campus generally swelter: the old buildings have heating that is either on (cranking full blast all the time) or off (so the indoor temps quickly approach those outdoors). As a good environmentalist, I am driven bats by the energy waste, as we run the AC in the office and have the windows in all classrooms wide open (and some of those rooms still approach sauna temps). Among other things, the overheated rooms exacerbate the problem of keeping students who are operating on about 15 minutes of sleep from dropping off altogether.
But they didn't today. I'm delighted to report that KB did a great job for my observation: they worked well in their groups; they were (mostly) prepared; they were alert and participatory during class discussion--and it was a pretty interesting discussion. (If you're curious, you can find the article we were talking about--Michael Pollan's "Unhappy Meals"--on the NYTimes website: it was in the Sunday Times Magazine in 1997, September, I think...?) The students seemed to get a kick out of the study questions on little slips of paper: something like a fortune cookie about it, I guess. (I folded the slips in half and put them in a paper bag; a student from each group reached in to grab two slips, so there was an element of random surprise that I think felt a little bit fun.) In any event, I'm happy with how the observation went--and more to the point, the observer was, too. Cross off one more thing I need for the promo folder.
We also went over promo apps in P&B today: I was told mine looked great, which was nice. Still, considering the competition, "great" may not be good enough. Each year, there are 24 slots for promotion beyond assistant for the entire campus. So everyone across all the departments who is applying for associate or full professor is vying for one of 24 slots. The Promotion and Tenure committee can divide the 24 up any way they like: they don't need to maintain any specific balance of full to associate. But the English department alone is sending up 12 candidates (2 for full professor, TEN for associate), and I just can't see P&T giving so many promotions to one department. I grant you, we are the largest department (approx. 100 full-time faculty; the next closest is Math, with about 70), but even so, the rest of the departments would surely think it was unfair for us to get half of what's available. (And the department is already resented by some, partly because we are the 800-pound gorilla of this campus, partly because we teach a 4-4 load, whereas other departments teach 5-5.)
So you see why I am not counting on getting this promotion--this go round anyway. I can always apply again next year (and I can keep applying every year, if I want, until I get it), but I have to say, it would be nice to get it first time out of the gate. If I can get associate now, and then can get full professor as soon as I'm eligible for that, I can make full before I'm 60. That would be wunderbar--for the status; for the fact that at full, one doesn't have to keep pushing to produce scholarship, do committee work, go to "professional development" functions and so on; and, quite honestly, for the money. At my level, we get paid pretty much bubkes. At full, salaries allow for a nice living, thank you very much. Hope springs eternal.
Anyway, in the discussion with P&B, a few points got clarified, and the binder is now back in my hands for me to finish up. I know that the time will fly by at supersonic speeds, but I do have a little time, so I can get some other things crossed off my list of tasks to attend to before I have to go back to the promo thingy. One or two tasks I need to do before I forget (and before I put someone else in a time crunch because I've not been on the ball), but generally, the application can wait a bit while I turn my attention elsewhere.
Like to the rest of those papers for the T/Th classes. I'm going to try very hard to do NOTHING ELSE when I come in tomorrow morning: just start grading and keep on (with time out for my classes) until I'm done. My time keeps getting sucked away by other things. This morning, for instance, I got sucked into reviewing the promotion applications for the two colleagues I'm mentoring; took the whole morning, essentially, leaving just enough time for me to snarf down my lunch, make sure I had what I needed for class, and stride purposefully off to be observed. I'm glad to have it done (crossed something off the list--hooray!!), but there those papers sit, taunting me....
Paul keeps reminding me of "the rule of three": give them three things to work on--and only three. And stop marking so damned much. I'm compulsive about marking. That red pen in my hand exerts a frightening influence on me, and I find myself writing treatises in the margins of the papers--scaring the shit out of the students and probably giving them a hell of a lot more information than they can process anyway. Gotta stop--but it's like having some bizarre form of OCD. Sometimes I make myself put the pen down and read with no writing implement of any kind in my hand. Helps a little--but doesn't last very long. Gack. Does anyone know where I can purchase a little self-control over this?
And perhaps a little self-control over the time I spend blogging? Though it truly is a great release--and a wonderful reframing device. But the clock says it's 8:28, which is late enough--and my body still thinks it's 9:28--and the cats don't know what time it is except dinner time. They're at home, tapping their little wrist-watches, saying to each other, "She should have been home by now. Where is she? Doesn't she know we can't open cat-food cans? We don't have thumbs!"
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Can't do it.
About an hour ago I realized I will not be able to get those papers back to my T/Th classes tomorrow. I feel sick about it, but I just cannot do it. In a minute here I'll get back to them, but I'm already trying to figure out what to do with the assignment that hinges on these returned papers when I don't actually return the papers. And I'm trying to figure out when it makes sense to look at the promotion folders for the two colleagues I'm supposed to be mentoring, before tomorrow's P&B. I won't get to anyone else, but I really do feel I need to do at least those two. I wonder what my blood pressure is right about now?
It was pretty painful in 229 today. The students were not merely devastated with the grades on their papers; many were angry. The emotion in the room was palpable--and very uncomfortable. In the past I'd have told them that these grades are a genuine appraisal of their ability to do college level work, and the problem is that no one has ever held them to that standard before. And I do believe that's true. But this time I was painfully aware that they were feeling shock, and shame, and despair. One student suggested that, since they've been writing papers since they were freshmen and getting better grades than I gave, the problem (of course) is my expectations and my assignment. Bearing their emotional state in mind, instead of defending the validity of my assignment and telling them that the problem is their lack of preparation, I said, "I'm teaching you something new. This is new, but it builds on what you have learned in previous classes: you can take what you've learned and put it to use in a new kind of assignment. I understand that it will be difficult and confusing at first, but it's my job to prepare you for the next level, and at the next level, you will be required to do this kind of work. What I don't get is why you were so confused, where the miscommunication happened so you didn't understand what you needed to do." She told me that the assignment was confusing, and I said, "So you needed to ask questions. I can't help you if I don't know you're confused, or why you are confused." Not the answer she wanted to hear, but true. She did ask why something was considered plagiarism (response: the lack of quotation marks around someone else's exact words), but other than that, she asked no questions of substance that might have helped her clarify what she could do better next time. (Because, of course, the problem is with me and my expectations. I'm just an insane bitch, obviously, so what would be the point of asking me for help?)
I could not get them to help me understand what went wrong in the previous assignment, but at least I got them to talk to me about their confusions and concerns for the next paper. I have no idea if they are any less confused--I doubt it, somehow. I think they were just too ashamed to try to explain what went wrong, even though I said repeatedly that I had some of the blame because I made assumptions about what they understood. The problem is talking in the abstract: they don't want to reveal their personal mistakes (which I truly understand), but they also need to see how their own papers didn't do what was required.
So I reminded them they can revise. I reminded them they can--and should--meet with me. I told them they can e-mail papers in progress to me and I'll give them feedback (though I won't read/comment on the whole thing). I told them I will do whatever I can to help them. I ditched the research portion of the next assignment. I postponed the paper: even though we have no class on Wednesday (Veteran's Day), I said they can bring their papers to me on Thursday next week: three extra days to work on 'em. We're going to have a tough, bifurcated day on Monday, as we'll have to finish up talking about the poetry and begin the novel--which will really throw them: if they thought what we've done so far is hard, wait until they start to grapple with Silko's Ceremony. Most of the students who last out the semester will eventually get it--and usually they end up liking it--but I freely admit, it's very confusing at first. I don't want them to be so miserable, but I won't compromise my standards: they do have to do college level work, no matter how hard and scary and shaming it is for them to try.
But I've felt sick to my stomach all day--since last night actually (some personal stuff mixed in there, too, which doesn't help). The 101 class went a little better: God I hope it goes well for my observation tomorrow. Going over the study questions I composed at least helped reveal what they misunderstood about the reading, so I could clear some of that up. As for the rest of their comprehension (or, more to the point, lack thereof)... fortunately, they don't have to use the Pollan essay for their next papers if they feel they understand the other essays better.
I'm just in a bad place today, emotionally. Not conducive to doing one's best work. But back I go to try to crank through a few more papers before my brains completely shut down for the night.
It was pretty painful in 229 today. The students were not merely devastated with the grades on their papers; many were angry. The emotion in the room was palpable--and very uncomfortable. In the past I'd have told them that these grades are a genuine appraisal of their ability to do college level work, and the problem is that no one has ever held them to that standard before. And I do believe that's true. But this time I was painfully aware that they were feeling shock, and shame, and despair. One student suggested that, since they've been writing papers since they were freshmen and getting better grades than I gave, the problem (of course) is my expectations and my assignment. Bearing their emotional state in mind, instead of defending the validity of my assignment and telling them that the problem is their lack of preparation, I said, "I'm teaching you something new. This is new, but it builds on what you have learned in previous classes: you can take what you've learned and put it to use in a new kind of assignment. I understand that it will be difficult and confusing at first, but it's my job to prepare you for the next level, and at the next level, you will be required to do this kind of work. What I don't get is why you were so confused, where the miscommunication happened so you didn't understand what you needed to do." She told me that the assignment was confusing, and I said, "So you needed to ask questions. I can't help you if I don't know you're confused, or why you are confused." Not the answer she wanted to hear, but true. She did ask why something was considered plagiarism (response: the lack of quotation marks around someone else's exact words), but other than that, she asked no questions of substance that might have helped her clarify what she could do better next time. (Because, of course, the problem is with me and my expectations. I'm just an insane bitch, obviously, so what would be the point of asking me for help?)
I could not get them to help me understand what went wrong in the previous assignment, but at least I got them to talk to me about their confusions and concerns for the next paper. I have no idea if they are any less confused--I doubt it, somehow. I think they were just too ashamed to try to explain what went wrong, even though I said repeatedly that I had some of the blame because I made assumptions about what they understood. The problem is talking in the abstract: they don't want to reveal their personal mistakes (which I truly understand), but they also need to see how their own papers didn't do what was required.
So I reminded them they can revise. I reminded them they can--and should--meet with me. I told them they can e-mail papers in progress to me and I'll give them feedback (though I won't read/comment on the whole thing). I told them I will do whatever I can to help them. I ditched the research portion of the next assignment. I postponed the paper: even though we have no class on Wednesday (Veteran's Day), I said they can bring their papers to me on Thursday next week: three extra days to work on 'em. We're going to have a tough, bifurcated day on Monday, as we'll have to finish up talking about the poetry and begin the novel--which will really throw them: if they thought what we've done so far is hard, wait until they start to grapple with Silko's Ceremony. Most of the students who last out the semester will eventually get it--and usually they end up liking it--but I freely admit, it's very confusing at first. I don't want them to be so miserable, but I won't compromise my standards: they do have to do college level work, no matter how hard and scary and shaming it is for them to try.
But I've felt sick to my stomach all day--since last night actually (some personal stuff mixed in there, too, which doesn't help). The 101 class went a little better: God I hope it goes well for my observation tomorrow. Going over the study questions I composed at least helped reveal what they misunderstood about the reading, so I could clear some of that up. As for the rest of their comprehension (or, more to the point, lack thereof)... fortunately, they don't have to use the Pollan essay for their next papers if they feel they understand the other essays better.
I'm just in a bad place today, emotionally. Not conducive to doing one's best work. But back I go to try to crank through a few more papers before my brains completely shut down for the night.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The tightrope
I had completely forgotten that today was change the clocks day until my sister reminded me about an hour ago. My god, what a relief! It means I can still take a little more wind-down time and yet get to bed earlier than I anticipated. It's another "up at 5" week for me--at least for a few days. Grading revisions is a lot easier (usually) than grading the first ones, as I don't have to explain as much (usually), but it still takes time--and I still have 36 papers to go by Tuesday. Even at four an hour (a hugely accelerated pace for me, and not always possible), that means finding an additional 9 hours of work time in the next 36... Meanwhile, my patience and Zen-like calm are fraying rapidly, particularly in the face of the way some students chose to fulfill one of the assignments. I had them write a report on my comments on their papers (specifically not calling it a response. though that's still what I got from a lot of them). The idea was for them to show me 1) that they understood what I was telling them they needed to do and 2) that they understood what to do to fix the problem. I feel compelled to quote two of the responses verbatim:
Student 1 [my comments in brackets]: "The comments that I have received back on my paper were helpful. [And yet she followed none of them.] I thought that you were trying to make me understand that was [sic] no point to my paper. Well there was, [says you] but just not a clear one. I was unable to fix that part of the essay because of lack of time, considering my new job has completely taken over my life. Anytime I am not attending school, I work, therefore I have lacked in school work and my grades ave [sic] slipped. [OK, so we see where your priorities are.] Anyways, I had plagerised and I fixed it. My grammatical errors were small but they were also there. I fixed it. But the main point of the one on one conference was to get a better understanding of how I could make my paper better. To be totally honest, it probably would of [sic] made more sense if I liked and was in [sic] the topic given. Being that the essays were a little boring, it made me not take the paper serious and just write whatever just to get it over with. [And boy do teachers love hearing that.] I am not happy with the way I went about writing this paper. And since this analysis part was missing, I probably failed it anyways. But here I am writing it because I would rather get a C rather than an F. [Again, something teachers love to hear.] I promise to work ten times harder on my next paper, considering how serious papers are taken in college. Sorry about the inconvenience." Inconvenience??
Student 2 [again, my comments in brackets]: I understand what you mean by looking deeper into the essays, but I have a lot of trouble doing it. I'm more of a literal person. [Apparently she doesn't understand that paying attention to details and specifics is "literal."] I added the "physical importance of nature" paragraph because I feel that it was important to prove my point. Nature provides the essentials for life on a deeper level, but the physical level is there too. [And yet her point was supposed to be to explain what the authors of the readings are saying, and neither of them talks about the importance of nature to our physical survival. But in her estimation, because she wanted to say it, it's worth saying, and I'm just too stupid to see its validity to her argument.] I corrected the 'misread' and 'not necessarily true' portions." She corrected them partially, perhaps, but nothing else. She changed about 10 words total, across five pages of "revision."
I grant you, these two students are the exception, but after the rush of anger I initially felt (you truculent, arrogant, ignorant little snots), I thought, "OK, let 'em go. If they don't care about learning anything or don't believe I know what I'm talking about, they have three choices: they can drop, they can do what I ask, or they can continue not to do what I ask and get the grades that come with that choice. Their decision; no skin off my nose."
Still, I am waiting for student 2 to turn up in my office to complain about the reduced grade on her "revision" (reduced because, well, the assignment was to revise, and she didn't; she's actually lucky I didn't flunk it).
Most of the students' revisions consisted of a few changes that don't go very deep, but they're very new at this, so I'm not surprised or unhappy. Conversely, I am delighted when I run across the papers that are genuine revisions, with actual, real live rethinking and reworking going on--and usually a better result. I know they'll be frustrated that their grades don't suddenly rise to A's (and some don't rise at all--though at least they don't go down), but a few made significant enough changes to raise their grades quite a bit.
Doing this, however, I always think "Damn, I need to give lower marks on those first versions so I have somewhere to go with the second ones." I also tend to mark a little high with the first batch of papers (though I'm sure the students would be shocked to hear me say so): I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because, if I were to give them honest appraisals, I fear they'd be so discouraged that more of them would disappear and sooner. I truly do not want to chase them away or make them feel despondent. It's this tightrope walk, always, between providing encouragement and telling the truth about where they are. Seriously, I wish I could teach and never, ever have to assign a grade. Just providing an evaluation would be hard enough, as even then I'd have to say to a lot of them, "This is not good enough for this level. You are not where you need to be to succeed." I'd much rather build from wherever they are and not have to measure them against any external standard. This is why I used to love tutoring in the Writing Center: I didn't have to measure, I only had to help. And that part, I love.
Here's hoping I can hang on to my patience and not get insanely crabby while I crank through those 36 remaining papers....
Student 1 [my comments in brackets]: "The comments that I have received back on my paper were helpful. [And yet she followed none of them.] I thought that you were trying to make me understand that was [sic] no point to my paper. Well there was, [says you] but just not a clear one. I was unable to fix that part of the essay because of lack of time, considering my new job has completely taken over my life. Anytime I am not attending school, I work, therefore I have lacked in school work and my grades ave [sic] slipped. [OK, so we see where your priorities are.] Anyways, I had plagerised and I fixed it. My grammatical errors were small but they were also there. I fixed it. But the main point of the one on one conference was to get a better understanding of how I could make my paper better. To be totally honest, it probably would of [sic] made more sense if I liked and was in [sic] the topic given. Being that the essays were a little boring, it made me not take the paper serious and just write whatever just to get it over with. [And boy do teachers love hearing that.] I am not happy with the way I went about writing this paper. And since this analysis part was missing, I probably failed it anyways. But here I am writing it because I would rather get a C rather than an F. [Again, something teachers love to hear.] I promise to work ten times harder on my next paper, considering how serious papers are taken in college. Sorry about the inconvenience." Inconvenience??
Student 2 [again, my comments in brackets]: I understand what you mean by looking deeper into the essays, but I have a lot of trouble doing it. I'm more of a literal person. [Apparently she doesn't understand that paying attention to details and specifics is "literal."] I added the "physical importance of nature" paragraph because I feel that it was important to prove my point. Nature provides the essentials for life on a deeper level, but the physical level is there too. [And yet her point was supposed to be to explain what the authors of the readings are saying, and neither of them talks about the importance of nature to our physical survival. But in her estimation, because she wanted to say it, it's worth saying, and I'm just too stupid to see its validity to her argument.] I corrected the 'misread' and 'not necessarily true' portions." She corrected them partially, perhaps, but nothing else. She changed about 10 words total, across five pages of "revision."
I grant you, these two students are the exception, but after the rush of anger I initially felt (you truculent, arrogant, ignorant little snots), I thought, "OK, let 'em go. If they don't care about learning anything or don't believe I know what I'm talking about, they have three choices: they can drop, they can do what I ask, or they can continue not to do what I ask and get the grades that come with that choice. Their decision; no skin off my nose."
Still, I am waiting for student 2 to turn up in my office to complain about the reduced grade on her "revision" (reduced because, well, the assignment was to revise, and she didn't; she's actually lucky I didn't flunk it).
Most of the students' revisions consisted of a few changes that don't go very deep, but they're very new at this, so I'm not surprised or unhappy. Conversely, I am delighted when I run across the papers that are genuine revisions, with actual, real live rethinking and reworking going on--and usually a better result. I know they'll be frustrated that their grades don't suddenly rise to A's (and some don't rise at all--though at least they don't go down), but a few made significant enough changes to raise their grades quite a bit.
Doing this, however, I always think "Damn, I need to give lower marks on those first versions so I have somewhere to go with the second ones." I also tend to mark a little high with the first batch of papers (though I'm sure the students would be shocked to hear me say so): I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because, if I were to give them honest appraisals, I fear they'd be so discouraged that more of them would disappear and sooner. I truly do not want to chase them away or make them feel despondent. It's this tightrope walk, always, between providing encouragement and telling the truth about where they are. Seriously, I wish I could teach and never, ever have to assign a grade. Just providing an evaluation would be hard enough, as even then I'd have to say to a lot of them, "This is not good enough for this level. You are not where you need to be to succeed." I'd much rather build from wherever they are and not have to measure them against any external standard. This is why I used to love tutoring in the Writing Center: I didn't have to measure, I only had to help. And that part, I love.
Here's hoping I can hang on to my patience and not get insanely crabby while I crank through those 36 remaining papers....
Friday, October 30, 2009
What happened?
I'm not sure what happened to yesterday or today. In fact, by the time I post this, it will be tomorrow (Saturday). No clue where the time went.
I've been working on grading the papers for 229 at long last, and I'm facing the exact same frustrations I face every year, every time. I try to explain, and structure the assignment to head the problems off at the pass--and the same problems, every single year. They write about all the awful things that have happened to Native peoples, or their traditions, or their current lives--with no support from any source and having nothing whatever to do with the literature they're supposed to analyze. They spend the entire essay re-telling the examples used by the critical essayists, instead of focusing on the points the critics are making with those examples, and then say "This idea can be supported by the story...": in other words, no matter how many times I tell them that the critical material supports their analysis of the story, they try to do the exact opposite. They still do not get what the critical material is for: the study questions are making zero difference. The thing they talk about least, and use the least support for, is the actual literature.
I just am at a total loss here. I have tried every way I can think of to explain the difference between primary and secondary material; I have tried to demonstrate in advance of their papers how to use the secondary material (that's how the study questions are designed); I have told them in writing and orally that their primary task is to analyze the STORIES, dammit, and that the secondary material is only there to support their analysis. And still they get it wrong, wrong, wrong.
Part of me wants to give up, to just forget about the whole critical material aspect of the whole thing and just have them analyze the literature, period. I grant you, it's hard enough to do just that, nothing more. And quite honestly, I didn't have to use critical sources when I was an undergrad. (I also didn't learn how to document sources until I was in grad school.) But my understanding is that undergrad programs now do expect juniors and seniors to be able to document sources properly and to engage in at least a little critical research, and I feel it's my job to prepare students for what they'll face next. But apparently I just can't figure out how to actually do that.
The students are going to feel sick when I give them back their papers and they see their grades. I do allow them to revise--only fair, as I know most of them have no clue what they're supposed to do and won't get it until they get their papers back, bloody with my comments. But I still feel awful about the fact that so many of them crash and burn on the first paper: a bunch will probably promptly drop, even some who could make it if they'd work at it. I do not relish this at all.
I'm suddenly thinking I may ditch the research requirement for the next paper. I have required it in the past because I want them to start to get the hang of it before their final research papers, but maybe it's just too much right now. Maybe even a final research paper is too much: maybe I should provide the sources and just help them understand how to use them. In the past I've always felt horrifically frustrated and angry that they don't get it--and I've always been able to tell the ones who had a real 102 and those who had a joke 102 (the ones where they just say "I could relate to 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' because he talks about crabs at the bottom of the sea and I love to go to the beach..."). And I really do feel it doesn't do them any favors to let them out of my class still unprepared for the next step. But more and more I also feel it is cruel to expect them to be able to learn in a few weeks what they should have spent the last two semesters (or more) getting prepared for.
I don't know. Real crisis of faith right now. I can tell I'm going to be mulling this over for the next few days. At the moment, I think I may just talk to them about it, tell them my thinking, tell them my concerns, and see what they think will help them most. Sometimes they're very good at that--and it helps them if they feel they have some say in what is going on. They should. It's their education after all.
Oh, and brief report: in my 101s on Thursday, I did have them focus on search terms and thesis statements and I did have them write them on the board. Worked a little better, but still took too much time. I now think I need to split the tasks into two separate classes: set up a library day for them to do research in one of the library labs with a librarian there to help, and then spend a day myself with them working on thesis statements.
God I wish I had more time! More time with the students at each level, more time to work outside of class on grading, and prep, and just thinking things through. This blog helps with the thinking things through part, but the rest, there is just never, ever enough time.
But it's late (speaking of time) and I have a ton of work to do the next two days, so I need to be able to get up early tomorrow. I'm going to post this without rereading, editing, or even spell checking. I share with students the Hemingway (I think) aphorism: The first draft of anything is shit. Well, so be it.
I've been working on grading the papers for 229 at long last, and I'm facing the exact same frustrations I face every year, every time. I try to explain, and structure the assignment to head the problems off at the pass--and the same problems, every single year. They write about all the awful things that have happened to Native peoples, or their traditions, or their current lives--with no support from any source and having nothing whatever to do with the literature they're supposed to analyze. They spend the entire essay re-telling the examples used by the critical essayists, instead of focusing on the points the critics are making with those examples, and then say "This idea can be supported by the story...": in other words, no matter how many times I tell them that the critical material supports their analysis of the story, they try to do the exact opposite. They still do not get what the critical material is for: the study questions are making zero difference. The thing they talk about least, and use the least support for, is the actual literature.
I just am at a total loss here. I have tried every way I can think of to explain the difference between primary and secondary material; I have tried to demonstrate in advance of their papers how to use the secondary material (that's how the study questions are designed); I have told them in writing and orally that their primary task is to analyze the STORIES, dammit, and that the secondary material is only there to support their analysis. And still they get it wrong, wrong, wrong.
Part of me wants to give up, to just forget about the whole critical material aspect of the whole thing and just have them analyze the literature, period. I grant you, it's hard enough to do just that, nothing more. And quite honestly, I didn't have to use critical sources when I was an undergrad. (I also didn't learn how to document sources until I was in grad school.) But my understanding is that undergrad programs now do expect juniors and seniors to be able to document sources properly and to engage in at least a little critical research, and I feel it's my job to prepare students for what they'll face next. But apparently I just can't figure out how to actually do that.
The students are going to feel sick when I give them back their papers and they see their grades. I do allow them to revise--only fair, as I know most of them have no clue what they're supposed to do and won't get it until they get their papers back, bloody with my comments. But I still feel awful about the fact that so many of them crash and burn on the first paper: a bunch will probably promptly drop, even some who could make it if they'd work at it. I do not relish this at all.
I'm suddenly thinking I may ditch the research requirement for the next paper. I have required it in the past because I want them to start to get the hang of it before their final research papers, but maybe it's just too much right now. Maybe even a final research paper is too much: maybe I should provide the sources and just help them understand how to use them. In the past I've always felt horrifically frustrated and angry that they don't get it--and I've always been able to tell the ones who had a real 102 and those who had a joke 102 (the ones where they just say "I could relate to 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' because he talks about crabs at the bottom of the sea and I love to go to the beach..."). And I really do feel it doesn't do them any favors to let them out of my class still unprepared for the next step. But more and more I also feel it is cruel to expect them to be able to learn in a few weeks what they should have spent the last two semesters (or more) getting prepared for.
I don't know. Real crisis of faith right now. I can tell I'm going to be mulling this over for the next few days. At the moment, I think I may just talk to them about it, tell them my thinking, tell them my concerns, and see what they think will help them most. Sometimes they're very good at that--and it helps them if they feel they have some say in what is going on. They should. It's their education after all.
Oh, and brief report: in my 101s on Thursday, I did have them focus on search terms and thesis statements and I did have them write them on the board. Worked a little better, but still took too much time. I now think I need to split the tasks into two separate classes: set up a library day for them to do research in one of the library labs with a librarian there to help, and then spend a day myself with them working on thesis statements.
God I wish I had more time! More time with the students at each level, more time to work outside of class on grading, and prep, and just thinking things through. This blog helps with the thinking things through part, but the rest, there is just never, ever enough time.
But it's late (speaking of time) and I have a ton of work to do the next two days, so I need to be able to get up early tomorrow. I'm going to post this without rereading, editing, or even spell checking. I share with students the Hemingway (I think) aphorism: The first draft of anything is shit. Well, so be it.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Unraveling
There are so many loose ends in my life right now, I feel like nothing is woven up, tied off, finished. That's not true, of course: I do keep tying off loose ends, but new bits keep getting added on. I spent two plus hours after my last class weaving in bits of the promotion folder and making sure I have all the stuff I need for next week's classes. Papers are still in ungraded mountains--I've just moved them from the living room to the top of the radiator here in the office (no, not in hope that they'll combust but only because I've run out of flat surfaces on which to pile things). I blew off the meeting I had yesterday in order to churn through miscellaneous bits (bad girl, bad girl!). I expected to feel somewhat guilty but in all honesty was simply relieved. No meeting tomorrow for a miracle, and I'm trying to keep the weekend open enough that I can both work like a fiend and still have time to let down a trifle. I feel rather like I'm trying to dig through a mountain with a teaspoon, but one way or another, it will all get done. It always does. I keep saying that because it is comforting to remember.
I'm not sure how successful class was today. I had restructured the response to a reading in the style manual because I want to emphasize that research requires a focus--a tighter focus than the open-ended language of an assignment--and that the focus comes from them. I also want to show them the spiral of working thesis to research to revised thesis to more research to another revision of thesis--and on beyond zebra. So I had them work in groups on research questions (I'm going to ditch that tomorrow: formulating the need for information as a question to answer is tough to explain and not all that important to do. Instead I'm going to focus on search terms, which are important--and hard to nail down). I also had them work on constructing a working thesis--raiding from Matt's terrific lesson and his six questions they need to ask to ascertain whether their thesis works.
In case you're wondering, the six questions are: 1) Does it answer the assignment question (or in my case, since the assignment didn't ask a question, does it respond correctly to the assignment); 2) does it take a stand that others might challenge; 3) does it use specific rather than general words; 4) does it pass the "so what?" test (readers should find no reason to ask that question); 5) does it pass the "how?" and "why?" tests; 6) can it be supported by specific evidence from...whatever sources the assignment requries.
The main problem was that I didn't have a good way for students to share their results. First I thought I would have students write them on the board but then felt it would be awkward (and, I blush to admit, I didn't have sufficient chalk with me). I could have written the results on the board myself but felt it would take too much time. I think next time, I'm going to have a computer in class: I can type in their results and the students can see them projected on a screen (I type a hell of a lot faster than I write by hand). That way we can also add, move things around, try different phrases, everyone seeing the evolution/transformation... Yeah, next semester I'll try that and see how it flies. The research component will be very different with 102 classes (they focus on analyzing literature, so 102 students have to find literary criticism, not general information about, say, organic farming), but the thesis problems are essentially the same.
In any event, I'll be running the same assignment (except focusing on search terms not research questions) twice tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see if it's better, worse, the same--and what else I change on the fly (which I tend to do as ideas pop up).
By the way, I didn't blog yesterday because right after class I went into Manhattan to meet with my fiction writers group. We submit our creative writing (some stories, most of us chipping away at novels) and the other members of the group critique it. We had two new potential members: I hope they stick with us. I haven't been in a while, and it was a lovely change of pace--even though it did mean getting home quite late for me. (I had submitted, too, and it's fascinating to get the feedback from very different readers.) But I do want to report that in KC yesterday, the students were maddeningly flat and leaden: I finally gave them a hard time about it--and told them that I'll be observed in that class next Tuesday, so if they act that way on the 3rd, they can make my life hell. They promised they'll be better that day. I hope so, but I am also resurrecting an old approach to the reading (which is dense with information), and I think (hope) it will keep them engaged, no matter how lumpish they feel.
RB was, as usual, a circus. There are a few young men I'm going to have to physically separate at great distance: if they sit anywhere close, they encourage each other to act like doofuses (doofi?). It was a gray, gross, rainy day, and they were saying "It's such a beautiful day outside, we just want to be out...." which I could buy the class before, when it was 62 and sunny, but, I mean, really. So I said, "You don't have to be here. You never have to be here. But as long as you choose to be here, I would appreciate it if you would do the work I ask you to do." They tried to be better, but it's like trying to get puppies to work in unison. I know, too, that at least one of those puppies acts goofy because he's lost: bless his heart, he cannot, cannot understand the readings. Not one of them. I have encouraged him to come to me for help, or to use the Writing Center (which also helps with reading), and he doesn't. Much as I feel for him, much as I want him to get the help he needs and to succeed, he needs to do so on his own initiative. This is not high school: I will not mandate that he come see me. His choice. If he's floundering, he needs to figure out how to get the rescue he needs.
And from that I could get into a rant about the "Early Warning System" that the administration wants to institute (force upon us)--which treats us and the students like this is 13th grade (despite the fact that the administration is always huffy about NCC having that reputation in the community at large). I truly could rant at great length. (I also could rant about the language in the memo regarding the system. Many of my students could present it more clearly.) At the moment, we are merely being requested, not required, to participate, but I sincerely hope that faculty utterly reject the whole idiotic mess and clearly point out how demeaning it is to us and to the students. And don't get me started on the fact that sometimes students need to, deserve to, fail. That sometimes the only way they will learn how to be responsible adults is to metaphorically swan-dive into the pavement a time or two. That at some point they actually will have to be accountable for their own success or failure--including knowing when/whether they are doing what they need to be doing without someone else pointing it out.... And this isn't even a start, yet, on all I could say.
But it's a reasonable place to finish for now. If I'm going to get anything like an early night tonight, I need to toddle off home. And, Scarlett O'Hara says, "After all, tomorrow is another day."
I'm not sure how successful class was today. I had restructured the response to a reading in the style manual because I want to emphasize that research requires a focus--a tighter focus than the open-ended language of an assignment--and that the focus comes from them. I also want to show them the spiral of working thesis to research to revised thesis to more research to another revision of thesis--and on beyond zebra. So I had them work in groups on research questions (I'm going to ditch that tomorrow: formulating the need for information as a question to answer is tough to explain and not all that important to do. Instead I'm going to focus on search terms, which are important--and hard to nail down). I also had them work on constructing a working thesis--raiding from Matt's terrific lesson and his six questions they need to ask to ascertain whether their thesis works.
In case you're wondering, the six questions are: 1) Does it answer the assignment question (or in my case, since the assignment didn't ask a question, does it respond correctly to the assignment); 2) does it take a stand that others might challenge; 3) does it use specific rather than general words; 4) does it pass the "so what?" test (readers should find no reason to ask that question); 5) does it pass the "how?" and "why?" tests; 6) can it be supported by specific evidence from...whatever sources the assignment requries.
The main problem was that I didn't have a good way for students to share their results. First I thought I would have students write them on the board but then felt it would be awkward (and, I blush to admit, I didn't have sufficient chalk with me). I could have written the results on the board myself but felt it would take too much time. I think next time, I'm going to have a computer in class: I can type in their results and the students can see them projected on a screen (I type a hell of a lot faster than I write by hand). That way we can also add, move things around, try different phrases, everyone seeing the evolution/transformation... Yeah, next semester I'll try that and see how it flies. The research component will be very different with 102 classes (they focus on analyzing literature, so 102 students have to find literary criticism, not general information about, say, organic farming), but the thesis problems are essentially the same.
In any event, I'll be running the same assignment (except focusing on search terms not research questions) twice tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see if it's better, worse, the same--and what else I change on the fly (which I tend to do as ideas pop up).
By the way, I didn't blog yesterday because right after class I went into Manhattan to meet with my fiction writers group. We submit our creative writing (some stories, most of us chipping away at novels) and the other members of the group critique it. We had two new potential members: I hope they stick with us. I haven't been in a while, and it was a lovely change of pace--even though it did mean getting home quite late for me. (I had submitted, too, and it's fascinating to get the feedback from very different readers.) But I do want to report that in KC yesterday, the students were maddeningly flat and leaden: I finally gave them a hard time about it--and told them that I'll be observed in that class next Tuesday, so if they act that way on the 3rd, they can make my life hell. They promised they'll be better that day. I hope so, but I am also resurrecting an old approach to the reading (which is dense with information), and I think (hope) it will keep them engaged, no matter how lumpish they feel.
RB was, as usual, a circus. There are a few young men I'm going to have to physically separate at great distance: if they sit anywhere close, they encourage each other to act like doofuses (doofi?). It was a gray, gross, rainy day, and they were saying "It's such a beautiful day outside, we just want to be out...." which I could buy the class before, when it was 62 and sunny, but, I mean, really. So I said, "You don't have to be here. You never have to be here. But as long as you choose to be here, I would appreciate it if you would do the work I ask you to do." They tried to be better, but it's like trying to get puppies to work in unison. I know, too, that at least one of those puppies acts goofy because he's lost: bless his heart, he cannot, cannot understand the readings. Not one of them. I have encouraged him to come to me for help, or to use the Writing Center (which also helps with reading), and he doesn't. Much as I feel for him, much as I want him to get the help he needs and to succeed, he needs to do so on his own initiative. This is not high school: I will not mandate that he come see me. His choice. If he's floundering, he needs to figure out how to get the rescue he needs.
And from that I could get into a rant about the "Early Warning System" that the administration wants to institute (force upon us)--which treats us and the students like this is 13th grade (despite the fact that the administration is always huffy about NCC having that reputation in the community at large). I truly could rant at great length. (I also could rant about the language in the memo regarding the system. Many of my students could present it more clearly.) At the moment, we are merely being requested, not required, to participate, but I sincerely hope that faculty utterly reject the whole idiotic mess and clearly point out how demeaning it is to us and to the students. And don't get me started on the fact that sometimes students need to, deserve to, fail. That sometimes the only way they will learn how to be responsible adults is to metaphorically swan-dive into the pavement a time or two. That at some point they actually will have to be accountable for their own success or failure--including knowing when/whether they are doing what they need to be doing without someone else pointing it out.... And this isn't even a start, yet, on all I could say.
But it's a reasonable place to finish for now. If I'm going to get anything like an early night tonight, I need to toddle off home. And, Scarlett O'Hara says, "After all, tomorrow is another day."
Monday, October 26, 2009
Shifting gears
I'm posting now instead of when I'm done with work for the day: Paul is taking me out for a birthday dinner tonight (Happy 53rd to me!), and I wanted to be sure to get a blog entry in--but I also want to work up to the last moment before we take off instead of trying to figure out how much work I can do, stopping to blog, maybe trying to restart again.... Paul teaches late tonight, so I have a good amount of time, and I want to make the most of it.
Now that I've got the flames of the promo folder contained, I'm turning my attention back to all those student assignments that have been silting up. I'm interested to discover that I am looking forward to them; just the few days of doing something completely different with my brain has cleared things out nicely. I feel I can approach reading journals and papers in a better frame of mind. I'm sorry to keep everyone waiting so long to get papers back in particular--and I won't mark as much as I usually would; the quality and extent of marking is a lot less important right now than just getting the blasted things returned, so students know where they stand. I also realized, as I was beginning to shuffle stacks of stuff, that somewhere I have a pile of reading journals for 229--and I have no clue where. I'm hoping they're at home in the huge mound of stuff on the big table in the living room. I also was less than amused to realize that I had left one entire classful of revisions (and freewrite assignments) here last Tuesday: I thought that enormous pile at home was everything, but oops, not. So I am back to a kind of triage, but it feels less harried and tense to me at the moment.
Had a pretty good 101 class today. I started by showing students how to access library databases and how various search terms would work--and oh, god, was that boring for them. I have to find a better way to get that across. I am happy to be able to show them the process on the computer in real time (instead of having to draw it on the board, which was the case up until very recently), but I've got to figure out a way to make it interactive. I wonder if I can reserve time in a computer lab the next time, so students can run it themselves...? I'll have to mull that over. But that part didn't take too long, fortunately, and once I put them in groups to discuss the reading they'd done (originally as homework for last Thursday's class), they did a fine job. We had a pretty good discussion--though I admit I handed them more than I usually do.
The reading was Ray Oldenburg's 1989 "The Problem of Place in America," in which he discusses the need for what he calls "the third place"--not work, not home, but a place that provides a needed balance for those aspects of our lives. I generally try to get them to dig out the qualities of the third place, but they were getting distracted by the idea of ways to relax or relieve stress--and granted, that's one thing the third place is supposed to provide, but they forgot that it is a place, not an activity (and not somewhere else: a cruise or trip to Italy is not a "third place"). It is always a struggle to get them to understand the very specific requirements for a place to "count" as a third place, so finally I just laid it out: the third place has to be 1) community based, 2) available for regular, unscheduled socializing, and 3) available for all members of the community, regardless of age, physical fitness, or economic status. Boom: they got it. I didn't have to struggle to get them to figure out why the mall, or the gym, or church won't work. And they could see that some of their communities have something like a third place--and some don't. We're in the process of discussing the fact that Long Island suburbia is, for the most part, very different from the kind of suburban sprawl more prevalent in the rest of the nation (and that sprawl is the problem being addressed by the essays we're reading at the moment). I can see them perking up: "wow, no more shit about trees and birdies and breezes in my hair!" (That sounds like the trees and birdies are also in my hair. In that case, no wonder they're not interested. Sounds distinctly uncomfortable.)
In any event, we'll see how all this flies tomorrow. And next class (Wednesday/Thursday), they're supposed to come in with working thesis statements--and I'm going to steal from Matt (whom I observed a while back) and have them rework their attempts on the fly, in their groups. I have to remember to dig out his handout so I can steal the questions he uses for them to evaluate whether a thesis statement works or not. He's got the language down in clear and focused fashion, and we know I'm bad at that--plus, not having codified this in writing for myself before, I'm liable to leave out something important. This is yet another benefit of working with smart colleagues. Not only can I have cool conversations with them, I can raid ideas with wild abandon. I'd guess that a good majority of my lessons were raided and adapted from someone else's. I'm a mental magpie: I'll steal any sparkly idea.
And the sparkly idea of the moment is for me to look at the reading journals I just collected from 229 so I can give 'em back on Wednesday for students to use in our class discussion. That went well today, too: a nice combo of group work and work with the whole class. All in all, a gratifying day, a gift from the cosmos for my birthday.
Now that I've got the flames of the promo folder contained, I'm turning my attention back to all those student assignments that have been silting up. I'm interested to discover that I am looking forward to them; just the few days of doing something completely different with my brain has cleared things out nicely. I feel I can approach reading journals and papers in a better frame of mind. I'm sorry to keep everyone waiting so long to get papers back in particular--and I won't mark as much as I usually would; the quality and extent of marking is a lot less important right now than just getting the blasted things returned, so students know where they stand. I also realized, as I was beginning to shuffle stacks of stuff, that somewhere I have a pile of reading journals for 229--and I have no clue where. I'm hoping they're at home in the huge mound of stuff on the big table in the living room. I also was less than amused to realize that I had left one entire classful of revisions (and freewrite assignments) here last Tuesday: I thought that enormous pile at home was everything, but oops, not. So I am back to a kind of triage, but it feels less harried and tense to me at the moment.
Had a pretty good 101 class today. I started by showing students how to access library databases and how various search terms would work--and oh, god, was that boring for them. I have to find a better way to get that across. I am happy to be able to show them the process on the computer in real time (instead of having to draw it on the board, which was the case up until very recently), but I've got to figure out a way to make it interactive. I wonder if I can reserve time in a computer lab the next time, so students can run it themselves...? I'll have to mull that over. But that part didn't take too long, fortunately, and once I put them in groups to discuss the reading they'd done (originally as homework for last Thursday's class), they did a fine job. We had a pretty good discussion--though I admit I handed them more than I usually do.
The reading was Ray Oldenburg's 1989 "The Problem of Place in America," in which he discusses the need for what he calls "the third place"--not work, not home, but a place that provides a needed balance for those aspects of our lives. I generally try to get them to dig out the qualities of the third place, but they were getting distracted by the idea of ways to relax or relieve stress--and granted, that's one thing the third place is supposed to provide, but they forgot that it is a place, not an activity (and not somewhere else: a cruise or trip to Italy is not a "third place"). It is always a struggle to get them to understand the very specific requirements for a place to "count" as a third place, so finally I just laid it out: the third place has to be 1) community based, 2) available for regular, unscheduled socializing, and 3) available for all members of the community, regardless of age, physical fitness, or economic status. Boom: they got it. I didn't have to struggle to get them to figure out why the mall, or the gym, or church won't work. And they could see that some of their communities have something like a third place--and some don't. We're in the process of discussing the fact that Long Island suburbia is, for the most part, very different from the kind of suburban sprawl more prevalent in the rest of the nation (and that sprawl is the problem being addressed by the essays we're reading at the moment). I can see them perking up: "wow, no more shit about trees and birdies and breezes in my hair!" (That sounds like the trees and birdies are also in my hair. In that case, no wonder they're not interested. Sounds distinctly uncomfortable.)
In any event, we'll see how all this flies tomorrow. And next class (Wednesday/Thursday), they're supposed to come in with working thesis statements--and I'm going to steal from Matt (whom I observed a while back) and have them rework their attempts on the fly, in their groups. I have to remember to dig out his handout so I can steal the questions he uses for them to evaluate whether a thesis statement works or not. He's got the language down in clear and focused fashion, and we know I'm bad at that--plus, not having codified this in writing for myself before, I'm liable to leave out something important. This is yet another benefit of working with smart colleagues. Not only can I have cool conversations with them, I can raid ideas with wild abandon. I'd guess that a good majority of my lessons were raided and adapted from someone else's. I'm a mental magpie: I'll steal any sparkly idea.
And the sparkly idea of the moment is for me to look at the reading journals I just collected from 229 so I can give 'em back on Wednesday for students to use in our class discussion. That went well today, too: a nice combo of group work and work with the whole class. All in all, a gratifying day, a gift from the cosmos for my birthday.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The shoulds
I got as much done on the promo folder as I could stand--including making a list of all the stuff I have to find/track down/ask for. It's printed out and in plastic sleeves in a ring binder with the appropriate labels on front and spine. Lots of the plastic sleeves just have notes in them (need to get X)--and as I went through the stuff I had, questions arose, which I'll ask in P&B on Tuesday. And now the "shoulds" have set in. I should be grading student papers. I should at least go through them and put them in some kind of order and get the fussing around done (the stuff I always feel like I need to do before I can actually start working). I should double check all the stuff I put together yesterday and make sure it makes sense. Sometimes I used to go on like this talking to my father, and he would remind me that one of his favorite things to say to clients in his psychology practice was, "Have you been should on today?" "Should" doesn't do anything; it's completely counter-productive. Either do something and stop "shoulding" about it--or let it go and recognize that sometimes it's OK to take a little time to breathe. To relax. To turn into a veritable sea cucumber.
As I write this, the sun is starting to go down and there is a beautiful amber light on everything outside. It was a beautiful sunny day today, cool but smelling crisply of fall, and that golden tone gracing the trees, the fence posts, the brick of the neighbor's house, is beautiful. There's a small breeze from time to time--and the light fades as I write. When I get wound up like I have been, in that mania of self-imposed pressure, I forget to notice the world. And it's a beautiful world. We live on a simply gorgeous planet; how lucky we are! Many of my students have the ability to talk about "nature" as something pretty, and soothing--the sentimental Hallmark card kind of recognition of trees, birdies, pretty horses running (all the imagery used in commercials as well). It's harder to get them to see/feel beyond the sentimental, beyond the merely pretty--and beyond valuing the natural world for what it gives us. The much harder task is to deeply care for the nonhuman and believe that it has intrinsic value: not as it is useful to us but simply in that it exists--and because it is utterly different from us, whether it is aesthetically pleasing or not.
As I've been struggling through the promo application, I've had to write out some of my thinking along those lines, both in describing my interests as a scholar and in explaining what I do with students and why. I just had a flash of realization (the thought has probably occurred to me before but it's never landed quite so clearly): students complain about what I have them read because they can't "relate"--and yet I only teach material to which I can "relate." Well, not entirely true. There are times when I've had to teach the American modernists, for instance, and purely personally, I am underwhelmed by their style and literary aims. But I understand both style and aims (and the interaction between the two), and I can teach those writers when I must. But I have always believed I teach better when I use material I care about. Now I begin to wonder. Maybe my frustrations would be less if I were to teach topics and readings I didn't care about so much; maybe the lack of interest and/or comprehension from the students wouldn't be so painful.
Nah, probably wouldn't help. Paul and I have talked about this a lot: I think it was two summers ago, we were sitting in a little park here in town, trying to figure out why we both felt so ground down, why we felt such profound frustration--even that word is insufficient to express what we felt. Finally Paul nailed it. We see where our students are, in terms of their intellectual preparedness as well as simply their mechanical skills. And we see where--in our estimation--they ought to be, even as freshmen, never mind as sophomores. The difference isn't merely a gap; for many of them it is an unbridgeable chasm. Never mind the fact that we only have 16 weeks in which to try to help them negotiate that difference. Never mind the fact that many of them do not believe they have any reason even to want to be where we say they ought to be. All too many of them have been so badly served by their preceding 13-plus years of education that even if we had infinte time and they had infinite desire, I'm not sure we could get them there.
The closest analogy I can think of is learning to speak a foreign language after that magic window for language acquisition has closed. No matter how fluent one becomes, one will be unable to speak that language like a native. One will have an accent, will make basic mistakes. Nonnative speakers of English, for instance, routinely misuse pronouns. When the mistake is pointed out, those who are fluent in the language can see the difference--but they can't hold on to it, and the next time will make the mistake again. Which pronoun to use in what situation is apparently one of those factors in English that one must acquire intuitively; it can't be taught.
And not only is academese a foreign language to many students, the entire set of assumptions that go along with life in academia are opaque to them: that it is good to struggle, that superficial isn't as interesting or rewarding as deep, that some things require a great deal of time--and are worth it. That there is such a thing as "the life of the mind," and that it is a wonderful, exciting, rich part of one's life to develop.
I know most students would rather set themselves on fire than consider their professors any kind of role model. I mean, dear God: we're stuffy and picky and don't measure our status through our material possessions (good thing, too, for those of us still on the lower rungs of the salary scale). But I do know that my students are often intrigued by the fact that I care, that I can get passionate about ideas, about words, about the connection between the two. In the past I've had students who would deliberately look for my "launch" button in class discussions, just because they were amazed and amused watching me go ballistic. I wonder if they've ever seen anyone get truly passionate about ideas (beyond the political chest-beating and vituperation that goes on in the media). I hope that for some of them, my passion gives them an idea that there might actually be something in all this that they want to find out more about.
I feel guilty, often, as I write these posts, because I don't tend to give as much "air time" to the students who have it all in hand: who are smart, and understand the value of genuinely becoming educated, and are interested in ideas, and want to develop intellectually, and are willing to do the hard work that is required of them--and indeed, are unhappy when they have teachers who are too easy, who don't challenge them to reach beyond their present limits. Nassau has plenty of them. I see them in my classes every semester. They are a delight--and without them, I doubt I'd have lasted as long as I have in this profession.
And there are those, too, who are less bright, less well prepared, not really sure what this whole college education thing is about but who will absolutely flay themselves to do well. I often feel terrible for them only because they are so grade oriented: they don't understand that the measure of their success is not the grade but their progress. (Oh, how I would love never to have to give another grade as long as I live! I would be so much happier to provide feedback, evaluation, progress reports instead of having to nail students into those labeled boxes.) But even those students who struggle to get C's--or even D's--I love, because they want to know. They care. They'll try. I've got one young man in 101KC who shows up to my office hours regularly for help. The front of his notebook is covered with affirmations for himself. (I've mentioned him before, because he continually tells me how hard he worked to get into college--and I know he's trying to act as a role model for the rest of his family.) Grade-wise he isn't doing very well at the moment, but I think he's genuinely learning. Indeed, one of the lessons I have to teach him is to stop second-guessing and trust himself. He's so worried about doing well that he ties himself--and his writing--into knots. I am desperate for him to pass--and I desperately want him to earn a C. I won't just hand it to him, but I'll pretzel myself to help him legitimately earn it.
Those are the kids who keep me teaching. They're the ones that make me start each new semester looking for that magic elixir, that golden assignment that will suddenly open things up for each and every one of them. And if I can remember to focus on them--the way I need to remember to notice the beautiful world around me--my emotional equilibrium is much steadier. And that helps everything, including dealing with the "shoulds."
As I write this, the sun is starting to go down and there is a beautiful amber light on everything outside. It was a beautiful sunny day today, cool but smelling crisply of fall, and that golden tone gracing the trees, the fence posts, the brick of the neighbor's house, is beautiful. There's a small breeze from time to time--and the light fades as I write. When I get wound up like I have been, in that mania of self-imposed pressure, I forget to notice the world. And it's a beautiful world. We live on a simply gorgeous planet; how lucky we are! Many of my students have the ability to talk about "nature" as something pretty, and soothing--the sentimental Hallmark card kind of recognition of trees, birdies, pretty horses running (all the imagery used in commercials as well). It's harder to get them to see/feel beyond the sentimental, beyond the merely pretty--and beyond valuing the natural world for what it gives us. The much harder task is to deeply care for the nonhuman and believe that it has intrinsic value: not as it is useful to us but simply in that it exists--and because it is utterly different from us, whether it is aesthetically pleasing or not.
As I've been struggling through the promo application, I've had to write out some of my thinking along those lines, both in describing my interests as a scholar and in explaining what I do with students and why. I just had a flash of realization (the thought has probably occurred to me before but it's never landed quite so clearly): students complain about what I have them read because they can't "relate"--and yet I only teach material to which I can "relate." Well, not entirely true. There are times when I've had to teach the American modernists, for instance, and purely personally, I am underwhelmed by their style and literary aims. But I understand both style and aims (and the interaction between the two), and I can teach those writers when I must. But I have always believed I teach better when I use material I care about. Now I begin to wonder. Maybe my frustrations would be less if I were to teach topics and readings I didn't care about so much; maybe the lack of interest and/or comprehension from the students wouldn't be so painful.
Nah, probably wouldn't help. Paul and I have talked about this a lot: I think it was two summers ago, we were sitting in a little park here in town, trying to figure out why we both felt so ground down, why we felt such profound frustration--even that word is insufficient to express what we felt. Finally Paul nailed it. We see where our students are, in terms of their intellectual preparedness as well as simply their mechanical skills. And we see where--in our estimation--they ought to be, even as freshmen, never mind as sophomores. The difference isn't merely a gap; for many of them it is an unbridgeable chasm. Never mind the fact that we only have 16 weeks in which to try to help them negotiate that difference. Never mind the fact that many of them do not believe they have any reason even to want to be where we say they ought to be. All too many of them have been so badly served by their preceding 13-plus years of education that even if we had infinte time and they had infinite desire, I'm not sure we could get them there.
The closest analogy I can think of is learning to speak a foreign language after that magic window for language acquisition has closed. No matter how fluent one becomes, one will be unable to speak that language like a native. One will have an accent, will make basic mistakes. Nonnative speakers of English, for instance, routinely misuse pronouns. When the mistake is pointed out, those who are fluent in the language can see the difference--but they can't hold on to it, and the next time will make the mistake again. Which pronoun to use in what situation is apparently one of those factors in English that one must acquire intuitively; it can't be taught.
And not only is academese a foreign language to many students, the entire set of assumptions that go along with life in academia are opaque to them: that it is good to struggle, that superficial isn't as interesting or rewarding as deep, that some things require a great deal of time--and are worth it. That there is such a thing as "the life of the mind," and that it is a wonderful, exciting, rich part of one's life to develop.
I know most students would rather set themselves on fire than consider their professors any kind of role model. I mean, dear God: we're stuffy and picky and don't measure our status through our material possessions (good thing, too, for those of us still on the lower rungs of the salary scale). But I do know that my students are often intrigued by the fact that I care, that I can get passionate about ideas, about words, about the connection between the two. In the past I've had students who would deliberately look for my "launch" button in class discussions, just because they were amazed and amused watching me go ballistic. I wonder if they've ever seen anyone get truly passionate about ideas (beyond the political chest-beating and vituperation that goes on in the media). I hope that for some of them, my passion gives them an idea that there might actually be something in all this that they want to find out more about.
I feel guilty, often, as I write these posts, because I don't tend to give as much "air time" to the students who have it all in hand: who are smart, and understand the value of genuinely becoming educated, and are interested in ideas, and want to develop intellectually, and are willing to do the hard work that is required of them--and indeed, are unhappy when they have teachers who are too easy, who don't challenge them to reach beyond their present limits. Nassau has plenty of them. I see them in my classes every semester. They are a delight--and without them, I doubt I'd have lasted as long as I have in this profession.
And there are those, too, who are less bright, less well prepared, not really sure what this whole college education thing is about but who will absolutely flay themselves to do well. I often feel terrible for them only because they are so grade oriented: they don't understand that the measure of their success is not the grade but their progress. (Oh, how I would love never to have to give another grade as long as I live! I would be so much happier to provide feedback, evaluation, progress reports instead of having to nail students into those labeled boxes.) But even those students who struggle to get C's--or even D's--I love, because they want to know. They care. They'll try. I've got one young man in 101KC who shows up to my office hours regularly for help. The front of his notebook is covered with affirmations for himself. (I've mentioned him before, because he continually tells me how hard he worked to get into college--and I know he's trying to act as a role model for the rest of his family.) Grade-wise he isn't doing very well at the moment, but I think he's genuinely learning. Indeed, one of the lessons I have to teach him is to stop second-guessing and trust himself. He's so worried about doing well that he ties himself--and his writing--into knots. I am desperate for him to pass--and I desperately want him to earn a C. I won't just hand it to him, but I'll pretzel myself to help him legitimately earn it.
Those are the kids who keep me teaching. They're the ones that make me start each new semester looking for that magic elixir, that golden assignment that will suddenly open things up for each and every one of them. And if I can remember to focus on them--the way I need to remember to notice the beautiful world around me--my emotional equilibrium is much steadier. And that helps everything, including dealing with the "shoulds."
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