Week one: complete. Fifteen to go.

Very interesting that the two sections of 101 almost did a complete role reversal today. Both classes actually went pretty well, but in the first section, a good 80% of the students completely missed the point of the essay they'd read, a piece of old gold entitled "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words," by Paul Roberts--but we got into a pretty good discussion about how errors in reading happen, and what "too much information" means (it actually means, "I got distracted and bored"), and why we were reading the piece in the first place. The second section was much better: everyone who'd been there on Tuesday and who had done the reading absolutely got it--and got some excellent points within the overall argument Roberts makes. Terrific discussion again.

There were four students in the earlier group who hadn't been there on Tuesday: two were newly registered, two had been AWOL. Three new faces in the second section: one AWOL, two newly registered. In each class, I was delighted that one of the new faces belongs to a student who seems very intelligent and right on the ball. And in both classes, today revealed some pretty good potential for intellectual wattage in the room.

All in all, the week is ending on a very positive note.

I'll get back to the positive note in a minute, but I also want to think a bit about the meeting that started the day. It was a bit of a bumpy meeting: we'd confidently chosen the date believing no one would have any meetings that day--and it turns out several key members had meetings they couldn't miss; one is home ill (my dear Kristin: she's having a rough time); one was dealing with a rather epic crisis involving one of his students (a long and truly horrific story: the student is in a situation in which she's afraid she may become a victim of an "honor" killing and who turned to my colleague in terror and desperation); two could only be there for half the meeting.... And on top of all that, we didn't really accomplish much, except to realize that we have a lot of "meta" thinking to do before we can get into the nuts and bolts. One particularly unhappy moment was when the chair of the committee reported on her meetings with some of the powers-that-be over the summer. Essentially we were told that, despite the ostensible pedagogic purpose of the seminar hours, which is to help our own students become better writers, in fact, we have to "serve a larger cohort." In other words, Paul's hours in conference with his own students, for example, will not be considered appropriate for seminar hours. Word was, we can do that if we want--we can fight the demand that we "serve a larger cohort--but if we do, in our next contract, we'll be teaching a 5/5 load, period. I imagine the only way around that is to stage a complete and total coup, eliminate the entire Board of Trustees, half the administration, and a good number of people on the state level, and replace them with people who actually give a rat's ass about education. As long as we're dealing with the current gang of idiots, nothing, nothing, nothing matters but numbers.

But that raised the question of what defines success. The contract language doesn't say anything about assessing our results, or what we're actually being held accountable to do (other than put in time in the particular areas stipulated). The one piece of good news was that we can spread the hours out evenly over the semester or do them in several more intensive chunks, but to accomplish what is still utterly unclear. If we're not helping our students succeed in our individual classes, what the fuck are we doing?

In working to recast this so we didn't all get out the torches and pitchforks and go on a rampage, one of the committee members suggested that we ourselves determine what our specific goals are. I suggested that we consider what we, as professionals in our particular field, have to offer, what our particular strengths are, and use those to determine our goals. In a way, it seems we are being held solely accountable for "retention and persistence" among students who are general liberal arts majors--the vast majority of the students at NCC, in fact. The subtext seemed to be that, if enrollment numbers go down, it's the English department's fault because we're not teaching a 5/5 load--though how that logic works is beyond me. (What the "logic" really is, is that the college would save money through making us work 5/5--more students to fewer faculty--and that would make up for the financial shortfall we experience when students drop out or don't enroll in the first place.)

Jesus, what a goat fuck. Those of us on the committee are working like mad to try to turn our being press-ganged into this kind of "service" into something we can find useful and feel good about, but right at the moment, it's just a horrific morass of conflicting goals, agendas, requirements, and desires.

I do, however, love some of my colleagues: these people are wicked smart and articulate as all hell. (Oh, side note: fascinating little piece of gossip. My buddy Sara, who runs Women's Studies, has a mole in the Honors office, and the new Honors coordinator apparently was bitching that English faculty feel compelled to "use their vocabulary." It seems we are facile with language that he finds daunting, and he thinks we're showing off or trying to make him feel stupid. No, Honey, that's just how we talk: we're word people.)

I had to take a quick break there and jot down some notes: that comment started a train of thought that I realized might be useful for the upcoming intellectual jam-session with my colleagues from Bio and Psych. That is, I know, a radical shift of gears, but maybe that will lead me back to a truly positive frame on the day. We have a hell of a challenge in front of us in terms of the seminar hours thing, but we've got some damned fine minds on the task, and I bet we can figure out a way to make it work--or at least work well enough that we can live with it and, please god, satisfy the administration so they don't shove a fifth course at us. And no matter what happens, I work with amazingly cool people and get to spend my time thinking about stuff that I truly, deeply care about and find fascinating. It can get incredibly messy and frequently is brutally stressful, but I am beyond grateful that this is how I make my living. Beats hell out of 9-5 doing scut work.

And on that happy note--no really, it is happy--I will leave here and turn my attention to the rest of my life, which is also rewarding and by which I am truly blessed.

So...

...Fiction Writing was fine. One student was AWOL; otherwise everyone was there and seemed to be cheerful enough. I suspect it will take a while for everyone to loosen up and get comfy with each other and with me. I don't want to do my usual "ice breaker" exercise; it does help me remember names, but I never like doing it with a very small class--and I'm getting a little bored with it anyway. I'll try to simply use their names as often as I can, and I've asked them to remind me of their names when I call on them, unless I use the name without prompting. We did a little free-writing, and some of the students were brave enough to share their stuff; only one felt the need to apologize.

That student has me curious. He has an interesting accent: it mostly sounds British, but there are some sounds that are more American to my ear. Maybe at some point I'll find something out about his background, but I also have an eye on him because something is up: he may feel he's "too cool for school," or he may be easily distracted, or he may have an unusual mental process learning difficulty, but he seemed to labor over the simple information on the attendance cards I keep, and he didn't seem to want to make eye contact with anyone. There are a million possibilities for what could have been going on, but I'm curious to see how he settles in.

And my two former students were lovely. The quiet young woman who was in both my 102 last fall and in Nature in Lit in the spring is with me, as is the highly intelligent young man with self-discipline problems who was in Mystery & Detective last fall, and, again, Nature in Lit in the spring. She is very much the scientist, so she's being very brave to take creative writing. I grant you, she probably needs a "fine and performing arts" credit, and our creative writing classes count for that requirement, but there are a lot of other choices she could have made--and I think she was the first student to sign up for the class. I'm proud of her for stretching herself, and I truly, sincerely, hope she has some fun with it.

That's my main concern right now. I want them to have fun. Everyone is very serious at the moment, and if we don't loosen up, it'll be deadly. The one thing I can say for last year's obnoxious cheerleader type was at least she was bouncy and loud and unintimidated--and very ready to party--so she helped set a relaxed, playful tone for the room, which I liked. Which I want again. I'll be mulling that over between now and Monday.

As for tomorrow, I just checked, and the enrollment on my 101s has not budged. Ah well. We'll see how things go when I meet those students again (and, I hope, meet a few who were AWOL).

Shifting gears, but very much on my mind: in the break between Advisement and class, I spent some time on my application for promotion. Eventually I will need to start matching up "claims" with "documents" to be sure I have everything I need--and I have the sneaking suspicion I don't: I may not have gotten the requisite forms for some of my college-wide committee service. If I don't have the form, I can't make the claim--and although I can do a little of what I've already been doing, asking people to send me stuff I forgot to ask for or (I blush) have simply lost, there are some things for which I've simply missed the boat. And I feel I need every teeny tiny thing I can find: I did a lot more scholarship that counted toward my promotion to associate than I've done since. I just have to pray like mad that what I have looks more impressive to other people than it does to me.

Tomorrow I start with a meeting of the ad hoc committee that has formed to work out the logistics of what we're calling "seminar hours." I know I mentioned in a summer post that I'd done some work on that; what I'd forgotten is that each of us had volunteered to take on one particular area stipulated in the contract language: I did something for everything (and nothing much for the one I was assigned). Oh well, idiot me. At least I did something.

And committee work is going to gear up right quick here. Let the bitching begin. What I'm taking on will help my application for promotion a little, but idling along and then suddenly doing a spate of work doesn't help: I hope that won't be the impression I convey. More to the point, however, I'm doing the committee stuff I'm doing because I care about the committees in question. I say it repeatedly: this job would be infinitely easier if I didn't give a shit.

Now, however, the only thing I do give a shit about is getting myself out of here while it's still early. Off I go, into the tame, overcast yonder.

Oh, yeah, and...

...I forgot to mention yesterday that I already learned something in my 101s about my new ideas and how they'll work. Since I'm sitting here in Advisement, waiting for "customers" (don't get me started), I figured I'd write a little post about it, while it's on my mind.

I had an idea to do what I was calling "the daily 25," in which students would start each class period writing sentences containing words they commonly misuse/misspell, over and over, 25 times. It's complete rote learning, but sometimes rote learning is apropos. I explained the concept of rote learning to them and got the first group started--and very quickly realized that it would take far too long for them to write the sentences 25 times (not to mention that they're so unused to writing by hand that they were trying to shake out cramps after about the second iteration of the sentences I wanted them to copy). I stopped them after a few minutes and took a poll: how many of you got to 10? No one. 9? One person. And so on down the numbers: it seemed like the vast majority got to five.

OK, so it's now the daily five--but five iterations of something are not enough to get the rote memory implanted, so I told them to copy the sentences into their notebooks to keep somewhere, hand in the five (or however many) they'd done--and suggested that they do more copying of the sentences by hand at home.

Along the way, I had a few more realizations:

1) It's important that they write the sentences out as sentences. One guy, to save time, was copying two words multiple times, then the next two words--but that defeats the purpose of seeing them, mentally "hearing" them, as sentences, which is the point. Without the context, the misuse/misspelling will continue.

2) Even though they were--at least ostensibly--copying from the board, a number of them wrote the sentences incorrectly, and obviously they've now reinforced the error instead of un-doing it. I'm going to institute a policy that, if/when that happens, in order to get the three points for the exercise, the student has to take the list home and recopy the sentences, correctly, ten times, not five: five to undo the error and another five to implant the correct use.

But now I think, in the future, I'm going to do this differently. In fact, I may even change the policy for this semester. I still want to start the class with the sentences on the board, but I think I'll have students copy them into their notebooks and then submit them--handwritten 25 times--the next class. That way a) I don't waste class time on their rote learning, b) they still get the reward for being to class on time (once they've copied the sentences into their notebooks, I erase the sentences from the board, so anyone coming to class late doesn't get them), and c) they get enough iterations of the sentences for rote learning to actually take place.

The one problem with that system is the fact, as I now know, that some students will copy the sentences incorrectly--and then the iterations will really implant the error. What do I do then: make them rewrite the sentences correctly 50 times? Only give them one point instead of three?

I actually may check in with the students about this: they may have good ideas--or at least I will hear where their resistance might enter into the equation.

Shifting gears, but I think I may have lost the lone student who was pissed off at the fact that a C is average. Someone withdrew, but I haven't checked the name against my roster to see. I wouldn't be surprised. I am worried about the later of the two sections, I have to say. The earlier section is up to seventeen students--a good, healthy number, and close to optimal for a comp class. The later section has thirteen. That is not really enough; the energy in the room gets diluted, and groups don't gel as well. Of course, each day, more sections fill and close, and as students register late, or have to re-register because they didn't pay their tuition on time and lost their schedules, or shift around--all of which continues through next Monday--the fact that there are so many seats open in that class means some students will of necessity get funneled into it. Not that those are necessarily the students I want, but at this point, I'll take warm bodies. And one never knows when a gem may drop into one's lap.

I know I'll post again after I see the students in Fiction Writing; I'm completely jazzed about that, looking forward to it. I hope they don't feel overwhelmed by the work, but last time they wanted more writing, less reading, so this time that's what they're going to get. More later.

The Usual First-Day Mixed Bag

I started the day making up time in Advisement: I don't remember why, but at the end of the spring semester, I owed them 3 hours. Originally I was scheduled to do the make-up on Friday, but I had a mysterious, transient fever (with accompanying chills and ague); since I got to campus early enough today to make up the time, I decided to go on over, and they were busy enough to be grateful for my help. So, that's done. I have my regularly scheduled time tomorrow, and I expect the mixed bag that I saw today: students frantic to graduate this semester; students who lost their schedules for one reason or another and need to reconstruct them; students who are just now realizing they have to register for classes. One young man showed up today, and when I asked how I could help him, he said, "I think I need to sign up for classes or something?" Ye gods and little fishes. Ah well.

I met with both 101 classes today, and I have to say that only one young woman was demonstrating resistance--especially when I talked about grade inflation and showed what "average" actually means. Yep, hate to break it to you, my dears, but a B is not average. An A definitely isn't average. Average is a C. Everyone else seemed to be on board, and I had a lot of the thing I like, when students leaving made a point of making eye contact and saying something to me ("See you next class," or "Thanks, Professor," or whatever). That indicates some engagement, so I always figure it bodes well.

I know that the first day--the first weeks--can't be used as an indicator of how each class will develop, but today, the earlier class was decidedly the better, more engaged of the two: I could feel a lot more energy in the room. It might be simply because there were a few more bodies, but I also think the chemistry is working better in that class, at least right now. I did notice, looking at the roster, that the male-to-female ratio in that class is about 2-to-1. The later class is slightly more gender balanced. That doesn't mean anything about potential chemistry, however; it's a completely separate observation, and no more than that: just an observation. I will be interested to observe how many students add the class over the next week (and if any drop).

I'm also aware of the lack of office mates, with both Paul and William off on sabbaticals. I can sometimes go a day or so without seeing either one, or only seeing them in passing, but having them not here at all feels quite different. There's a stillness to the room, the absence of the vibrations of other humans. I don't quite know how to explain that, but I'm very sensitive to it, the way the charge in the air changes when another human is around, even if there's no interaction going on. I miss the "boys," but I also like solitude a great deal, so it's not bad to feel that aloneness, it's just very different. I know I'll miss being able to bounce ideas off them--and even just the daily sharing of life in the trenches with them. But I'll also put the sense of silence to good use.

Not much else to report at the moment. I didn't sleep well last night (subterranean anxiety, no doubt: I wasn't aware of feeling anxious but of course I was having "opening night nerves"), so at the moment I'm very tired, and very hungry--and it's spectacularly hot outside, which has an enervating effect. My good intentions to get some kind of exercise this evening may go the way of most good intentions. I hope to sleep better tonight, now that I have the first day ticked off, and am very much looking forward to meeting with the students in Fiction Writing tomorrow.

And yes, I'm already sort of counting down the weeks and days until I'm officially on sabbatical. One at a time, one at a time.

Thank you, Facebook

My kid sister--also a professor--posted this on Facebook. I tried posting this to the NCC FB page, and what do you know, it doesn't show up on the posts. Hmmmm. I am, however, going to add the link to my faculty home page. It's too good not to try to pass along. I may send it to the faculty e-mail, too.

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-every-college-professor-hates-2014-8

Teeny Tiny Improvement...

Bruce and I spent another chunk of time today canceling sections, shuffling things around, flagging things to be switched from adjunct schedules to FT if need be; there's more to be done, and yet contract signing has begun. Tomorrow may be mass chaos, but I'll have to abandon Bruce for most of it, as I have two doctors' appointments that may mean I can only be on campus for about 45 minutes at a time (if that). I figure that's my pay-back for last week, when I came in to do nothing.

Not all the shuffling has shown up on Banner yet: the office staff are drowning in the deluge of typing up and revising contracts, contacting adjuncts (and FT faculty) about changes or potential changes, and actually affecting the changes in the web platforms. I can't express how good they are at their jobs, or how much we rely on them. Oh, yes, and they're dealing with students who are in snits for one reason or another, on top of everything else. I don't know what they get paid, but it isn't enough.

In any event, once the actual switching around has been done, I should have a few more students in my later 101, which has the lower enrollment of the two. But the classes may run with the absolute minimum number of students. Of course, students can register (or drop-add) all through next week, so I won't know for sure what I'm facing until the second full week (and even then I may not know for sure, as freshmen sometimes think there's nothing wrong with turning up for the first time on the third week--because "nothing happens the first weeks anyway"). But at least I don't have to worry that I'll suddenly have to prep a 102 class--or, even more horrifying to contemplate, an 001. For a while there, I truly was braced for that possibility. Now Bruce tells me I can rest easy, so I intend to do just that--at least in terms of concern over enrollment numbers.

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying giving a little "survival tips" talk to students at orientation sessions. In addition to the usual "work through frustration" thing that I say to my own students, I've come up with a few other suggestions, several courtesy of Paul (of course). I like what I've been saying well enough that I think I'll use the same notes for my own classes. Here's what I have:

New Student Orientation Notes:

Some of your classes will feel a lot like high school. Some will feel very different. You’re here to learn, which means you’re here to change. If you think you know everything you need to know and are perfect just like you are, maybe you don’t need college—or now isn’t the time for you to be in college. Don’t look for what’s easy or just to get more of what you already have. Look for challenges: want them.

Develop a work space and a tool kit. To do college-level work, you need to find somewhere quiet, without distractions, where you can settle deeply into your own thinking. It can be any place that works for you—but multitasking is a myth. You can’t do schoolwork and watch videos, chat (FTF or through cyber means), have the TV on….

          You need to figure out your own tool kit. You should always have at least two pens and two sharp pencils with you, and something to write on, no matter where you go. Have your own mini-stapler. Whatever will help you keep things organized and take notes that you won’t lose.

Figure out an organization system that works for you—and use it as if your life depended on it.

Develop a clear sense of the amount of time you need for everything in your life. If necessary, make a weekly grid. Figure that for every hour you spend in class, you need at least two hours of time for homework. (Some classes will use less; some will use more: it pretty much averages out to that.) So, if you are taking 15 hours of classes in a week, you need an additional 30 hours for homework: that’s already a full-time job.

          It’s better to slow down and do well than to try to load up with credits and end up having to re-take classes.

Be willing to admit what you don’t know and when you need help—and get the knowledge and understanding you need. Do whatever you need to do in order to be sure you have what you need to do well. (Lots of campus services available: www.ncc.edu/campusservices/)

Learn to work through frustration.

I didn't write out the full idea on any of these (but it does seem typical that my "notes" are extensive and verbose): this was intended to be just enough to remind me what I want to riff on, another example of my tendency to over-prepare and then improvise on what I've prepared.

And with that, my brain shut down. I am sure I had other wildly scintillating things to share today, but whatever they may have been, they've been lost in a mental vapor-lock. It's time to get out of here. Two more days on campus this week (if you can count tomorrow: heaven knows how much time I'll actually have on campus around those appointments), then a three-day weekend, then it all begins in earnest. Ye gods. I'm prepared, but I'm not ready, if that makes sense. Still, as my buddy Jane and I used to say, onward and awkward.

 

Further semester prep

I was fit to be tied last week when I came in two days to help Bruce--and one of the days he wasn't even here, the other he said he didn't have anything for me to do. Fortunately, there is always work to be done: the job will suck up as much time and energy as one gives to it, so the only limit is what I set for myself (thus far and no further). I got lots of organizing of handouts done, so papers are in dated stacks, ready to be handed out, and I know when I need to send out the next batch to be copied (it will be a while, thank god).

Of course, I've prepped for my classes to be filled to the max--27 students in each section of 101--but at the moment, neither of my 101s is even in double digits. Bruce and I did some shuffling around of courses, including canceling some, which will help a little, but I have a suspicion I have lots and lots of paper that is simply going to go into the recycling bin in a few weeks. My environmentalist conscience winces.

I'm hanging around now because I'm going to talk to incoming freshmen at an orientation session at 6, a performance I will repeat tomorrow and Thursday (earlier each of those days). After doing all the organizing I could think of in terms of the coming semester, I found myself thinking, "Well, I could finally clean out my bookshelves..." and lo! Again, I could do much more organizing (putting the books in more careful and well-considered order--even, dare I say it, getting rid of some old textbooks), but the shelves haven't looked so neat and tidy since, well, possibly since I first moved in to the office.

In the process of cleaning out a folder that was marked "sort and file," I realized that, now that I've done the gut renovation of 101, I'm pretty sure I'm due to do the same for my 102s, next time I teach them: most, if not all, of my standard handouts are either going to be revamped or ditched entirely. So a lot of the "sorting" that I did was tossing huge stacks of outmoded stuff into the recycling bin.

And once more, there is much more I could do along those lines: I did go through my files not too long ago, but I could be a great deal more draconian about getting rid of stuff I'm unlikely to use ever again--or that I'm likely to forget I have and will consequently reprint and recopy, obviating the need for the file drawer full of copies. There are times when I almost feel that the best thing to do would be to just throw everything away without even looking at it and start fresh, but I know as soon as I did that, I'd need something (a lot of somethings) and would regret the hell out of it. It's an interesting balance to achieve: "there's a reasonable chance I'll find this useful" versus "it's too unlikely that I'll want this again to hang on to it."

Shifting topic streams pretty wildly: pursuant to a little series of posts I've had on Facebook about the possibility that the low enrollment in my 101s may be because students have been reading my Rate My Professor ratings, I decided it might be time to take a look at those again. Although I no longer have the red, frowning "danger-danger-danger" face next to my name, I don't rate a green happy face--which is fine by me, actually, except that reading the students' comments starts to feel quite toxic. I know the reasons why it's useless to pay much attention to what they write: it's usually quite clear what kind of student is giving the "she's an evil bitch" ratings--and as long as they can post anonymously, they can be as vile as they like and consequently probably express their dislike of me in particularly heated terms. I will say, too, that most of the negative ratings are older: my (slight) mellowing over the years apparently is keeping a few students from feeling the need to vent on Rate My Professor (even though they still drop the course). But it's interesting to me how snake-bit I feel after reading the ratings. I'll shake it off pretty quickly, even find some humor in some of the posts (some of which are so profoundly stupid as to be potentially funny--if I squint just right). One student said that only those with extreme patience would be able to refrain from smacking me on a daily basis: I feel like smacking the students who wrote the snotty posts. So there. A very mature exchange of opinions.

I may have call to post again this week--who knows what may transpire between now and Friday afternoon--but for now I'll wrap it up and toddle off to scare the crap out of the incoming freshmen. Or simply tell the truth, which may amount to the same thing.