English 111

Here's the thing about teaching first-year students that I enjoy (most of the time):

Variety.

Those of us who have taught/are teaching large numbers of eighteen and nineteen year olds get to experience a rush every time we enter the classroom--because we never know what we're going to find. The same student can be a livewire one day, then come in just two days later and be a half-asleep (or completely asleep) slug. As they get older and more experienced, the peaks and valleys even out--but during that first year, wow. You find yourself adjusting on the fly to what they're giving you (particularly in a writing class, where in most cases we're not willing to spend the time lecturing).

Here's the other thing: I teach at 9 and 11 on MWF. I like my 9:00 class better than my 11:00. Not because they're necessarily smarter, but because there's a better gender balance and they seem more cooperative. In fact, I have some really sharp students in the 11:00, but as a group they're hard to work with. As fate would have it, I tend to do a better job with the class I like less, because I've already seen how the plan worked in the previous class--and I've adjusted my approach.

Turnaround is fair play, though. I remember that from high school into college, my teachers tended to wonder if I was mentally present (I was) because my face didn't register too much (again, from the other side of the podium, we have to admit that we feed off of those reactions and get concerned when we're not getting anything). Now I've got three or four really bright guys in my 11:00 class who are giving me nothing. Could this be why I like the 11:00 class less? Sure it could.

Excuse me while I climb out from under this rock

It's been that kind of week. I was up against a deadline or two, and had to spend most of my time catching up on that work--which, of course, I'd been ignoring--even as I prepared for my ten class meetings and three committee meetings and three student advising meetings this week.

Hey, it's good work. I just haven't had much time to catch my breath. On the upside, I've worked at a pace I've not been able to sustain since February and March of 2005. My guess is that the addition of the Wellbutrin has really helped. . . Zoloft alone was making me into a zombie. Another upside: the adrenalin helped me lecture the fire out of Castiglione's Book of the Courtier yesterday.

This is a big weekend, especially for W. We're going to Nashville to celebrate her birthday (which is next Tuesday) by. . . get this . . . going to the Titans-Cowboys game on Sunday afternoon. She's as thrilled as can be.

Confession

Sometimes, I miss studying novels and short stories.

That is all.

Long Faces

I handed back the first graded papers to my first-years today. Always a moment of anxiety, because I know there will be those 2 or 3 that will wonder why they've never gotten a C before. What's more, I always feel like I've been too generous.

Speaking of generous, last Thursday I caught a student messing with her cell phone. She was sitting on the front row, and evidently didn't think that I could see what her hands were doing under the 'desk.' I broke out of my remarks, and said loudly, "put - the - cellphone - away." She jumped like she had been stung. She got me back, though, registering in the end-of-period assessment that she didn't like 'sitting and listening' for the entire class time. eh.

Life With a Toddler, Vol. 15

Pray for us; The Little Boy is on his first day wearing. . .

big boy underwear.

He told me all about it on the phone just a few minutes ago.

In the category of "Things Piers Fears" . . .

. . . but for no good reason, since it's years away:

The Little Boy's education.

If you follow the link, you'll note that she is espousing a pretty intelligent point of view, but I doubt that the right people are listening.

In which Piers begins to fear his students

I'm reading 'personal essays' as the first assignment for the year. So far, I've read stories about:

• A student who got drunk on the bus ride to school one day--and I mean falling-down drunk. Needless to say she got in considerable trouble, including a stint in a boot camp style "Alternative Learning Center."
• A student who decided to "borrow" his uncle's brand new Jeep Cherokee from the church parking lot to go off-roading--during the church service. Naturally, he bogged it down, and had to walk back to the church to confess his adventure. Priceless line: "The inside of the Jeep was of all luxury you would expect from a quality Chrysler vehicle."

Next, I expect to see something about shoplifting, or drug running, or a counterfeiting ring.

Wise

Every Fall semester for the past four years, I've gone to a little medieval-renaissance conference at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. I've made some good friends there, a couple of good contacts, and learned a lot. The conference is heavy on the "medieval" part, which is OK with me, seeing as how medievalists seem to be less stuffy than we Renaissance scholars. Plus, I learn a lot.

So that's where I have been since Wednesday--got back to work on Monday, and spent all day catching up.

That's all from here for today.

The Other Big News from the Soybean Festival

My lovely wife won 1st place in her age group in the Soybean 5K! While pushing The Little Boy in the stroller! She brought home a big trophy.

Confession time!

Here's why I was so concerned about that pedagogy issue, and it's a conclusion I've come to with W over the last couple of weeks:

I have spent most of my life convinced that there's one "right" way to do anything, and that my task is to find out what that one right way is, whether anyone else is willing to lead me to it or not.

And here's why it matters: it's not true. I know that it's not true. There's not one right way to teach a Shakespeare class; there are any number of effective ways, and I'm welcome to choose among many models or generate my own. But. There's still the rub that drove Renaissance philosophers crazy: I may know the truth of the matter, but the deceptive feeling sometimes carries more power. This affected my high school career, my college career, my grad school career, making me averse to taking intellectual risks even as it made me good at being a student.

I'm not sure whether to cast this as a problem, or as one of those personality traits that I've developed over time--a quirk, as it were. Nor do I think it's unique to me. I do know that it's there, though, and that's a start.

Soybean Festival Update 5

Friday, we had "The Chicken Crazy, Hawg Wild Cook-Off," where, significantly, they give away free barbecue chicken. We even managed to score some pork and some bologna--the latter most popular with The Little Boy.
The first musical act for the night was "The Return," a Beatles tribute band. I'm here to say that they were pretty good:


The late show was 38 Special, but we didn't stay for that. For one thing, based on the folks crowding the town green, we weren't the intended audience.

Soybean Festival Update 4

Thursday afternoon: UTM Football Game--our home opener.

Big time football, this ain't, but is a fun time.

The Little Boy and Piers find a good spot on top of the hill. Good for watching the game, good for running up and down--which The Little Boy does for about an hour.

Soybean Festival Update 3

Wednesday was "Faith and Family Night," sponsored by the area churches, and featuring a couple of musical groups:
One act featured this sixteen-year old guy who played the hottest blues guitar I've heard in a long time. Jonathan really likes dancing to the blues, evidently; his dancing was met with approval by all nearby:


Hotdogs, chips, bug juice (VBS-style), and for dessert, popsicles:


Alas, as we live in Tennessee, some things are inevitable, especially during football season:

I find that to be the most annoying color in the known universe, but nobody asked me.

Soybean Festival Update 2

Tuesday was parade day! We started with a picnic at the Alpha Gamma Rho frat house, where they had fried chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers:
We ate with some of the new pledges, the chancellor, and my boss, the dean of humanities and fine arts. The good thing about eating with the chancellor is that he is more than happy to carry the conversation (those of you who know my tendencies well, feel free to laugh).

And then we went down toward the church to watch the Soybean Festival Parade:

Not a great picture, but I tried to get the Little Boy and the parade in the same shot from our crummy little camera. Anyway, I'm here to report that police and fire truck sirens, when blown within ten feet of the Little Boy, terrify said Little Boy. He did like the bands, the tractors, and the horses.

Strangest features of the parade:

• The Aaron's Rents truck hawking a Dell computer! For $99.99 a month! Own for 12 payments!
• The group of four or five muddy ATVs, all driven by high school age kids. There was even a three-wheeler amongst them, and I thought those were all illegal now. Oh well.
  

Sobering Reading for a Tuesday Morning

Link from "Inside Higher Ed". I'm uncomfortable with the writer's talk about "markets," but I think that shows my paleolithic mindset when it comes to this issue. I'm encouraging students to read Plato, the Bible, Homer--meanwhile, the whole idea of the university shifts under my feet. He may overstate the case for the sake of drama, but certainly Shakespeare and Jonson have a hard time penetrating a market of students who (according to their own writing) expect a college degree to grant them workplace skills and higher salaries.

I wonder perhaps if places like my institution and my undergraduate alma mater will eventually use extension and "non-traditional" programs to subsidize the "old" liberal-arts paradigm. One thing I can say in response: I'm not sure that the career path I've taken will be a realistic or desirable option for my son, regardless of his intelligence.

BTW, he was 'reading' large chunks of Hop on Pop from memory the other night. He even said "STOP. You must not hop on pop" in a gruff voice like we use when we're reading it.

Pedagogy challenge

In my Shakespeare class this term, I'm trying a decentered, everyone-sit-in-a-circle, discussion based approach. This is relatively new to me, and I feel like it's important to try a new approach on occasion. Here's the thing, though: yesterday, one of my 'non-traditional' students, a smart woman who's in her third class with me, commented that I'm "not as effective sitting down." I'm inclined to take her opinion seriously, because she's very much a focused adult student. So now I'm in a bit of a bind: on the one hand, part of the class structure necessitates the sit in a circle approach. On the other hand, I sure don't want to have a boring class. Do I revert back to an approach with which I'm more comfortable, or do I work harder at making this approach pay off? I'm inclined to want the versatility to be able to do either teaching style well, but my pride says go with what I know works. I am, for better or worse, keeping my eye on reputation and evaluations.

Not sure what I'm going to do, really. Comments, those of you who know about such things?

Life With a Toddler, Vol 13, part 2

Or, "adventures with the new bed"

Yesterday morning, we were awakened at 5:15 by little feet and a little voice: "mommmeee?"
We then had a restless little boy in the bed for about twenty minutes.

This morning, at 5:15: WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM. The Little Boy had awoken, put on his cubbies hat (thanks Buzzrd and Hammie), and found the "pound the balls into the little holes" toy.