Adventures with Students, Vol. 52

Research isn't the kind of thing it used to be, that's for sure.  Today I set my composition classes to work on their research assignment. We met in the library--I was there to help them locate stuff or answer questions, but otherwise I let them handle their research however they chose.

I remember my long searches standing at the electronic catalog in Davis Library, the obligatory filling out of ILL forms for books and articles the library didn't have, the checking out as many possibly relevant titles as possible so that--and perhaps I was uncharitable here--others couldn't check them out before me . . . and then plowing through those stacks of books to find what might be useful to me.

Today? My students sat for a good 15-20 minutes looking at their smartphones before they did anything else. They scattered to computers and the stacks afterward, but I got the sense that they were actually doing searches on their phones.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that in the 21st century . . . it's just not what would have occurred to me. I've certainly benefited in my own piddling research from the fact that so much stuff is available online.

"May you live in interesting times"

Even setting aside the general atmosphere of institutional rot at every societal level I can think of--

Even setting aside the specific problems of bureaucratic inertia and strategic drift at my particular university--

Even setting aside personal problems both circumstantial and self-inflicted--

Even setting aside the usual pressures of the academic year--

I could at least pretend to manage.  However, the news that came over the email today, i.e., that my department chair is retiring effective June, is a significant blow.  It means that in addition to the university-wide upheaval, this department will be buffeted by extra winds and rain. I do not begrudge her a well-earned retirement after serving this institution for the bulk of her adult life . . . I just know that it's going to be a difficult task to replace her.

The quote in the title? Its supposed Chinese origin is apparently apocryphal

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 46

Number One:  facing the usual spates of 10 year old harebrainedness.  I just had a conversation with his teacher, Ms. N, who informs me that he is having a hard time paying attention to his work from time to time, and that he tends to try the class clown routine with irrelevant and irreverent dry commentary.  We are having to remind him to  PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE HE IS AND WHAT HE IS DOING.

Little Red:  stayed home with a fever today. We have had battle after battle with him over everything from waking up to attending school to putting on his jeans.  It makes him sad when he makes us angry, and we try to be reasonable and remind him that he doesn't like the outcome of his stubbornness, but apparently it's not particularly easy to convince him of this.

Lefty:  just a few days from turning five! He says he will stop sucking his thumb at that time.  We are not convinced.

From today's teaching . . . and today's parenting

The Collar

BY GEORGE HERBERT

I struck the board, and cried, "No more;

                         I will abroad!

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free, free as the road,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

          Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial fruit?

          Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn

    Before my tears did drown it.

      Is the year only lost to me?

          Have I no bays to crown it,

No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?

                  All wasted?

Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,

            And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,

             Thy rope of sands,

Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

          And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

          Away! take heed;

          I will abroad.

Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;

          He that forbears

         To suit and serve his need

          Deserves his load."

But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild

          At every word,

Methought I heard one calling, Child!

          And I replied My Lord.

The poem so beautifully describes a person in the midst of a crisis that he has kind of made for himself, when he realizes that he is spiritually, emotionally, physically, professionally, stuck.  You've seen it, you've felt it.  In the end of the poem, the poet is so overcome with his own fit of spite and anger that he can hardly make sense . . . until he hears a voice saying "child."

"Child."  What a world of emotions and relationships there.  As is the case in so many other parts of life, you don't know something fully until you've been right there, in the circumstance.  I've been there many times in recent days with my beloved Little Red. He gets bent out of shape about so many things--having to wear jeans, having to take a shower, having to go to school, having to eat breakfast, having to wake up, having to go to bed--and he just doesn't know when to stop resisting and realize that we will win either way.  The heartbreaking part, and The Triathlete and I both know it's coming, is when he gets sad because he's made us mad.  And that's the moment for the hug and the reminder:  "Child."

and then of course the hug.

From this week's reading

there is a Herbert poem for every season of the soul.  This one struck me particularly deeply yesterday:

The Affliction (I)

BY GEORGE HERBERT

When first thou didst entice to thee my heart,

         I thought the service brave;

So many joys I writ down for my part,

         Besides what I might have

Out of my stock of natural delights,

Augmented with thy gracious benefits.

I looked on thy furniture so fine,

         And made it fine to me;

Thy glorious household-stuff did me entwine,

         And 'tice me unto thee.

Such stars I counted mine: both heav'n and earth;

Paid me my wages in a world of mirth.

What pleasures could I want, whose King I serv'd,

         Where joys my fellows were?

Thus argu'd into hopes, my thoughts reserv'd

         No place for grief or fear.

Therefore my sudden soul caught at the place,

And made her youth and fierceness seek thy face.

At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetnesses;

         I had my wish and way;

My days were straw'd with flow'rs and happiness;

         There was no month but May.

But with my years sorrow did twist and grow,

And made a party unawares for woe.

My flesh began unto my soul in pain,

         Sicknesses cleave my bones;

Consuming agues dwell in ev'ry vein,

         And tune my breath to groans.

Sorrow was all my soul; I scarce believ'd,

Till grief did tell me roundly, that I liv'd.

When I got health, thou took'st away my life,

         And more, for my friends die;

My mirth and edge was lost, a blunted knife

         Was of more use than I.

Thus thin and lean without a fence or friend,

I was blown through with ev'ry storm and wind.

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took

         The way that takes the town;

Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book,

         And wrap me in a gown.

I was entangled in the world of strife,

Before I had the power to change my life.

Yet, for I threaten'd oft the siege to raise,

         Not simp'ring all mine age,

Thou often didst with academic praise

         Melt and dissolve my rage.

I took thy sweet'ned pill, till I came where

I could not go away, nor persevere.

Yet lest perchance I should too happy be

         In my unhappiness,

Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me

         Into more sicknesses.

Thus doth thy power cross-bias me, not making

Thine own gift good, yet me from my ways taking.

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

         None of my books will show;

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree,

         For sure then I should grow

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust

   Her household to me, and I should be just.

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek;

         In weakness must be stout;

Well, I will change the service, and go seek

         Some other master out.

Ah my dear God! though I am clean forgot,

Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.

(1633)