There's always the temptation, when you're under pressure to get syllabi ready for the coming semester, to look at the previous syllabus and say to yourself, "Gee, it worked pretty well--I'll just change the dates."
Then you just have to be sure you remember to change all the dates. I've been embarassed a couple of times when we got to the end of a Fall semester, and I confusingly listed the final as taking place in June. Or I caught all the dates on the assignments, but left the previous year in the heading line.
This semester, I was cursing because the syllabus for one class is on my office computer, and I'm sitting at home trying to get syllabi ready. Meaning: I have to completely retype the syllabus.
So, that's what I'm doing, and now I'm glad. Retyping is a form of rethinking for me. There will be some new ideas and new issues.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The Boredom Factor, and Digressions on Diversity and Racism in Assignments
[In relation to this topic, see my post to the effect that reading is "unnatural" given human evolution--humans survived by out-strategising their competitors in the wild in primeval times. Printing and the ideal of universal literacy are quite recent concepts, imposed as necessities to survival on a creature not naturally inclined to spend a lot of time with eyes fixed to characters on a sheet of paper.]
During my thirty-seven years of college teaching (English lit. and composition), I've heard plenty of times that some assigned reading is "boring." After the first few complaints, I concocted what I considered a reasonable explanation. I lay in wait. I must say, the first time I started into my Discourse on Boredom, a student piped up and proposed that they themselves were boring, not the literature. But no, I didn't want to make that claim.
I proposed that The Boredom Factor was a function of expectation and experience. I once referred to one of my assignments as "jump-starting" the students' intellectual life, and I like the analogy more whenever I can remember to use it. Most students, at least in my community college classes, are just now being introduced to real "issues" and their related arguments. Many either haven't written much in high school, or have been assigned to write personal experience papers rather than papers requiring critical/analytical thought. Most of them find "arguments" impenetrable. They've cobbled essays together by cutting and pasting from Wikipedia. They're not used to thinking critically--they haven't developed strategies or formats. Neither was I when I was their age--we just didn't have Wikipedia, and "cutting and pasting" was something you did with scrapbooks, not computers. (Hard to imagine life without a computer.)
Reading intellectual material is a challenge, especially the first time out. That, I think, is why students often claim that it is "boring." They're not interested in such things (one hopes they will become interested with time), and they haven't had much exposure to the writings of people who, in effect, think and do research for a living. I would love to assign Jared Diamond's books to developmental classes, where I now assign Marvin Harris's Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches. The arguments of both writers are somewhat complex, but they are accessible--with effort. It's the newness of that kind of discourse, as well as its strenuousness for a reader new to it that make it seem "boring." I tell the students: if you're falling asleep, it's because the reading is tiring you out. You've got to exercise the brain muscle, build up those cerebral callouses (new analogy--I'll have to write it down somewhere for use in class).
There is still the "interest factor." Everyone is entitled to their interests--I have my own, and I don't really care to spend a lot of time with topics of no interest to me. Students are entitled not to be interested; but they still have to do the assignments, interested or not. Lack of interest is no excuse. I'm there to introduce them to books and ideas--that's the value of their being in college. That is my responsibility as a teacher. (The idea that education should be "student-centered," if that is taken to mean we should teach what students will be "interested" in, is totally misguided--we should teach things that they should know about. I realize this leaves open the question of who decides what they should know? But answering, they should be taught what is "relevant" or "appropriate" is just another equally arbitrary decision about what they should know--the history of education is the history of people who don't know something going to learn what teachers have to teach. I'm a ; musician: I go to teachers who can challenge me and give me better ways to do something--I don't go to tell them what I'll learn and what I won't. And then I work hard at what they tell me to do.).
Not only am I there to bring new ideas and ways of thinking to them, I have absolutely no way of determining what will be interesting to a group of students who will not even register for the class until at least three to four months after I've had to order the books.
I've tried, from time to time, to ascertain what will work with a class by giving students a chance to evaluate the books at the end. My plan was to continue using what "worked," and discontinue what didn't "work." But looking over the responses, I found that there was seldom any class unanimity. At times, it seemed that they didn't want to ever again read a book that I thought was important and would continue assigning no matter what they said. Once I left an opening in the schedule (in an introduction to fiction course) so the class could democratically choose a book to read. Generally, no one knew what to propose. We wound up reading Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. I had to read a book I didn't like; the class, which had gone with the choice of the only person who made any suggestion at all, didn't like it either. After that, my policy was to choose books that could be classified in some way as "good literature"--often authorized by Nobel credentials of the writer, or generally positive reviews from serious commentators. At some point, for example, and in conjunction with the encouragement to "diversify" our offerings, I will assign a book by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish Nobel winner, and a book by Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian Nobel winner. (Diversity digression: the idea that "diversity" should mean books by Latino or Asian-American writers primarily is just another form of parochialism. Under the "diversity" heading, I regularly teach The Ramayana and 100 Years of Solitude. The idea of "diversity" is to bring other cultures into the classroom, to encourage our sense that cultures we are not acquainted with have great value and should not be the victim of prejudice and stereotyping. If the Nobel had existed 2000 years ago, The Ramayana would be more eligible than the Bible. But perhaps that is just an odious personal prejudice.)
So, boredom: inevitable. At one point, I read that USC professors were getting comedy writers to help with lectures so the students would be more "interested." But that just turns classes into stand-up routines. A good teacher should be able to work humor naturally into his/her classwork--that really does lighten things up. But is a humorless teacher therefore a bad teacher? He or she might be "boring." But, heck, you can't win 'em all. The student should just bear down and get through it--the student can try to do some pre-registration research if they really want to improve their chances of getting someone they'll enjoy and who will also be a rigorous, challenging teacher.
And why should we as teachers be trying so hard to meet students' expectations? Our first priority should be to offer excellent material and teach it well. (I read The House on Mango Street, but I could never bring myself to teach it, though I saw it on the bookshelves assigned for other classes. I considered it middle school reading. Digression: House on Mango Street represents a theme publishers find saleable to educators concerned to provide positive role models: the child from an underprivileged, minority background, who overcomes the obstacle of environment to become successful. The writing is okay, but hardly spectacular, in my opinion. I regard the emphasis on this kind of theme as a form of racism and social superciliousness: the teacher is saying, in effect, here's what these poor, undereducated students need--positive role models--on the assumption that every student in a class either needs such a role model or needs to become aware that underprivileged people exist. In my experience, most people--again, in my community college--have grown up in diverse environments; they have lived diversity--they don't need to read about it as well. And the students from those less privileged backgrounds often are thrilled to find classes where they are going to be assigned the works they've always heard about--like the Iliad or the Odyssey, or The Divine Comedy, but no one has considered them eligible to read because the "special needs" of their socio/economic class, e.g., heightening their political awareness, were of paramount concern.) Suffice it to say, I would rather go for the Big Works and "raise" students' consciousness or provide them with role models that way. Students appreciate not being condescended to. [I'm willing to concede that such assignments are not necessarily "condescending," and that some students will be gratified to find that the readings include a sympathetic portrayal of their social environment and experiences--likewise for people whose experiences include the difficult transition to a new culture.]
But, when all is said and done, it's not callous or closed-minded to let students themselves deal with their boredom. I don't mean that we should relentlessly shove their noses into abstruse and impossible readings, but we should keep the readings just a bit beyond them, so students grow by having to stretch. It might be that the student who says an assignment is "boring" at the beginning will, by the end, feel that completing it has been a valuable experience and achievement. I've had students say that about Elaine Pagels' Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, which I assigned in a developmental course for several years, until I moved on to other books.
Students will surprise themselves by what they can understand, and they'll thank you as a teacher for assuming they have the ability.
During my thirty-seven years of college teaching (English lit. and composition), I've heard plenty of times that some assigned reading is "boring." After the first few complaints, I concocted what I considered a reasonable explanation. I lay in wait. I must say, the first time I started into my Discourse on Boredom, a student piped up and proposed that they themselves were boring, not the literature. But no, I didn't want to make that claim.
I proposed that The Boredom Factor was a function of expectation and experience. I once referred to one of my assignments as "jump-starting" the students' intellectual life, and I like the analogy more whenever I can remember to use it. Most students, at least in my community college classes, are just now being introduced to real "issues" and their related arguments. Many either haven't written much in high school, or have been assigned to write personal experience papers rather than papers requiring critical/analytical thought. Most of them find "arguments" impenetrable. They've cobbled essays together by cutting and pasting from Wikipedia. They're not used to thinking critically--they haven't developed strategies or formats. Neither was I when I was their age--we just didn't have Wikipedia, and "cutting and pasting" was something you did with scrapbooks, not computers. (Hard to imagine life without a computer.)
Reading intellectual material is a challenge, especially the first time out. That, I think, is why students often claim that it is "boring." They're not interested in such things (one hopes they will become interested with time), and they haven't had much exposure to the writings of people who, in effect, think and do research for a living. I would love to assign Jared Diamond's books to developmental classes, where I now assign Marvin Harris's Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches. The arguments of both writers are somewhat complex, but they are accessible--with effort. It's the newness of that kind of discourse, as well as its strenuousness for a reader new to it that make it seem "boring." I tell the students: if you're falling asleep, it's because the reading is tiring you out. You've got to exercise the brain muscle, build up those cerebral callouses (new analogy--I'll have to write it down somewhere for use in class).
There is still the "interest factor." Everyone is entitled to their interests--I have my own, and I don't really care to spend a lot of time with topics of no interest to me. Students are entitled not to be interested; but they still have to do the assignments, interested or not. Lack of interest is no excuse. I'm there to introduce them to books and ideas--that's the value of their being in college. That is my responsibility as a teacher. (The idea that education should be "student-centered," if that is taken to mean we should teach what students will be "interested" in, is totally misguided--we should teach things that they should know about. I realize this leaves open the question of who decides what they should know? But answering, they should be taught what is "relevant" or "appropriate" is just another equally arbitrary decision about what they should know--the history of education is the history of people who don't know something going to learn what teachers have to teach. I'm a ; musician: I go to teachers who can challenge me and give me better ways to do something--I don't go to tell them what I'll learn and what I won't. And then I work hard at what they tell me to do.).
Not only am I there to bring new ideas and ways of thinking to them, I have absolutely no way of determining what will be interesting to a group of students who will not even register for the class until at least three to four months after I've had to order the books.
I've tried, from time to time, to ascertain what will work with a class by giving students a chance to evaluate the books at the end. My plan was to continue using what "worked," and discontinue what didn't "work." But looking over the responses, I found that there was seldom any class unanimity. At times, it seemed that they didn't want to ever again read a book that I thought was important and would continue assigning no matter what they said. Once I left an opening in the schedule (in an introduction to fiction course) so the class could democratically choose a book to read. Generally, no one knew what to propose. We wound up reading Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. I had to read a book I didn't like; the class, which had gone with the choice of the only person who made any suggestion at all, didn't like it either. After that, my policy was to choose books that could be classified in some way as "good literature"--often authorized by Nobel credentials of the writer, or generally positive reviews from serious commentators. At some point, for example, and in conjunction with the encouragement to "diversify" our offerings, I will assign a book by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish Nobel winner, and a book by Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian Nobel winner. (Diversity digression: the idea that "diversity" should mean books by Latino or Asian-American writers primarily is just another form of parochialism. Under the "diversity" heading, I regularly teach The Ramayana and 100 Years of Solitude. The idea of "diversity" is to bring other cultures into the classroom, to encourage our sense that cultures we are not acquainted with have great value and should not be the victim of prejudice and stereotyping. If the Nobel had existed 2000 years ago, The Ramayana would be more eligible than the Bible. But perhaps that is just an odious personal prejudice.)
So, boredom: inevitable. At one point, I read that USC professors were getting comedy writers to help with lectures so the students would be more "interested." But that just turns classes into stand-up routines. A good teacher should be able to work humor naturally into his/her classwork--that really does lighten things up. But is a humorless teacher therefore a bad teacher? He or she might be "boring." But, heck, you can't win 'em all. The student should just bear down and get through it--the student can try to do some pre-registration research if they really want to improve their chances of getting someone they'll enjoy and who will also be a rigorous, challenging teacher.
And why should we as teachers be trying so hard to meet students' expectations? Our first priority should be to offer excellent material and teach it well. (I read The House on Mango Street, but I could never bring myself to teach it, though I saw it on the bookshelves assigned for other classes. I considered it middle school reading. Digression: House on Mango Street represents a theme publishers find saleable to educators concerned to provide positive role models: the child from an underprivileged, minority background, who overcomes the obstacle of environment to become successful. The writing is okay, but hardly spectacular, in my opinion. I regard the emphasis on this kind of theme as a form of racism and social superciliousness: the teacher is saying, in effect, here's what these poor, undereducated students need--positive role models--on the assumption that every student in a class either needs such a role model or needs to become aware that underprivileged people exist. In my experience, most people--again, in my community college--have grown up in diverse environments; they have lived diversity--they don't need to read about it as well. And the students from those less privileged backgrounds often are thrilled to find classes where they are going to be assigned the works they've always heard about--like the Iliad or the Odyssey, or The Divine Comedy, but no one has considered them eligible to read because the "special needs" of their socio/economic class, e.g., heightening their political awareness, were of paramount concern.) Suffice it to say, I would rather go for the Big Works and "raise" students' consciousness or provide them with role models that way. Students appreciate not being condescended to. [I'm willing to concede that such assignments are not necessarily "condescending," and that some students will be gratified to find that the readings include a sympathetic portrayal of their social environment and experiences--likewise for people whose experiences include the difficult transition to a new culture.]
But, when all is said and done, it's not callous or closed-minded to let students themselves deal with their boredom. I don't mean that we should relentlessly shove their noses into abstruse and impossible readings, but we should keep the readings just a bit beyond them, so students grow by having to stretch. It might be that the student who says an assignment is "boring" at the beginning will, by the end, feel that completing it has been a valuable experience and achievement. I've had students say that about Elaine Pagels' Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, which I assigned in a developmental course for several years, until I moved on to other books.
Students will surprise themselves by what they can understand, and they'll thank you as a teacher for assuming they have the ability.
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