Is there a word to describe an irrational fear of grocery shopping? Better ask Google: officinaphobia, from the Latin officina, a shop.
Under current conditions, is officinaphobia really all that irrational? Asking for a friend.
In a time a social distancing, how do pickpockets earn a living? Can they apply for unemployment benefits? Or have they all moved indoors to become Zoom-bombers?
Zoom-bombers sounds like people so disgusted with how they look on the screen that they firebomb their own home offices, which would have the added benefit of injecting a little variety into the working-from-home situation, but no: Zoom-bombers exploit features of Zoom to force participants to view offensive content, like porn or racist rants. (Read it here.) The existence of Zoom-bombing provides further evidence, in case we needed it, that despicable people will find a way to act despicably in any situation.
Funny how everything on the syllabus right now seems to have some relevance to current conditions, from George Saunders's portrayal of characters trying to profit from the suffering of others (in "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline") to W.S. Merwin's poem "Rain Light," which shows how comfort can continue "even thought the whole world is burning." Next week my Colson Whitehead students will start reading Zone One, a zombie novel examining the various ways humanity responds after a global pandemic. Some suffer severe officinaphobia while others act despicably by seeking to profit from the disaster, but my favorite character rearranges debris to create art that will last long enough to convey meaning into the future.
I want to be that person, but instead I'm sitting at home obsessing over how I can avoid looking like an idiot on Zoom and wondering how long I can put off grocery shopping.
Friday, March 27, 2020
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
I've taught online before--why is this time different?
Everyone I know who has made the sudden shift to online teaching keeps talking about how exhausting it is, and I agree, but then I ask myself: I have taught online before without trouble; why is this time so different?
Let me count the ways:
Two or three times I taught an online course in Writing about Nature--a bit ironic, I know, relying on technology to write about nature, but we do what we have to do. Teaching that course was a total breeze for several reasons:
1. Summertime! I didn't have to teach other classes, attend committee meetings, or do any of the million other tasks associated with my job during the semester.
2. Preparation! I worked long and hard to set that class up, recording narrated PowerPoints and creating assignments and activities that did not require my constant attention. I had ample one-on-one support from our Instructional Technologist and an opportunity to test every part of the system before opening it up to students.
3. Asynchrony! Students completed assignments on their own time, meeting three deadlines each week; I could dip into the course to check on progress any time and respond to their online discussions and writing assignments at my leisure--no Zooming required.
4. Small class size! It's always easier to manage the needs of eight students rather than eighteen, whether online or face-to-face.
My current online classes, by contrast, had to be thrown together in a few days with assistance from our Instructional Technologist who is doing valiant work to provide services to literally the entire faculty, all at once. There was little time for testing or putting together elaborate resources, and of course I still have to deal with my usual committee work and my usual load of students.
I've made some changes in syllabi and assignments to allow some asynchronous work, but because my courses are largely discussion-based, we still meet virtually via Zoom at least two days a week. I have mastered breakout rooms, and I think the students enjoy meeting in small groups where they can chat comfortable with each other, although the one guy who was Zooming without a shirt on was maybe a little too comfortable. (This is college, dude. We wear clothes.)
I don't think I've "dumbed down" my classes but I've certainly inserted some flexibility, and I'm also offering a few unusual extra-credit opportunities designed to help students boost their grades while encouraging each other. My American Lit students, for instance, can earn a few extra points by choosing a character from their reading and writing about why they would or would not want to be quarantined with that person, with evidence from the text to support their claims. Me, I'm choosing a character with a working time machine so I can jump right past all this mess and see what comes next.
I admire my students' ability to adapt to circumstances: one rural student without home internet access drives down the road to a church parking lot where he can call in on his cell phone, and a couple of students in my 8 a.m. class are not complaining about having class at 6 because they live in a different time zone.
But I am exhausted. I feel like I'm on duty all the time, even while I'm sleeping. When I hear or read the so-called "experts" saying this experience proves that colleges can easily shift to online learning permanently, I utter a hollow laugh and start counting the days until I can afford to retire. With time, preparation, support, small class sizes, and more universal access to appropriate technology, online teaching could be a breeze, but not today, and probably not tomorrow either.
Let me count the ways:
Two or three times I taught an online course in Writing about Nature--a bit ironic, I know, relying on technology to write about nature, but we do what we have to do. Teaching that course was a total breeze for several reasons:
1. Summertime! I didn't have to teach other classes, attend committee meetings, or do any of the million other tasks associated with my job during the semester.
2. Preparation! I worked long and hard to set that class up, recording narrated PowerPoints and creating assignments and activities that did not require my constant attention. I had ample one-on-one support from our Instructional Technologist and an opportunity to test every part of the system before opening it up to students.
3. Asynchrony! Students completed assignments on their own time, meeting three deadlines each week; I could dip into the course to check on progress any time and respond to their online discussions and writing assignments at my leisure--no Zooming required.
4. Small class size! It's always easier to manage the needs of eight students rather than eighteen, whether online or face-to-face.
My current online classes, by contrast, had to be thrown together in a few days with assistance from our Instructional Technologist who is doing valiant work to provide services to literally the entire faculty, all at once. There was little time for testing or putting together elaborate resources, and of course I still have to deal with my usual committee work and my usual load of students.
I've made some changes in syllabi and assignments to allow some asynchronous work, but because my courses are largely discussion-based, we still meet virtually via Zoom at least two days a week. I have mastered breakout rooms, and I think the students enjoy meeting in small groups where they can chat comfortable with each other, although the one guy who was Zooming without a shirt on was maybe a little too comfortable. (This is college, dude. We wear clothes.)
I don't think I've "dumbed down" my classes but I've certainly inserted some flexibility, and I'm also offering a few unusual extra-credit opportunities designed to help students boost their grades while encouraging each other. My American Lit students, for instance, can earn a few extra points by choosing a character from their reading and writing about why they would or would not want to be quarantined with that person, with evidence from the text to support their claims. Me, I'm choosing a character with a working time machine so I can jump right past all this mess and see what comes next.
I admire my students' ability to adapt to circumstances: one rural student without home internet access drives down the road to a church parking lot where he can call in on his cell phone, and a couple of students in my 8 a.m. class are not complaining about having class at 6 because they live in a different time zone.
But I am exhausted. I feel like I'm on duty all the time, even while I'm sleeping. When I hear or read the so-called "experts" saying this experience proves that colleges can easily shift to online learning permanently, I utter a hollow laugh and start counting the days until I can afford to retire. With time, preparation, support, small class sizes, and more universal access to appropriate technology, online teaching could be a breeze, but not today, and probably not tomorrow either.
Monday, March 23, 2020
Home office blues
Shelter in place means stay home, but what is home? I feel most at home in my little house in the not-so-big woods, a house with lots of windows so every room offers views of trees and birds and other wild things. However, that house lack cell-phone access and reliable internet access, which I need for teaching my classes and surviving during the shelter-in-place order, so last Friday I packed up what I thought I would need for teaching my classes and took it all to the parsonage in Jackson, where the internet and cell-phone coverage are great but there's not much to see out of the windows.
On the plus side, I'll get to go through this struggle at my husband's side, and I can still go for walks out at the cemetery or at Lake Katharine after the weather clears up. On the minus side, I miss my woods, my birds, and my creek. Also, just a few days of relying entirely on my laptop have proved gruelling, causing elbow and neck pain, blurred vision, and headaches. I need the big computer monitor from my office and the docking station and external keyboard and mouse--and a desk to put it all on. I taught this morning from my dining-room table, which is not sustainable because it's small and we need to eat there, and somehow spilled salt ended up on all over my notes.
But we are safe and intending to stay that way. I'm reminded of the six months I spent doing chemotherapy and radiation, when I struggled through sleepless nights by visualizing a happier future or planning a long road trips down the Pacific Coast Highway. In 2011, I had the privilege of taking my California Literature students there during Spring Break, and when I stood on the shore of the Pacific at Big Sur with my health restored and a full head of hair, it felt like triumph.
So today as I try to cope with neck pain and blurred vision and an uninspiring view, I keep trying to believe in a happier future when we can move freely about the country in the company of people we love. "Next year in California," I keep telling myself, and I might even come to believe it one day.
Updated to add: Just after I posted this, I noticed a robin building a nest under the eaves just outside my "office" window. I realize that having a choice of two places to live is a first-world problem that many people would welcome, but when this style of life starts feeling oppressive, it's good to be reminded that nature is still doing its thing out there, even if I can't always see it.
On the plus side, I'll get to go through this struggle at my husband's side, and I can still go for walks out at the cemetery or at Lake Katharine after the weather clears up. On the minus side, I miss my woods, my birds, and my creek. Also, just a few days of relying entirely on my laptop have proved gruelling, causing elbow and neck pain, blurred vision, and headaches. I need the big computer monitor from my office and the docking station and external keyboard and mouse--and a desk to put it all on. I taught this morning from my dining-room table, which is not sustainable because it's small and we need to eat there, and somehow spilled salt ended up on all over my notes.
But we are safe and intending to stay that way. I'm reminded of the six months I spent doing chemotherapy and radiation, when I struggled through sleepless nights by visualizing a happier future or planning a long road trips down the Pacific Coast Highway. In 2011, I had the privilege of taking my California Literature students there during Spring Break, and when I stood on the shore of the Pacific at Big Sur with my health restored and a full head of hair, it felt like triumph.
So today as I try to cope with neck pain and blurred vision and an uninspiring view, I keep trying to believe in a happier future when we can move freely about the country in the company of people we love. "Next year in California," I keep telling myself, and I might even come to believe it one day.
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| The view from my "office" |
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| Where I really want to be right now |
Updated to add: Just after I posted this, I noticed a robin building a nest under the eaves just outside my "office" window. I realize that having a choice of two places to live is a first-world problem that many people would welcome, but when this style of life starts feeling oppressive, it's good to be reminded that nature is still doing its thing out there, even if I can't always see it.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Just ducky
I didn't walk far this morning because of threatening weather, but I found plenty to distract me from the current crisis: flotsam washed up by last night's heavy rain, cardinals chasing each other through the forsythia, waterleaf and coltsfoot popping up in the woods alongside the usual spring crop of beer cans tossed out of passing cars (why?), spring rivulets washing down the hillsides, standing waves in the creek where a few days ago our grandkids were wading--and, best of all, a pair of wood ducks in the trees above the creek. I've caught a few glimpses of ducks for a week or so but never saw enough to provide a clear identification. I hope this pair decides to nest nearby.
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| I can see how high the creek rose based on what it left behind. |
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| Why do people do this? All up and down my country road! |
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| wood ducks! |
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| This tree caught...something. |
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| This is where we were wading last week. |
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| And the bridge caught a tree. |
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| titmouse! |
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| Such a handsome couple. |
Seeking cheer in the midst of fear
Every day this week I've reached a point when I just wanted to lie down and cry, usually toward the end of the afternoon when I'm exhausted from learning so many new skills and tired of my own company, but tears can be also triggered by minor matters, like the absence of cars in the campus parking lot, or major issues, like the lockdown at my Dad's assisted living facility, where he is no longer allowed to leave his room even to take walks up the hall and so spends all his time alone with nothing but the television to entertain him, and at the moment nothing he sees is particularly entertaining.
Spending too much time listening to news or looking at social media makes me jittery, and my attention span has gone all to pieces as I scramble for reasons to hope. So many groups and individuals are making resources available online--we should all be virtually touring art museums or learning new languages or watching opera or going outside to see nature doing its Spring thing.
Carefully. Keeping our distance. Washing our hands.
Yesterday my daughter sent me a video of a chickadee feeding from my granddaughter's hand. The bird lands and Miss E looks surprised, and then the bird takes off just as a huge grin flashes across her face. I've played that video over and over again, and I'm also monitoring the Marietta College hawk nest live stream (click here). Outside my window the phoebes are calling and towhees have returned, and down by the creek the kingfishers are chattering up a storm. After a bit I'll walk out and see what else is happening in the non-virtual world.
I won't be gone long. You come too.
Spending too much time listening to news or looking at social media makes me jittery, and my attention span has gone all to pieces as I scramble for reasons to hope. So many groups and individuals are making resources available online--we should all be virtually touring art museums or learning new languages or watching opera or going outside to see nature doing its Spring thing.
Carefully. Keeping our distance. Washing our hands.
Yesterday my daughter sent me a video of a chickadee feeding from my granddaughter's hand. The bird lands and Miss E looks surprised, and then the bird takes off just as a huge grin flashes across her face. I've played that video over and over again, and I'm also monitoring the Marietta College hawk nest live stream (click here). Outside my window the phoebes are calling and towhees have returned, and down by the creek the kingfishers are chattering up a storm. After a bit I'll walk out and see what else is happening in the non-virtual world.
I won't be gone long. You come too.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Questions I'm obsessing over right now
Will recording Zoom class sessions inhibit student participation?
How inhibited do I feel when I know I'm being recorded?
Is this why I refuse to use video in Zoom and why I rely entirely on audio instead?
Will I ever get over my horror of being recorded?
Does this stress me out more than any other aspect of online teaching?
What about privacy issues? Does random noise from the student's household need to be recorded in perpetuity?
At this chaotic point in time, do I really need to learn to use a video editing program to delete the unnecessary sections from the class meeting recording?
It's helpful to have a recording to share with students who have tech issues and miss the class meeting, but if I make the recording widely available, will this encourage students to skip the class meeting and rely entirely on the recording?
What kind of class discussion can we have if no one shows up?
Instead of cancelling our student poetry reading, why not move it online?
Wouldn't lots of people enjoy watching students read their creative works in front of cool virtual backgrounds?
If an online poetry reading is such a great idea, why didn't I step up and volunteer to organize it?
If I had to take an exam online, would it totally creep me out to know that an electronic proctoring program was monitoring my every move and even taking control of my computer to limit access to other programs?
If such a system would creep me out, why would I expect my students to welcome it?
Is it possible to adapt my exams to make such invasive monitoring unnecessary?
Am I a fool to have spent time submitting my fall book orders?
Is it safe to assume that we will have some sort of fall classes regardless of circumstances, or is that assumption unreasonably optimistic?
Does that little frisson of pleasure provided by crossing fall book orders off my to-do list offset the possibility that it's a total waste of time?
Will my wrist and elbow ever stop aching?
Will my eyes ever un-blur?
Will I ever stop obsessing over everything that could possibly go wrong in my online classes?
Monday, March 16, 2020
I taught online and it didn't kill me (yet)
After teaching my first class online this morning, I have to wonder: How can it be so exhausting to sit at my desk and talk to a screen?
Difficulty sleeping last night certainly has something to do with it; maybe by Wednesday this whole setup will be so routine that I'll be sleeping like a baby instead of repeatedly waking up in a panic over how to share a whiteboard on Zoom.
I did fine sharing the whiteboard, by the way, but then I neglected to save it, so I will have to see whether I can retrieve it from the recording or else reproduce the material on the whiteboard from memory. And I managed to show a brief video clip, although I skipped a step and had to start it over after one brave soul said he couldn't see it.
All but one of my 8 a.m. students showed up (virtually) for class, and the missing student had told me in advance that she would be on the road during class time and would check in with me later. At the beginning of the class session, I wanted to check on our ability to communicate as a group so I went down the roster and asked each student to say something interesting about where they were. A few remain on campus but most of my students are working from home, which is probably for the best.
I was pleased with my students' willingness to jump in and respond to questions, but it feels very odd to talk to a group of people I can't see, unable to gauge their engagement with the material or their eagerness to respond. On Wednesday we'll try an online quiz and by Friday I have to figure out how to do peer review of drafts online. Maybe by next week I'll be ready to try small-group discussions on Zoom, and at some point I need to decide how I plan to give exams.
First, though, I need to chill for a bit. The first class went well enough but they're my talky class; the 11:00 group is much more reticent and also bigger, so I worry about participation. One down, an unknown number to go....I hope I don't have to spend the rest of my career teaching this way, but at least for the moment, I think I can manage.
Difficulty sleeping last night certainly has something to do with it; maybe by Wednesday this whole setup will be so routine that I'll be sleeping like a baby instead of repeatedly waking up in a panic over how to share a whiteboard on Zoom.
I did fine sharing the whiteboard, by the way, but then I neglected to save it, so I will have to see whether I can retrieve it from the recording or else reproduce the material on the whiteboard from memory. And I managed to show a brief video clip, although I skipped a step and had to start it over after one brave soul said he couldn't see it.
All but one of my 8 a.m. students showed up (virtually) for class, and the missing student had told me in advance that she would be on the road during class time and would check in with me later. At the beginning of the class session, I wanted to check on our ability to communicate as a group so I went down the roster and asked each student to say something interesting about where they were. A few remain on campus but most of my students are working from home, which is probably for the best.
I was pleased with my students' willingness to jump in and respond to questions, but it feels very odd to talk to a group of people I can't see, unable to gauge their engagement with the material or their eagerness to respond. On Wednesday we'll try an online quiz and by Friday I have to figure out how to do peer review of drafts online. Maybe by next week I'll be ready to try small-group discussions on Zoom, and at some point I need to decide how I plan to give exams.
First, though, I need to chill for a bit. The first class went well enough but they're my talky class; the 11:00 group is much more reticent and also bigger, so I worry about participation. One down, an unknown number to go....I hope I don't have to spend the rest of my career teaching this way, but at least for the moment, I think I can manage.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Pushed to the brink by tech
It was a student, finally, who talked me down off the ledge.
It's been a rough week for everyone suddenly struggling to master the technology needed for moving all course material online. I don't envy my colleagues teaching hands-on courses like art or science labs, but those of us who traffic only in words and ideas are finding the situation difficult enough. Yesterday I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to do necessary stuff in Zoom, and by the end of the day all I wanted to do was to quit teaching entirely and take up something less stressful, like pounding my head against a brick wall all day long.
A tech specialist tried to encourage me. "You're pretty good with technology," she said; "you'll figure it out. Just be glad you're not--" and then she named a colleague known for antipathy to all sorts of technology.
Well I saw Dr. Antipathy yesterday, and he's not struggling at all. He looked calm and well rested, in stark contrast to my frazzled and freaked-out appearance. "I'll just give my students some extra assignments," he said; "I'm not going to bother with any of that online stuff" (although he may have used a more vivid word than "stuff").
But I need that online stuff! I need to lead class discussions, present information visually and verbally, and encourage student engagement, and to do that I need to move beyond Moodle and master all the elements of Zoom, all while wondering why all these educational access programs sound like they were named by four-year-olds. And despite some experience with online learning, I'm not finding any of this easy.
I keep being reminded of my mother, who was a registered nurse for many decades, adapting to vast changes in medical care without much fuss or complaint. She never made the switch to wearing scrubs but instead held on to her white nursing uniform and little starched hat, but she had to adjust to all the technological changes involved in caring for oncology patients. She loved her job so I was surprised when she retired, but she'd reached a point where she would need to learn a whole new set of procedures for administering chemotherapy and she decided it was just a bridge too far.
Yesterday I wondered whether Zoom is my bridge too far, the point where all my teaching skills break down and leave me helpless and blubbering in front of my class. I felt my confidence diminishing with each click of the mouse, and at my lowest point I started composing a resignation letter in my head.
But it's amazing how much more hopeful things look after a good night's sleep. Today I tackled the worst of the technology and got all my classes prepared for Monday, but I still lacked confidence that the setup would work. Then along came an email from student who is scheduled to give a presentation in the Colson Whitehead class on Monday, and before you know it I'd set up a test meeting space in Zoom to let her run through her presentation, and then we tried out some of the other functions so she could tell me how things looked from her end. We had a few rough spots but I'm pleased to report that everything worked without too much fuss.
I think I'm ready to roll out online classes on Monday, but here's the scary part: it took me the better part of the week just to prepare for one day's teaching. I certainly hope I've moved past the worst part of the learning curve because there aren't enough hours in the day to put this amount of effort into every class for the rest of the semester, provided that we have a rest of the semester.
And one last thing: if working with this technology made me feel so thoroughly hopeless and confused, how will my students feel? At least I can tell them truthfully that I feel their pain.
It's been a rough week for everyone suddenly struggling to master the technology needed for moving all course material online. I don't envy my colleagues teaching hands-on courses like art or science labs, but those of us who traffic only in words and ideas are finding the situation difficult enough. Yesterday I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to do necessary stuff in Zoom, and by the end of the day all I wanted to do was to quit teaching entirely and take up something less stressful, like pounding my head against a brick wall all day long.
A tech specialist tried to encourage me. "You're pretty good with technology," she said; "you'll figure it out. Just be glad you're not--" and then she named a colleague known for antipathy to all sorts of technology.
Well I saw Dr. Antipathy yesterday, and he's not struggling at all. He looked calm and well rested, in stark contrast to my frazzled and freaked-out appearance. "I'll just give my students some extra assignments," he said; "I'm not going to bother with any of that online stuff" (although he may have used a more vivid word than "stuff").
But I need that online stuff! I need to lead class discussions, present information visually and verbally, and encourage student engagement, and to do that I need to move beyond Moodle and master all the elements of Zoom, all while wondering why all these educational access programs sound like they were named by four-year-olds. And despite some experience with online learning, I'm not finding any of this easy.
I keep being reminded of my mother, who was a registered nurse for many decades, adapting to vast changes in medical care without much fuss or complaint. She never made the switch to wearing scrubs but instead held on to her white nursing uniform and little starched hat, but she had to adjust to all the technological changes involved in caring for oncology patients. She loved her job so I was surprised when she retired, but she'd reached a point where she would need to learn a whole new set of procedures for administering chemotherapy and she decided it was just a bridge too far.
Yesterday I wondered whether Zoom is my bridge too far, the point where all my teaching skills break down and leave me helpless and blubbering in front of my class. I felt my confidence diminishing with each click of the mouse, and at my lowest point I started composing a resignation letter in my head.
But it's amazing how much more hopeful things look after a good night's sleep. Today I tackled the worst of the technology and got all my classes prepared for Monday, but I still lacked confidence that the setup would work. Then along came an email from student who is scheduled to give a presentation in the Colson Whitehead class on Monday, and before you know it I'd set up a test meeting space in Zoom to let her run through her presentation, and then we tried out some of the other functions so she could tell me how things looked from her end. We had a few rough spots but I'm pleased to report that everything worked without too much fuss.
I think I'm ready to roll out online classes on Monday, but here's the scary part: it took me the better part of the week just to prepare for one day's teaching. I certainly hope I've moved past the worst part of the learning curve because there aren't enough hours in the day to put this amount of effort into every class for the rest of the semester, provided that we have a rest of the semester.
And one last thing: if working with this technology made me feel so thoroughly hopeless and confused, how will my students feel? At least I can tell them truthfully that I feel their pain.
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
In a fowl humor
I was out in the back yard burning trash when I noticed in the neighbor's hay-meadow a parliament of fowls worrying over some unfortunate carcass. Black vultures they were, with their white underwing tips and chain-mail-gray heads, an unusual bird at our house but quite common just an hour or so west.
I feared at first that this encounter was a metaphor for my current situation: scrambling to keep the chaos under control while scavengers wait in the wings to carry off the scraps--and I'm not referring only to the Internal Revenue Service, although they certainly come to mind when the vultures start to circle. The vultures have come to nibble away at what little time, energy, and sanity remain after I figure out how to deliver my classes online despite unreliable technology, inadequate sleep, and no transportation whatsoever (because my son's car broke down last night--all the oil came spurting out when he tried to start the engine, which surely can't be anything serious, right?--so he's using mine until, well, whenever).
But thinking about all the ways in which my life feels like a human sacrifice to ravenous scavengers just gets me down, so instead I'm wondering how Chaucer would have responded to the local influx of vultures. His Parlement of Fowles focused on far classier birds, of course, eagles mouthing cliches of courtly love on Valentine's Day; what would Chaucer do with vultures hovering over a nation in panic over an impending pandemic? That's an epic for a different kind of poet--maybe Shakespeare in full Lear mode or Cormac McCarthy channeling William Blake.
As for me, I've got nothing--not a rhyme, not a joke, not the slightest gesture that might transform the current chaos into some sort of sense. Trash is burning and vultures are circling and all I can do is stand over the fire wondering what's going to happen next.
I feared at first that this encounter was a metaphor for my current situation: scrambling to keep the chaos under control while scavengers wait in the wings to carry off the scraps--and I'm not referring only to the Internal Revenue Service, although they certainly come to mind when the vultures start to circle. The vultures have come to nibble away at what little time, energy, and sanity remain after I figure out how to deliver my classes online despite unreliable technology, inadequate sleep, and no transportation whatsoever (because my son's car broke down last night--all the oil came spurting out when he tried to start the engine, which surely can't be anything serious, right?--so he's using mine until, well, whenever).
But thinking about all the ways in which my life feels like a human sacrifice to ravenous scavengers just gets me down, so instead I'm wondering how Chaucer would have responded to the local influx of vultures. His Parlement of Fowles focused on far classier birds, of course, eagles mouthing cliches of courtly love on Valentine's Day; what would Chaucer do with vultures hovering over a nation in panic over an impending pandemic? That's an epic for a different kind of poet--maybe Shakespeare in full Lear mode or Cormac McCarthy channeling William Blake.
As for me, I've got nothing--not a rhyme, not a joke, not the slightest gesture that might transform the current chaos into some sort of sense. Trash is burning and vultures are circling and all I can do is stand over the fire wondering what's going to happen next.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Spring break = spring broken, or the perils of pandemic panic
Just over ten years ago I spent a week teaching all my classes online to protect my chemotherapy-ravaged immune system from whatever toxic crud was making its way around campus at the time--but that was just one week, and my students were still able to assemble as needed or visit the library and other campus services.
Now comes word that we're required to teach all of our classes online starting Monday, with no end date in sight and no expectation that students will be on campus at all. Good thing I have the rest of Spring Break to figure out how to make this work.
The challenges are daunting: my textbooks and course materials are on campus and so, I suspect, are my students'. My home internet service is stronger than ever but still not strong enough to allow streaming video or synchronous chat; I could drive five miles up the highway and piggyback on the wi-fi at the McDonald's while giving lectures and leading discussions from the parking lot, but I think I'd rather take the risk of sequestering myself in my campus office.
Not that the risk is high. There are no known COVID-19 cases in the area, although it's the unknown cases that have everyone frightened. I was supposed to travel to North Carolina this week to visit my Dad but got waylaid by an earache accompanied by a nasty case of vertigo; before the visit was cancelled I was repeatedly offered this helpful bit of advice: "Don't get near anyone who might have the virus." Okay! Given the flexibility of the word might, I think my best bet is just to lock myself in the basement and not come out until the last person standing sounds the All Clear.
Now comes word that we're required to teach all of our classes online starting Monday, with no end date in sight and no expectation that students will be on campus at all. Good thing I have the rest of Spring Break to figure out how to make this work.
The challenges are daunting: my textbooks and course materials are on campus and so, I suspect, are my students'. My home internet service is stronger than ever but still not strong enough to allow streaming video or synchronous chat; I could drive five miles up the highway and piggyback on the wi-fi at the McDonald's while giving lectures and leading discussions from the parking lot, but I think I'd rather take the risk of sequestering myself in my campus office.
Not that the risk is high. There are no known COVID-19 cases in the area, although it's the unknown cases that have everyone frightened. I was supposed to travel to North Carolina this week to visit my Dad but got waylaid by an earache accompanied by a nasty case of vertigo; before the visit was cancelled I was repeatedly offered this helpful bit of advice: "Don't get near anyone who might have the virus." Okay! Given the flexibility of the word might, I think my best bet is just to lock myself in the basement and not come out until the last person standing sounds the All Clear.
Saturday, March 07, 2020
Bird in the hand
A chickadee lands on my hand as insubstantial as a puff of dandelion fluff, but then it takes off with spring-loaded legs that propel it so powerfully into the woods that it's hard to believe it was ever there at all. At F.A. Sieberling Nature Realm in Akron, Ohio, we slid on snow-covered paths through woods alive with early-morning birdsong, and soon a few handfuls of birdseed lured chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, and cardinals toward our hands. Each bird's arrival was a revelation, a weightless bundle of feathers appearing from nowhere to grab a seed and quickly fly off, but each new visit brought fresh delight. Light as a feather but full of power: birds in the hand.
Friday, March 06, 2020
Not the evil supervillain you'd imagined
All morning I've been telling myself Don't be evil, a situation that rarely arises in my current milieu. You'll notice, for instance, that one rarely finds a comic-book-style supervillain brewing up a secret plan to destroy the world while working in the bowels of the English department. In my boring workaday world, opportunities to intentionally make someone's life miserable arise only rarely and aren't particularly tempting.
But after a week crammed full with meetings and paperwork and massive amounts of grading, it might feel positively cathartic to stand in front of a class and say something like this: "Before you take your exam, I want you to know that I've identified passages in some papers that were copied directly from online sources without attribution, which constitutes plagiarism. Those of you who did that need to see me as soon as you're done taking your midterm exam. You know who you are."
Yes, that would be truly evil, but on the whole I think I'd prefer to abstain, not least because I don't want a guilty conscience to burden my weekend with the grandkids.
But the question remains: if you were a student, when would you want to be told that your attempt at plagiarism had been uncovered? Before the midterm exam, which would be distracting, or after the exam, when everyone leaves campus for Spring Break and therefore won't be able to do anything about the situation for a week? Which would be less evil: to ruin a student's concentration on an exam or force the student to stew about the incident all through Spring Break?
Probably I'm overthinking this. Probably this situation, which to me seems so fraught with danger, will constitute a mere blip on the student's consciousness, a minor incident that will be quickly forgotten. Probably I should just calmly follow our campus procedures without any hint of vindictiveness or anger. This is me, sitting calmly in my office abstaining from evil. Somebody give me a gold star.
But after a week crammed full with meetings and paperwork and massive amounts of grading, it might feel positively cathartic to stand in front of a class and say something like this: "Before you take your exam, I want you to know that I've identified passages in some papers that were copied directly from online sources without attribution, which constitutes plagiarism. Those of you who did that need to see me as soon as you're done taking your midterm exam. You know who you are."
Yes, that would be truly evil, but on the whole I think I'd prefer to abstain, not least because I don't want a guilty conscience to burden my weekend with the grandkids.
But the question remains: if you were a student, when would you want to be told that your attempt at plagiarism had been uncovered? Before the midterm exam, which would be distracting, or after the exam, when everyone leaves campus for Spring Break and therefore won't be able to do anything about the situation for a week? Which would be less evil: to ruin a student's concentration on an exam or force the student to stew about the incident all through Spring Break?
Probably I'm overthinking this. Probably this situation, which to me seems so fraught with danger, will constitute a mere blip on the student's consciousness, a minor incident that will be quickly forgotten. Probably I should just calmly follow our campus procedures without any hint of vindictiveness or anger. This is me, sitting calmly in my office abstaining from evil. Somebody give me a gold star.
Tuesday, March 03, 2020
Pandemic planning 101
The threat of a global coronavirus pandemic inspired the person who supplies faculty snacks to announce a new policy: no more communal potato-chip bags; single-serve packages only! Pandemic Packaging she called it, or, if you prefer a peppy portmanteau, pandackaging.
This proposal caused the pandemic skeptics (pandeptics) to decry the needless expense, while the pandemic fatalists (pandatalists) objected for a different reason: we're all doomed anyway, so why not share our misery as we share our snacks?
"Just tell everyone to wash their hands and we'll all be fine," insisted the resident pandoptimist, at which point a pandessimist proposed stationing strong men bearing baseball bats in every public rest room to encourage compliance.
"I'm telling my students to take all their textbooks home over spring break so they can keep up with the reading if they get quarantined," said an old-school tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches prof (pantweedademic), provoking a trauma-informed pedagogue (pantraumagogue) to shriek about spinal damage and PTSD caused by bearing heavy backpacks.
The last word, of course, came from our fearless leader, Dr. Pangloss, who assured us that all will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds, which is where the coronavirus lives. Resistance is futile. We are all Panglossademics now.
This proposal caused the pandemic skeptics (pandeptics) to decry the needless expense, while the pandemic fatalists (pandatalists) objected for a different reason: we're all doomed anyway, so why not share our misery as we share our snacks?
"Just tell everyone to wash their hands and we'll all be fine," insisted the resident pandoptimist, at which point a pandessimist proposed stationing strong men bearing baseball bats in every public rest room to encourage compliance.
"I'm telling my students to take all their textbooks home over spring break so they can keep up with the reading if they get quarantined," said an old-school tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches prof (pantweedademic), provoking a trauma-informed pedagogue (pantraumagogue) to shriek about spinal damage and PTSD caused by bearing heavy backpacks.
The last word, of course, came from our fearless leader, Dr. Pangloss, who assured us that all will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds, which is where the coronavirus lives. Resistance is futile. We are all Panglossademics now.
Tossing out the catnip question
I don't often hear the word joy applied to grading exams, but I'm sitting at my desk smiling from ear to ear after reading an essay scribbled in response to a question on the midterm exam I gave yesterday. I don't even care how hard I had to work to decipher the student's nearly illegible handwriting: he grabbed that question and nailed it--which made me immensely happy because I'd written that question with this particular student in mind.
I know, I know--exams are supposed to be objective measures of students' understanding, not invitations for a certain student to showboat, but this is an odd kind of exam: students are given seven topics but must write about only four of them, and for each topic they choose, they have to write about three literary works listed beneath the topic. The question in question (ha!) presents a topic and three works I suspected few students would care to tackle (and sure enough, very few did), but I've had this student in class before, and I knew that if he were a cat, this question would be catnip.
And of course he jumped on it with both feet and batted it into submission. Given the time constraints, his response was rich, insightful, and buzzing with energy. If every response were like that, midterm grading would be sheer delight instead of drudgery occasionally punctuated by small pleasures. To read an exam that evokes the word joy is highly unusual, but that's why I wrote the question the way I did: to entice a student to make grading great again, of only for a moment.
I know, I know--exams are supposed to be objective measures of students' understanding, not invitations for a certain student to showboat, but this is an odd kind of exam: students are given seven topics but must write about only four of them, and for each topic they choose, they have to write about three literary works listed beneath the topic. The question in question (ha!) presents a topic and three works I suspected few students would care to tackle (and sure enough, very few did), but I've had this student in class before, and I knew that if he were a cat, this question would be catnip.
And of course he jumped on it with both feet and batted it into submission. Given the time constraints, his response was rich, insightful, and buzzing with energy. If every response were like that, midterm grading would be sheer delight instead of drudgery occasionally punctuated by small pleasures. To read an exam that evokes the word joy is highly unusual, but that's why I wrote the question the way I did: to entice a student to make grading great again, of only for a moment.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Jackie on my shoulder
Had lunch today with a group of senior faculty who know what I mean when I say I've got Jackie on my shoulder. Jackie's been dead for a decade but she still gives us good advice, sitting on our shoulders and telling us to Just say no when we need to protect our time, or telling us to Finish things when we're torn between a ton of different projects, or telling us to Turn off the television when we need to focus on things that matter, and if she'd lived to the current day she'd be telling us to Put away the phone and get back to work.
I realize this makes Jackie sound like a particularly annoying killjoy, but trust me: she knew how to get things done without sacrificing joy. She'd been through all the kinds of grief academe can throw in a scholar's way and emerged victorious and full of insight, which she was always willing to share with younger colleagues. She had a huge impact on the cohort of faculty members who arrived when I did, but the number of people who remember her grows smaller every year.
Now those of us who were sitting around the table today talking about Jackie on our shoulder are stepping into her shoes, finding ways to encourage junior faculty to protect their time and focus their efforts and step up into leadership positions. If someday a colleague blames a good decision on that nagging voice of Bev on her shoulder, my work here will not be in vain.
I realize this makes Jackie sound like a particularly annoying killjoy, but trust me: she knew how to get things done without sacrificing joy. She'd been through all the kinds of grief academe can throw in a scholar's way and emerged victorious and full of insight, which she was always willing to share with younger colleagues. She had a huge impact on the cohort of faculty members who arrived when I did, but the number of people who remember her grows smaller every year.
Now those of us who were sitting around the table today talking about Jackie on our shoulder are stepping into her shoes, finding ways to encourage junior faculty to protect their time and focus their efforts and step up into leadership positions. If someday a colleague blames a good decision on that nagging voice of Bev on her shoulder, my work here will not be in vain.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Because I really need a break from reading drafts
"It's time to make your verbs do the heavy lifting," I wrote in the margin of a students' draft, and I showed him some options for achieving that goal. I wouldn't offer the same suggestion to every student because those who are still floundering about for a coherent argument have bigger fish to fry, but it's very satisfying to read a draft in which the biggest challenge is encouraging a student to experiment with verbs.
Students sometimes think I'm picky about things like over-reliance on weak linking verbs, but I remind them of my now-retired colleague whose rule was "no more than three weak linking verbs per page." Try it! Cutting down on weak verbs requires paying close attention to sentence structure, a helpful exercise for any serious writer--or even the non-serious kind.
Reading student drafts requires a sort of triage, first determining the level of trauma and then determining the appropriate treatment. I have a bad habit of first reaching for papers that I suspect will be really good, which sets the bar high for the remaining papers but also assures me that the writing task was actually doable. The primary drawback of this approach is that I always end up with a group of papers requiring the most exhausting sort of intensive care.
But, as I was reminded in my Colson Whitehead class today, reading student papers is not as difficult or dangerous as pounding tunnels through solid rock or trying to harpoon a whale on the open seas, and the pay is probably better too. I'm not going to complain (much) about a task that offers me the opportunity to introduce a student to interesting verbs, even at the cost of fatigued eyes and occasional boredom.
Students sometimes think I'm picky about things like over-reliance on weak linking verbs, but I remind them of my now-retired colleague whose rule was "no more than three weak linking verbs per page." Try it! Cutting down on weak verbs requires paying close attention to sentence structure, a helpful exercise for any serious writer--or even the non-serious kind.
Reading student drafts requires a sort of triage, first determining the level of trauma and then determining the appropriate treatment. I have a bad habit of first reaching for papers that I suspect will be really good, which sets the bar high for the remaining papers but also assures me that the writing task was actually doable. The primary drawback of this approach is that I always end up with a group of papers requiring the most exhausting sort of intensive care.
But, as I was reminded in my Colson Whitehead class today, reading student papers is not as difficult or dangerous as pounding tunnels through solid rock or trying to harpoon a whale on the open seas, and the pay is probably better too. I'm not going to complain (much) about a task that offers me the opportunity to introduce a student to interesting verbs, even at the cost of fatigued eyes and occasional boredom.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Not that anyone asked...
I drove to work this morning behind an attractive Acura sporting a license plate that said GOLFGLV, which I interpreted as "golf glove" because what else could it be? And then I had to wonder why someone would feel so enamored of a golf glove that he would feel the need to advertise that fact so publicly (and of COURSE I assumed it was a guy--wouldn't you?). Maybe he made a killing manufacturing golf gloves or somehow owes all his success in life to a certain golf glove, or maybe he considers his car a metaphorical golf glove, which makes no sense to me--but then, I'm not the one driving around with a vanity plate that says GOLFGLV. These things ought to come with interpretations, or maybe someone could create a web site where people could post the explanation for their vanity plates to satisfy the curiosity of fellow drivers. Until that happens, I'll be scratching my head over GOLFGLV.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Winged palette
I'd like to call these bird photos Arrangement in Gray and Black but apparently the title is already in use. (Should I apologize to James McNeil Whistler or to his mother?) And besides, arrangement suggest that I did some arranging, which is patently not the case: my job in these circumstances it to sit as still as possible so as to become invisible to the birds and wait for them to land where the lens can reach them. Also, while it's true that gray and black appear in each photo, they don't at all cover the range of colors appearing around my birdfeeders yesterday. Goldfinches still sport their muted winter colors, but when the feeders are full, I never fail to see brilliant flashes of red and blue. And now the red-winged blackbirds have returned! Soon they'll be perching on fenceposts all over the county, but for now I see just a few early harbingers of spring.
Friday, February 21, 2020
Prof, interrupted
So many interruptions this week and sometimes interruptions inside interruptions, so that a look back at what I've accomplished reveals only scattered fragments that fail to cohere, which is appropriate since a fragmented sense of reality is an important characteristic of modernism that we've been discussing for two weeks in my American Lit Survey class, and despite the fact that I've written the word fragmentation on the whiteboard numerous times (alongside alienation, perspectivism, collage, and others), the word appeared on only a handful of reading quizzes on modernism the other day, leaving a whole lot of students flailing about to produce empty and inane statements about how modernism refers to literature that is really, really modern, and so I have relented and created a handout listing some essential characteristics of modernist literature for the benefit of those who have not written them down all the times we've discussed them in class.
Will the handout help? I tried to help some students in my Concepts of Nature class this week but, as is usually the case when I offer any kind of extra credit opportunities, very few students took advantage of the offer, and not the ones who needed it most. Nearly half of the students in that class earned a D or F on the first exam, which I found alarming because it covered concepts that they will need to use throughout the semester, like the pastoral mode and dualism, so I created a way for students to earn up to 10 additional points on their exam grade by coming to my office--with textbooks and notes in hand--and answering some questions orally about the concepts they'd bobbled on the exam. Yesterday was the last day for students to do this, which explains some of my frequent interruptions, and on the whole I enjoyed having face-to-face discussions with students about interesting literature--but only six (of 19) students came in, and only half of those had earned a D or F on the exam; the rest wanted to move their B up to an A, and I get that, I really do, but why did the students who most need the extra points not even bother to try? This I will never understand.
But now the deadline has passed and I'll return the exams today and hand out the modernism terms and start a new book in the Colson Whitehead class and lead a lunchtime workshop for colleagues eager to learn the secret to responding to student writing without pain or struggle (spoiler: there isn't one) and in between all that I'll try to form the fragments of my week into something I'm not ashamed to leave lying on my desk, and anything that doesn't fit will have to come along for the weekend, when I intend to take refuge, as much as possible, in an interruption-free zone.
Will the handout help? I tried to help some students in my Concepts of Nature class this week but, as is usually the case when I offer any kind of extra credit opportunities, very few students took advantage of the offer, and not the ones who needed it most. Nearly half of the students in that class earned a D or F on the first exam, which I found alarming because it covered concepts that they will need to use throughout the semester, like the pastoral mode and dualism, so I created a way for students to earn up to 10 additional points on their exam grade by coming to my office--with textbooks and notes in hand--and answering some questions orally about the concepts they'd bobbled on the exam. Yesterday was the last day for students to do this, which explains some of my frequent interruptions, and on the whole I enjoyed having face-to-face discussions with students about interesting literature--but only six (of 19) students came in, and only half of those had earned a D or F on the exam; the rest wanted to move their B up to an A, and I get that, I really do, but why did the students who most need the extra points not even bother to try? This I will never understand.
But now the deadline has passed and I'll return the exams today and hand out the modernism terms and start a new book in the Colson Whitehead class and lead a lunchtime workshop for colleagues eager to learn the secret to responding to student writing without pain or struggle (spoiler: there isn't one) and in between all that I'll try to form the fragments of my week into something I'm not ashamed to leave lying on my desk, and anything that doesn't fit will have to come along for the weekend, when I intend to take refuge, as much as possible, in an interruption-free zone.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Kaleidoscopic
Screens! Too many of 'em everywhere I look, demanding that I pay attention (to emails, essays, way too many ads) and rewarding my attention with squinty, fuzzy vision and lingering headaches. Today I've been struggling to book rooms for a trip I'm planning for students who want to learn about careers in editing and publishing so I'm taking them to New York next month to meet with editors, but if you think it's easy to find affordable hotel rooms in midtown Manhattan for seven people on a busy weekend, think again. I see a rate that looks good but then have to scroll and squint to read the small print that complicates everything--massive resort fees! Impossible parking! Only king suites available! And here's an Airbnb claiming to accommodate 8 people with only two beds. Who's sleeping in the closet? Not me!
Time to turn away from the screens and scan the world outside my office window, or unwrap the kaleidoscope and watch the shiny colors tumble and turn. Too much squinting at tiny details--I need to take the long view. Perhaps a walk down to the river would help. Sign me up! I'm on my way (and no resort fees apply).
Time to turn away from the screens and scan the world outside my office window, or unwrap the kaleidoscope and watch the shiny colors tumble and turn. Too much squinting at tiny details--I need to take the long view. Perhaps a walk down to the river would help. Sign me up! I'm on my way (and no resort fees apply).
Monday, February 17, 2020
Of sledding and sleepwalking
Sleepy Monday, 8 a.m., and what do we have on the syllabus? A discussion of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which seems appropriate: a sleepy poem, a character who struggles to find the strength to wake himself from a life befogged and befuddled by indecision, inaction, and despair. Do I dare to teach Prufrock on a day when all anyone wants to do is take a nap?
I have measured out my life in attempts to explain obscure allusions to students too young or inexperienced to recognize them, but today I'm not sure I dare disturb the universe of those who sleep-walk into class under the influence of mid-semester malaise. Too many projects and deadlines and social activities in their lives and now I want them to attend to a dude who thinks a "love song" begins in hell and ends with drowning? It's a tough sell.
I feel for Prufrock today because I had too much fun and too little sleep this past weekend, when I measured out my life in photos of the grandkids sliding their sleds down a snowy hill. What do children know of existential despair? They slide, they spin, they fall, they laugh, and then they climb up the hill to do it all over again. I suspect that even gloomy Prufrock would have been happier if he'd spent more time in the company of small children. If nothing else, he would have been too busy to fuss about the fog or worry about his bald spot.
I grow old, I grow old, I shall snap a photo of the kid whose sled has rolled....
Some days I feel like Prufrock, like a sleep-walker struggling to feel his way across a foggy room, and some days I feel like a hill that's had too many sleds roll down its slopes and ground it down to a mere nubbin, but at times like that the memory of my grandkids' laughter arrives like a lifeline to rescue me from the descending gloom and draw me back into the world of light and love and laughter.
I have measured out my life in attempts to explain obscure allusions to students too young or inexperienced to recognize them, but today I'm not sure I dare disturb the universe of those who sleep-walk into class under the influence of mid-semester malaise. Too many projects and deadlines and social activities in their lives and now I want them to attend to a dude who thinks a "love song" begins in hell and ends with drowning? It's a tough sell.
I feel for Prufrock today because I had too much fun and too little sleep this past weekend, when I measured out my life in photos of the grandkids sliding their sleds down a snowy hill. What do children know of existential despair? They slide, they spin, they fall, they laugh, and then they climb up the hill to do it all over again. I suspect that even gloomy Prufrock would have been happier if he'd spent more time in the company of small children. If nothing else, he would have been too busy to fuss about the fog or worry about his bald spot.
I grow old, I grow old, I shall snap a photo of the kid whose sled has rolled....
Some days I feel like Prufrock, like a sleep-walker struggling to feel his way across a foggy room, and some days I feel like a hill that's had too many sleds roll down its slopes and ground it down to a mere nubbin, but at times like that the memory of my grandkids' laughter arrives like a lifeline to rescue me from the descending gloom and draw me back into the world of light and love and laughter.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Highs and lows of living near water
One of the advantages of living in the middle of nowhere is that nobody bats an eye if I wander down the hill in my pajamas to check on whether the creek has washed away my driveway in the night. This morning I startled a bunny as I made my careful way down the wet muddy gravel, flashlight in hand, to confirm that I would indeed be able to leave the house without swimming. Fortunately, our bridge was still standing and the driveway was intact, but who knows what might happen if the rain keeps up?
I knew the creek was getting high last night, and opening the door confirmed the danger: if I can hear our normally quiet creek from the house, it has to be pretty high. But it's impossible to tell whether water has covered the driveway without walking all the way down to the bridge, and it always makes me nervous to stand on the bridge with all that roiling water roaring underneath. Our bridge is pretty sturdy but that doesn't mean I want to be standing on it when it finally gives way.
It seems like just yesterday that the creek washed away our driveway (and garden shed and bench and tools and all kinds of other stuff), but it turns out that was way back in May of 2018. We've had a few high-water days since then but nothing quite so catastrophic, which is good because I have too much to do today to worry about finding a gravel guy and clearing debris off the bridge.
But this morning the bridge was fine and the driveway was fine and, aside from a few mud splatters on my bathrobe, I was none the worse for my early-morning walk. Now I'm on campus and I won't be home until this evening so the water has all day to recede to normal levels--or rise up higher, if that's what it wants to do. Either way, we'll find a way to cope, because that's what we do, and lately we've had plenty of practice.
I knew the creek was getting high last night, and opening the door confirmed the danger: if I can hear our normally quiet creek from the house, it has to be pretty high. But it's impossible to tell whether water has covered the driveway without walking all the way down to the bridge, and it always makes me nervous to stand on the bridge with all that roiling water roaring underneath. Our bridge is pretty sturdy but that doesn't mean I want to be standing on it when it finally gives way.
It seems like just yesterday that the creek washed away our driveway (and garden shed and bench and tools and all kinds of other stuff), but it turns out that was way back in May of 2018. We've had a few high-water days since then but nothing quite so catastrophic, which is good because I have too much to do today to worry about finding a gravel guy and clearing debris off the bridge.
But this morning the bridge was fine and the driveway was fine and, aside from a few mud splatters on my bathrobe, I was none the worse for my early-morning walk. Now I'm on campus and I won't be home until this evening so the water has all day to recede to normal levels--or rise up higher, if that's what it wants to do. Either way, we'll find a way to cope, because that's what we do, and lately we've had plenty of practice.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Sliding into PowerPoint
I'm showing a PowerPoint presentation in class today and I know already what will happen: the lights go down, the slides go up, and immediately all my students--even the ones who rarely take notes--pull out pen and paper and start copying down every word on every slide. It's as if the PowerPoint logo acts as a subliminal trigger compelling them to slavishly copy down every word, even though often the only thing they'll see on the slide is an image and a question--but instead of looking at the image or responding to the question, they're busy copying it into their notes.
I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this. A colleague routinely gets complaints from students who insist that he needs to put more words on his slides, but my colleague points out that if he puts more words on his slides, then his students just copy down those words instead of engaging in discussion of what they see or paying attention to what anyone else is saying, as if transcribing the words from the screen into the notebook completes some essential cycle requiring no further thought.
I've tried a number of ways to fight this tendency. I don't use PowerPoint often but I do like to use images of various types to illustrate concepts or spark discussion, and in those cases I generally minimize words on the slides or eliminate them entirely. Sometimes, though, I use PowerPoint to convey a mass of information efficiently and I want students to return to that information to study it later, so I make the slides available on our course management system. That's what I'm doing today, and I'll tell them up front that the slides will be available online, but nevertheless I know what's going to happen. When I pause to ask a question, to encourage them to apply what we're learning to something we've read, I'll see a sea of faces staring at notebooks and a flurry of hands desperately scribbling down every word. Who can think or discuss or respond when engaged in slavish copying?
I want my students to take notes and I complain when they don't, but sometimes I need them to look up and examine some wonderful bit of art or other visual aide, and they can't do that with their noses in their notebooks. Eyes up, oh slavish copyists! The words will be there later! Rise up and see the point of the power of sight!
I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this. A colleague routinely gets complaints from students who insist that he needs to put more words on his slides, but my colleague points out that if he puts more words on his slides, then his students just copy down those words instead of engaging in discussion of what they see or paying attention to what anyone else is saying, as if transcribing the words from the screen into the notebook completes some essential cycle requiring no further thought.
I've tried a number of ways to fight this tendency. I don't use PowerPoint often but I do like to use images of various types to illustrate concepts or spark discussion, and in those cases I generally minimize words on the slides or eliminate them entirely. Sometimes, though, I use PowerPoint to convey a mass of information efficiently and I want students to return to that information to study it later, so I make the slides available on our course management system. That's what I'm doing today, and I'll tell them up front that the slides will be available online, but nevertheless I know what's going to happen. When I pause to ask a question, to encourage them to apply what we're learning to something we've read, I'll see a sea of faces staring at notebooks and a flurry of hands desperately scribbling down every word. Who can think or discuss or respond when engaged in slavish copying?
I want my students to take notes and I complain when they don't, but sometimes I need them to look up and examine some wonderful bit of art or other visual aide, and they can't do that with their noses in their notebooks. Eyes up, oh slavish copyists! The words will be there later! Rise up and see the point of the power of sight!
Sunday, February 09, 2020
Same route, different journey
Lately it seems everything I do I'm doing again: I'm filling the wood-burner again and fighting off invasive mice again and trying to get students to understand concepts like dualism and pastoralism and utilitarianism again and again and again, and did I really tell that Twinkie story to an entire congregation this morning again? That story's older than my adult children and it's morphed to fill so many contexts that it barely resembles its original kernel of truth, but I think it's a truth worth telling again and again and again or I wouldn't keep telling the story. (Again.)
Today I drove home from Jackson again and watched for red-tailed hawks on the trees along the highway and again I told myself that one of these days I'll stop and take a picture of the hawks sitting in a stately manner, unperturbed by passing traffic, but I never seem to find the right spot for pulling off the road at a place where a hawk is posing and a time when I have my camera nearby, so again I kick myself for being unprepared when hawks present themselves again.
It's helpful to have a routine, I suppose, to have a good idea what I'll be doing and teaching and even wearing from one day and week and month to the next, but sometimes I need to think and drive and do something different, although I'll probably do it wearing my same old boring clothes again. Yesterday, for instance, I bundled up in my favorite flannel shirt and livened up the drive to Jackson by stopping to take photos of the snowy landscape in the gently morning light, and even though most of the photos aren't very good, I enjoyed the attempt to see my surroundings from a slightly different angle, as not just places to drive through but as lovely little nooks offering unique perspectives.
This fear of stagnation also explains why I'm tackling a whole new topic in my film class this fall instead of going back (again) to the old faithful topic that has served me so well, and it's the reason why I'm teaching the Colson Whitehead class this semester (and watching students surprise me every day with new insights) and why I've been formulating a list of texts I want to teach before I retire--or teach again, this time with new eyes (but probably the same old clothes). I can't keep driving down the same old roads again and expect to arrive at a new destination, but I can take a few detours to enliven the journey.
Today I drove home from Jackson again and watched for red-tailed hawks on the trees along the highway and again I told myself that one of these days I'll stop and take a picture of the hawks sitting in a stately manner, unperturbed by passing traffic, but I never seem to find the right spot for pulling off the road at a place where a hawk is posing and a time when I have my camera nearby, so again I kick myself for being unprepared when hawks present themselves again.
It's helpful to have a routine, I suppose, to have a good idea what I'll be doing and teaching and even wearing from one day and week and month to the next, but sometimes I need to think and drive and do something different, although I'll probably do it wearing my same old boring clothes again. Yesterday, for instance, I bundled up in my favorite flannel shirt and livened up the drive to Jackson by stopping to take photos of the snowy landscape in the gently morning light, and even though most of the photos aren't very good, I enjoyed the attempt to see my surroundings from a slightly different angle, as not just places to drive through but as lovely little nooks offering unique perspectives.
This fear of stagnation also explains why I'm tackling a whole new topic in my film class this fall instead of going back (again) to the old faithful topic that has served me so well, and it's the reason why I'm teaching the Colson Whitehead class this semester (and watching students surprise me every day with new insights) and why I've been formulating a list of texts I want to teach before I retire--or teach again, this time with new eyes (but probably the same old clothes). I can't keep driving down the same old roads again and expect to arrive at a new destination, but I can take a few detours to enliven the journey.
 |
| An unexpected view of winter beauty. |
Friday, February 07, 2020
First (real) snow
There's no denying that it's pretty outside, all that fresh white snow frosting trees and buildings, and there's no denying that I've been begging for snow all winter long, but driving to work this morning was a bit of an adventure, with more fresh snow falling even as plows were failing to keep up with the snow that had already fallen. But fortunately it was wet snow with no ice underneath, and everyone was driving very slowly and carefully on the highway hidden underneath the snow, except for that one guy who kept creeping up as if to push my car from behind, even though it would have done him no good to get ahead of me since cars in front were keeping to the same slow pace. But I got to campus and had class and now I can sit back, look out the window, and simply enjoy the beauty, hoping all the while that the roads will be cleaned up by the time I drive home.
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Just when I thought I'd heard everything....
So my students were doing peer responses to drafts the other day and later one of my English majors astutely observed, "I can always tell right away which of my classmates wrote their papers on their phones," and my mind cycled through a range of horrified responses:
On their phones?!!! When we provide labs and libraries full of laptops for their use? I mean, how can they possibly fit any big ideas onto those tiny screens? I know I couldn't do it! My rapidly aging eyes have enough trouble trying to read the small print on my phone, and it's a struggle making my big klutzy fingers formulate coherent prose. But then again, that might explain why so much of the prose I'm reading is not as coherent as I'd like it to be, and it certainly explains the reluctance to capitalize or format titles correctly or bother with quotation marks or, really, any punctuation marks more complicated than the pedestrian period. Next thing you know they'll be begging to respond to my paper prompts via text message. How does a writer develop a sense of the overall structure of the paper or of the relative importance of concepts when all he or she can see is what fits into that tiny glowing box? And if they're trying to read my marginal comments on their phones--well, it's really just hopeless. How can they possibly write whole papers on their phones?!
But of course I am a dinosaur. Students are free to employ whatever technology they need to write the paper, and I am free to evaluate it according to the standards set out on the grading rubric without regard for how the paper was produced. When they start expecting me to read their papers on my phone--well, that's when these old eyes will have to call it quits.
On their phones?!!! When we provide labs and libraries full of laptops for their use? I mean, how can they possibly fit any big ideas onto those tiny screens? I know I couldn't do it! My rapidly aging eyes have enough trouble trying to read the small print on my phone, and it's a struggle making my big klutzy fingers formulate coherent prose. But then again, that might explain why so much of the prose I'm reading is not as coherent as I'd like it to be, and it certainly explains the reluctance to capitalize or format titles correctly or bother with quotation marks or, really, any punctuation marks more complicated than the pedestrian period. Next thing you know they'll be begging to respond to my paper prompts via text message. How does a writer develop a sense of the overall structure of the paper or of the relative importance of concepts when all he or she can see is what fits into that tiny glowing box? And if they're trying to read my marginal comments on their phones--well, it's really just hopeless. How can they possibly write whole papers on their phones?!
But of course I am a dinosaur. Students are free to employ whatever technology they need to write the paper, and I am free to evaluate it according to the standards set out on the grading rubric without regard for how the paper was produced. When they start expecting me to read their papers on my phone--well, that's when these old eyes will have to call it quits.
Monday, February 03, 2020
Closing the book on an open text
"Tell us your theory," my students demanded, but I wouldn't do it--not until they told me their own. We've been reading Colson Whitehead's John Henry Days and they, like many readers, were frustrated by the ambiguity of the ending: Does J. Sutter live or die, stay at the festival and get shot or go back to New York with Pamela and start writing a different type of story? Is he supposed to be a twenty-first century John Henry or is all that historical stuff a big red herring? And why doesn't Whitehead offer any easy answers?
My students had to come up with answers for an essay due today, drawing their own conclusions about J. Sutter's fate based upon evidence from within the text. Last Friday they asked me to tell them my own interpretation but I refused, promising instead that I would reveal my conclusions after they'd written their papers and shared their ideas with the class.
So that's what we did today: each student explained the conclusions they had drawn about J. Sutter's fate, and, unsurprisingly, no two students agreed entirely. The remarkable thing was that each of these competing interpretations was entirely defensible based on the evidence provided within the novel. We chewed on that for a while before they asked me to give them my theory.
I read them a piece of the article I published about the novel eight years ago, an extremely obscure publication that I knew they wouldn't be able to locate locally without breaking into my office, and we talked a little bit about how Whitehead invites readers to fill the gaps in the narrative by adding their own verses to the John Henry legend. But then I suggested an alternative explanation: maybe J. Sutter is just a human version of Schrodinger's cat. As long as he's trapped inside the box--the book--he exists simultaneously in all possible states, both alive and dead and every other possibility. When we open the box and try to take him out of his context, we either doom him to instant death or breathe new life into his body. Why not leave him in the box and let him experience pure possibility?
Here's what impresses me about this class: They can read a book that offers no obvious resolution, write an essay that requires them to draw their own conclusions, and then engage in discussion that challenges all their expectations about literature, life, and the possibility of interpretation, and then they can come back and do it all over again on Wednesday and Friday and again next Monday. And if that doesn't make my job worth doing, nothing else will.
My students had to come up with answers for an essay due today, drawing their own conclusions about J. Sutter's fate based upon evidence from within the text. Last Friday they asked me to tell them my own interpretation but I refused, promising instead that I would reveal my conclusions after they'd written their papers and shared their ideas with the class.
So that's what we did today: each student explained the conclusions they had drawn about J. Sutter's fate, and, unsurprisingly, no two students agreed entirely. The remarkable thing was that each of these competing interpretations was entirely defensible based on the evidence provided within the novel. We chewed on that for a while before they asked me to give them my theory.
I read them a piece of the article I published about the novel eight years ago, an extremely obscure publication that I knew they wouldn't be able to locate locally without breaking into my office, and we talked a little bit about how Whitehead invites readers to fill the gaps in the narrative by adding their own verses to the John Henry legend. But then I suggested an alternative explanation: maybe J. Sutter is just a human version of Schrodinger's cat. As long as he's trapped inside the box--the book--he exists simultaneously in all possible states, both alive and dead and every other possibility. When we open the box and try to take him out of his context, we either doom him to instant death or breathe new life into his body. Why not leave him in the box and let him experience pure possibility?
Here's what impresses me about this class: They can read a book that offers no obvious resolution, write an essay that requires them to draw their own conclusions, and then engage in discussion that challenges all their expectations about literature, life, and the possibility of interpretation, and then they can come back and do it all over again on Wednesday and Friday and again next Monday. And if that doesn't make my job worth doing, nothing else will.
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Sunshine and shadows
Finally, a perfect day for a walk along the creek, where you might catch a glimpse of a chattering kingfisher while shadows play on the limbs of sycamores and the water sparkles in the sunshine.
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