Day: November 10, 2016

It is time to admit that students don’t spend all their time thinking about my class. More to the point, they have so much going on in their lives that my class needs to be a series of encapsulated moments in their lives that relate to their lives, impact their thinking about their lives, but doesn’t put them in a position where they have to devote a significant portion of their mental energy trying to sort out what they are supposed to do.

In short, due dates and assignments need to make more sense.

The other night a student emailed me asking why there wasn’t a place to submit her presentation online. I reminded her that the presentation was an in-class experience that could not be submitted online. Unfortunately, the due date of 11:59 PM sent a very different message. It is an easy fix, but a philosophical shift as well. See, I discussed this issue with that student in class two days prior. She nodded, accepting my instruction, and then proceeded to do exactly what I said not to do. She didn’t retain anything from that conversation. She isn’t the first.

Students have multiple classes all asking different things at different times, meshing into a canvas of work they’re responsible for turning into a sensible schedule. On the other hand the teachers I know try hard to limit the number of preps they are responsible for in order to avoid that same sort of chaos.

What if I tried to bring these two worlds together in order to create a sensible and responsible set of scaffolded assignments that let a student know from day one the type of rhythm required? Every Monday you do X, every Wednesday you do Y. At the end of the month, Z. The schedule allows for it, but I’ve never thought to build things out in that fashion–fitting my essay and assignment schedule around a standard sequence vs. building around activities, events, etc.

It may make life easier for everyone invovled.

Some Thoughts:

1. For the first time, I genuinely don’t think I will make it to post 3650. My passion for writing and all things is as blood seeping from a wound that I cannot stitch.

Last check, over 15,000 Americans voted for Harambe for president. In other words, more people than live in the average small american town felt that a dead ape was the way to go. That tells me a great deal about where we are as a culture. I learned more about that in a conversation I overhead at the campus coffee shop.

boy one: Concert was cool. It was real, you know?

Boy 2: Yeah, but the area was sketch.

Boy one: Its central phoenix. Of course it is.

A week ago that conversation would’ve rolled off my back, but the idea of an entitled kid going down to the hood to connect with a musical sound born out of that hood and then turning around and insulting the hood that created the sound seems all too American right now. In other words, I am ready to open my eyes to the vast diversity and depth of my own relative minority status in this country. I am not talking about me as a black man, but me as a free thinker who looks at and speaks towards the long game and the implicit understanding that we are all trying to rise and become something that reflects what we believe to be the ideals of the founding fathers.

What I am seeing instead of what I am is a country that is largely dominated by individuals who want to push their agenda under the guise of Americanism but is largely based in capitalism and imperialism–everything other countries have accused us of being for decades. Yeah, we were that but we often hid behind the guise of being something better. With Trump it is out there, naked and revealed and, well, dangerous.

Why do I see danger in Trump? Because he is a man who has and will continue to be a bully. Now the bully has more power and a congress that supports his play. Moreover, he has no understanding of the role of ‘his underlings’ in determining law. He believes that he and his cabinet determine law, start and end wars, and command the free world. When he meets resistance he will publicly insult and cajole. When people don’t fall in line he will bully and alienate. This is not speculative this is what he has already done leading up to the election.

So yeah, I’m worried. I just don’t know what I am supposed to do.