Learning happened today. It was messy and feelings were hurt, but students learned a little about a little. I think that is how it ought to be.
We were talking about rhetorical analysis in my 101 english class and I offered them a chance to take a dry run of what they’d be doing–low stakes stuff where they tried to break down a five minute film and talk about how that film makes an argument about an abstract idea. They were given the choice to focus on Hope or Loneliness. Most failed the challenge. Publicly. And I told them about themselves. All of that is needed. Public criticism is the stuff that hurts but it is also the stuff that sticks. We tend to forget that which we can allow ourselves to ignore and pretend did not happen.
102 was a different beast entirely. We spent the period talking about flaws in human thinking and understanding as well as the vividness effect. Then I challenged them to rank the sports with the most concussions per player based on a list I provided. Nobody got it right, which is also part of the experience. That offered me a window to further discuss and demonstrate why we believe what we believe and the consequences of our emotional attachments to what we have decided to be the truth. A student was very angry, because his reality–captured in what he has seen and experienced in his life–ran contrary to the published research. So, of course, the research had to be wrong. He became angry and sought to find evidence to support his position as opposed to find evidence that provided an answer that could be tested. I called him out on it, expressing to him that though his reality is one thing (X), it may not reflect the reality everywhere (A through Z -X). He got it after a while, but still fought the thought.
Regardless, he learned, which is all I wanted.