The hardest part of teaching happens to be the very part I wake up each day for. I can remember being that cocky college kid, full of ego and certainty and ready to accept the challenge of any teacher who dared put one forth. Sadly none did until I clawed my way into 300 level classes. Before that was boredom, ignorance, and uncertainty. I hated going to class because all the professors ever went on about was their research and the stuff that mattered deeply to them. Once in a while their interests and my own dovetailed, but this was not the way things normally went. Here is how it normally went:
Teacher: I want you to write a paper about A violation of your civil liberties.
Talislegger: Your paper, madam, is a violation of my civil liberties. Can I do something with Dragons?
Teacher: Get out.
This scenario repeated itself for years. I wondered why nobody bothered to ask me what was worth writing and researching about. When they finally did, I was chock full of nothing to talk about, because I’d never been given the tools, training, nor preparation to become part of the conversation. I believe the role of the student at every level of learning is to become part of the academic conversation. The higher your level of course (or discourse), the more I would expect you to contribute to the conversation. I actually ask my kids why 1 + 1 has to equal 2. They answer in a basic but informative fashion, contributing little to the philosophy of math but happy still that they contributed at all. This is how it should be.
This is how it will be in the spring when I return to teaching the research essay. I’m a sucker for Dev Ed, so I choose to spend my time hanging out in the middle of that pool. Every now and again I surface and pretend to be a composition and rhetoric scholar. The truth is, I’m just a plain ol’ writer, and maybe a bit of a sucker for a good tale at that. When I teach the research course I tend to theme it around student research. I actually start the class by being one of those teachers I hate. I pick a generalized topic to use as a point of entry to the student driven experience. It isn’t totally hypocritical though. I try to gauge student interest before I dive on into planning the next semester. This coming Spring I’ll set it off with a pair of rousing research challenges centered around cord-cutting (the act of removing oneself from the financial burden of cable TV in order to get everything online) and The Shining.
The topics–though specific, are actually lenses into the DIY and film research and analysis segments. The students will have a chance to pick their own DIY/escape from the grid topics as well as choose a film (possibly of the Kubrick or the Horror w/ a meaning and a message vein) in order to do a closer research analysis on. The goal here is to show them how powerful research can be both on the ground level–researching things that can effect your life financially–and the air level–researching things that can effect your life philosophically.
This two pronged attack is meant to propel them into individual and small group research projects that will lead them through a semester of contextualized problem-based learning. Best of all, it doesn’t suck.
Some Thoughts:
- Warm wishes go out to my friend Tracey. She recently lost someone very important to her. It is a hard thing to face the fragility of life. I won’t say this too shall pass, because it wont. Instead I hope the loss becomes a part of you; that you carry the memory of love like a birthmark. Such things should never be forgotten or ignored.