The Lament of the Aspiring English Teacher: "Educators, Not Ministers." Welcome Medicine Hat Miller.

I look at their brightly polished faces,
Positioned in front of sad, hollow minds,
And it becomes difficult to suppress the anger in me.

To waste such young lives, such untapped potential,
Allowing their brains to languish in meaty prisons.
Dead in transition, blinding themselves to life and its stark realities.

These pretty, thoughtless people are content
To float among the bubbles in their lukewarm bathtub existence
(shower cap, soap, and carefully regulated temperature all included).
While so many are screaming from the sting of being's ice-cold shower.

A body with no mind will stumble out of its tub,
And array itself needlessly, allowing the radio to think for them,
While others shake cold and alert from their unholy baptism
And stagger out the gate -- drying their hair in the sun.

Oh Life, severe and intangible,
Bitch slap this goddamn generation.
Compel us towards comely modesty,
To respect the caliber of our humanity.
Permit to laugh at our failure.

A few days ago I stopped by the old high school to grab a sibling. Now, one of the things that makes my revisiting this place a bit difficult for me (aside from having left on a somewhat sour note) is the fact that as well as an educational institution it is also a very fundamental religious one, not in the sense of a Catholic school board (as by comparison they seem much more integrated) but in the sense of a school run, funded, and supplied by the church through tuition and charitable donations. As I waited for my sister to get out of the classroom I had an ominous, foreboding sensation as I waited in the hallway that almost made me quite ill. It wasn't the smell of teenage boys using their AXE, nor was it the rotting fruit that I was certain filled so many of the pale blue lockers, my reaction stemmed from the stern lecture coming out of the English classroom. Inside, a senior teacher (she had taught me when I was in Grade 9 and 10) going on about how Shakespeare was one of the most prolific writers of his time yet because of the content of his work (particularly The Taming of the Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra) extolled "dissident ideologies towards how a woman should allow the man to reign over her as it says in the Bible" and praised "erotic sensuality between men and women", the school would not allow those pieces of literature in the library as they were not befitting of it testimony.

What caught my ire was not only was this teacher (who I had clashed heads with before in my heyday) doing a disservice to any young minds that were interested in Shakespeare by limiting their potential knowledge of the subject but when I turned, expecting some sort of rebuttal to this lunacy, the only response I viewed was the bobble head agreement of 20 students with glazed over eyes. I thought to myself, "This isn't how one is supposed to instruct students". Teaching does not equate to a sermon where a pastor tells you what to do, teaching is a process whereby a professor is supposed to open young minds to possibilities they themselves had never thought of and cause them to think and question critically. I see these same type of students when I teach, trying to tell me that I'm discriminating against their religious beliefs when I give them a low grade. It's not that I'm discriminating against your religious freedoms here, it's just that when I ask for a seven page essay on the thematic importance of sentimentalism in Laurence Sterne's work I don't think giving me five pages comparing sentimentalism and Biblical tenants (with the resulting conclusion amounting to something along the lines of sentimentalism is ungodly, Sterne is a heretic, GOD ROOLZ) really meets the requirements of the assignment. What's really alarming is that every year I see a slow but steady increase in the number of these types of students and I know exactly where they're coming from because we have similar origins. As a teacher I do my best to turn them off such a troublesome throught process but I would love if this type of thing was nipped in the bud. If I wanted to see a room of brainwashed, narrow minded individuals I would drive down to the local Church of Scientology and get myself cleared of all the alien ghosts inhabiting my body (and money inhabiting my pockets) by squeezing two metal tubes and thinking happy thoughts.

It occurred to me that after leaving high school I was extremely fortunate to get my ass handed to me by my first university English professor, I have him to thank for making me actually think outside of what I knew in order to better myself (as well as pass his courses). I look back at so many of my fellow high school graduates and realize that the kind of teaching that school subjects its students to (though, to be fair, there are many good teachers in there that do quite the opposite though every year their number decreases) only serves to create ignorant persons who are given a very rude awakening when they go to post-secondary education and either forcibly adapt or crash and burn (of course the third option would be to go to Bob Jones University but I really don't see that as viable for too many students). There is a time and place for religious emphasis in the classroom (namely courses that center around them), I respect that, but to constantly try to tie everything into a single train of thought only means that one will only view the world through a single perspective and find it extremely difficult to sympathize with any others (and in life you need to have that kind of sympathy). Students don't need ministers, they need educators.

Whitney From Waco Doesn't Want To Be Our Friend.

Okay, proffies, you really don't get it. We don't want to be your friends -- we're not interested in "collaborating," and we KNOW we're not "real peers." We're kissing your ass because getting into med/law/business school requires a high GPA and if that means we have to look deeply in your eyes and feed your ego, so be it.

Some of us are insecure, still emotionally in high school, and want a surrogate mommy. Some of us just enjoy fucking with you. A few of us are actually nice, and we're genuinely this nice to everyone -- classmates, custodians, cafeteria ladies. Most of us are some combination of all of these.

In my freshman year, I had a proffie relationship much like the one you've been discussing on RYS. I was a stupid, insecure freshman who'd had a substandard high school education, and he saw a lump of coal he could make into a diamond. Long story short, I ended up hearing all about his abusive mother while he was drunk and he intimidated me into picking a major/department that was well outside my talents and interests. Eventually I grew a spine, changed majors/departments, and started avoiding him.

Now I'm in a major I love, and this semester my GPA was a 4.0, up from a low of 1.7 in the other major.

My point? I don't think students should be influenced in that way by an authority figure -- we need space to figure out what we want to do with our lives, and the fear of letting a professor/"friend" down can lead to delays in doing what we really want to do. Certain opportunities (such as double-majoring or even getting a minor) are closed to me because I spent so much time in the wrong major, taking classes that count only as electives in my current major.

Yeah, it's my fault and my responsibility, but I'm saying it so profs realize that their influence on students may not always be positive.

Froderick Discovers a Loudmouth Know-Nothing Is Much More Grating Than He Imagined.

Earlier, I mentioned this semester's loud-mouthed "Male Student Egomaniac." A few days later, Bitchy Bear called into question my citing the examples (or should we call them legends?) of how Einstein and Edison were thrown out of school for asking their teachers too many questions they couldn't answer.

I must now concede that Bitchy Bear made some valid points. My budding young "genius" turned out to be ALL MOUTH: he was certainly no Einstein or Edison. Indeed, I could answer most of his questions, when he didn't interrupt me. It was easy, since they clearly showed that he never read the book.

He also apparently thought that doing homework was beneath him. This is deadly for mathematical physics: I like the subject precisely because it's just not possible to b.s. one's way through it. One either knows it or one doesn't, and the only way for humans to learn it is by doing the frickin' homework, honestly, and by oneself.

I'd chortle at how badly he did on the final exam, but for the sheer trauma for everyone at having him in the class.

"Dear Cash..." Where Our Newest Moderator Takes Time Away From the Hookah to Answer Some Mail.

• I don't know, Sherry, it just IS.




• Yeah, I saw "Glee." It was sweet. I'm a sucker for singing and dancing.




• I think the last time it happened I was drunk. But it can happen at other times, too.




• You know what, dude, if you don't like it here, you can get your animus down the street. Here's a farting gift for you.




• Yeah, I get reader's block sometime, too. It's like, are there more words on the NEXT page, too?




• So, am I getting this right? Your kid got out on Swine Flucation and you had to take him to all of your finals, and the proffies didn't like it? Dude, don't you have like a cousin or a neighbor or something?




• Ed, if my bro did something like that to me, poaching the only primo summer section, I'd sign up for a dudevorce right away, cut his sad weight loose.




• I think the biggest change you're going to notice next year on RYS is how we're going to transition to twitter...140 characters, man. If you can't get it said under 140, then like go tell it to the Chronicle forums.




• I don't know, do you think YOU'RE funny?




• If I had to pick, man, I'd skip "Angels and Demons" and go see "Trek" one more time.




• You can't say "hiatus" without making a little grin!

Duh...

Yo, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trying to add a search engine to the page so one can easily find those posts that give them such jollies. It may not work. It may completely freeze the site.

It might encourage my elders to release me from my torment.

XOXO
Compound Cash!

Someone's Mom Asks For Forgiveness.

This is a new one. I came to work this morning to find this e-mail in my inbox.

Dr. X,

I’m am sending this message to explain what happened on a recent assignment given to my son. My son is not dishonest and plagiaristic; he is guilty of not providing his sources. Due to technical difficulties, I helped him with the assignment. When I looked at the assignment, I encouraged getting the best facts from a comprehensive web site. The one you found may be the same one but it wasn’t the only site consulted just the one that covered the material comprehensively. The website and use of it was not a secret, my son simply failed to turn in the “sources” part of the assignment. I’m not writing to appeal for a grade but simply to not have him appear dishonest when I was a part of it. The need for clarity in content seemed more valuable to me than rewording.

Sincerely,
Paula Parent

Unfortunately, I could not respond the way I wanted to respond. I wanted to say that this was not the first time I have had your son in a class of mine. I wanted to say that he has taken this same class twice before (unsuccessfully) with two other instructors. I wanted to say that I could probably guess how this whole thing went down. He had an assignment to do and instead of him doing it by himself (technical difficulties, WTF does that mean?) that you did it for him, probably like you did when he was in high school.

When he received a zero for the work (not done by him and really not even done by you) he probably came home raising hell that YOU landed him a big fat zero on the project. Oh, and by the way, rewording something (which you were too lazy to do) is also considered plagiarism, especially if you don't provide the source(s).

Prick of the Week. Flinn from Farmington Wants to Help.

What the fuck is wrong with you people? Since late April you've been posting nearly nothing. Today all you have is some stupid video. How hard is it to post some reports from readers.

It's annoying to come here and find no new material.

Your only job is to keep the site up and running with reports and essays and I can't see how it's very hard.

I'd suggest you just go through any of the other academic blogs to see what issues are important to academics and do reports on them. 250-500 words on 2-3 of those a day and you'd have some content.

Without content a blog is a big waste of time, just a big jerk-off for yourself.

And really, you do have some funny lines sometimes so keep going with that. I always liked your Walter and Wayne characters. But seriously, I don't want to be a prick about it, but you should be posting a lot more reports than you do and if you don't then nobody is going to read this page anymore.

I really just mean it as constructive criticism.

Boston's Bitchy Bear. "These Are the Choices?" On Friending the Flakes.

Ok, so my choice in the world of academia is that my students are my friends and or I'm a squalid just-for-the-bucks teacher. Way the show the world nuanced thinking, folks! It's either this weird extreme or this other weird extreme! Woo. I've learned from this discussion, haven't you all?

Taking the kiddies out for an ice cream does not a friendship make. Dinner either. My students can and do come to my place (there is a "dinner with the faculty" program at my uni, and in general it's less obnoxious than the "make them pancakes" idea, though both strike me as stupid.) But they are not my friends when they are there. They are my junior colleagues. Call me nuts, but friendship is a thing that you have with people who don't have to pay $10K to $45K in yearly tuition to talk with you. In general, my friends get to talk to me for free. Yah, sure, they had your class and you're now "friends for life." But they still had to pay to meet you. Forgetting that strikes me as a wee bit deluded, like actually believing the stuff you put in your autobiographical Wikipedia entry.

The problem is that I have dual and conflicting obligations towards my students and to my profession. My profession requires that I try to train students and vet them for both aptitude and discipline before entering the profession. I'm a teacher; I try to help students gain insight into their work. I also am a gatekeeper, whether the po-mo pedagogy people like it or no and whether I acknowledge it or choose to pretend that we're all just buddies learning from each other here. A word from me to my professional contacts can get you a job when you are done--or not. If I really care about a student--not just 'liking them, like a pal—I sometimes have to say things that hurt in the short term and help in the long term, and that's something that would be hard for me and the student if our idea of our relationship was that we "hang" like friends.

I care about them--the good students, the ones also care about the profession and devote themselves to it. They break my heart regularly. But that's different, way different, than either 'teaching' the way the uni seems to define it or friendship the way Katie describes it. So don't misunderstand me when I say I don't care about 'teaching.' I actually don't, but there is more to it than mere indifference. Dana notes that for adjuncts there is a critical nexus between teaching/ being employed/eating so that one may not adopt my 'who cares' attitude towards teaching. Dana's a bit too idealistic, I am sorry to say. The critical nexus is between eating and keeping your job, not eating and teaching. From my albeit limited experience, keeping your job in the contemporary university is in no way correlated with actual teaching, and if anything, real teaching may dampen your capacity to keep your job.

Oh sure, you have to show up and pretend you care about their self-esteem (retch, puke, vomit) and their tewwible tewwible problems that require infinite accommodation and flexibility and support while they themselves write dumbass essays on how homeless people need to get off the taxpayers' backs. But real teaching that disciplines their minds and conduct? Um, no. It's pretty clear to me that isn't what we're doing here. My teaching responsibilities in the classroom as defined by my uni, which only wants the checks to keep coming in, is to sell students sugar water in pretty bottles that reflect their own shimmery, shimmery light, resplendent with rainbows and cupcakes and little twirling sparkles. Maybe that's friendship, and maybe that's teaching. Maybe. But it doesn't seem like either one to me.

Belinda from Bellows Falls Is Planning a Bash!

Understandably, it hurts to be branded a squalid teaching-just-to-earn-a-bucker by an absolute stranger on the internet. So let's plan a little social evening!

If I don't play favorites I'll need to host all 160 freshmen at my place simultaneously: let's say 40 in the living room, 40 in the bedroom, 40 in the kitchen, 20 in the bathroom and 20 milling around in the driveway trying not to bother the other tenants.

I live an hour away, so they'll need to carpool, or -- no, rent a couple of buses. This will be on one of the nights I don't teach at other schools an hour away in different directions. Maybe all of those people can come, too!

I'm thinking this will be potluck, if that works for everyone. No wine (that whole underage thing) but, inevitably, lots of hugging (that whole overcrowding thing). In fact, our social gathering will illustrate another good reason for thinking of the young 'uns as "snowflakes:" they' may be tiny and fragile as individuals, but get a whole bunch of them together under pressure and they become an irrestistible geological force, scouring and obliterating the Earth's surface!

Okay, let's not do this, actually.

Kate and Suzy, I like teaching, and because I don't have a Ph.D. I feel pretty lucky to be doing it. I tend to like my students, even the non-stellar. I worry that some of their laziness is passivity, that they're anxious to be fed the right answers partly out of reluctance to make mistakes. A lot depends on them growing some backbone. I let these people live their own lives BECAUSE I care.

Connie from Conway Has Lost Her Mind.

JESUS IS GOOD, BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

My former classmat Kris Allen won American Idol out there in HollyWEIRD!

Look at him in this picture from our college's website. The article says he's a business major but he was in my History of Fine Arts class and he was like the nicest guy in the whole class the whole city!!

You should do yourself a favor and download some of his amaaaaaaaaaaazing songs on Itunes. Turn off your Lada GAGA and listen to some real music!!

JESUS IS GOOD, YAH, YOU HEARD ME!