End of Semester Tradition: Rate Your Professor

One of my Brother-Units* is an English professor at a large public university where he teaches more than a fair share of comp classes. He's fed up with his department's grand plan of lowering expectations in the face of increasingly ill-prepared incoming Freshmen. It is not unusual for students, parents, aunts and uncles, neighbors, guardians, former babysitters, and various administrators to make ardent appeals and complaints about his refusal to doctor grades, often bemoaning his insistence on measurable classroom participation and attendance. He really gets their attention when his interim grades end up benching a student athlete from a revenue-generating sports team.

Plus there is the occasional complaint about his growing tendency to drop F-Bombs when mightily frustrated.

He's a *fantastic* teacher. It's just a fact. The breadth and depth of his knowledge, plus the ability he has to make learning hilarious -- these are his greatest gifts. He cares a great deal about his students, but is not keen that they should know this.

In fact, he will go to inordinate lengths to prevent them from finding out the extent of his affection. One of our favored quotes, delivered by E. B. Farnum in an episode of Deadwood, reminds: Puberty may bring you to understand, what we take for mother love is really murderous hatred and a desire for revenge.

[Don't overthink it, Dear Reader.]

At one time or another, this particular brother and I have offered students, usually mid-rant, the following explanation of things, also borrowed from E. B.:

Public service was never my primary career.

The English department dictates the grading rubrique and general format for composition and survey courses. Students write two drafts of their compositions, the first edited by their prof for grammar and content, the second receiving peer review from a classmate, after which they have a week to craft the final paper. The Brother-Unit is available to help during some pretty generous office hours -- yet it's rare for anyone to turn up while there remains any wiggle-room in the computations. He will also deal with some things via timely email, though that route of communication is his least favorite. Remember Johnny?

I went to ratemyprofessor.com this morning to see what comp students had to say about my darling brother, Professor X, known to family and friends by his chosen nickname of Grader Boob. Below are his "reviews," updated and verbatim:

You have to work and pay attention in his class but the Dr. Grader Boob is very organized and knows the topic he is teaching. I thought he was friendly and have no negative criticism.

An unusual professor who uses rhetorical equivocations as a grading "answer" to a writer as if clarity is not what the student wants or needs to hear. This professor confuses jealousy with ability--and would never recognize a gifted writer. He teaches from a negative worldview, which adds unnecessary stress onto the student. This Ph.D. is troubled.

This class was difficult. You really have to go to class and pay attention. The assignments aren't very interesting and he grades them harshly. I'm usually an A English student and ended up with a mid-range B. He's a funny guy and knows his stuff. He's willing to help you and is fairly flexable.

You have to show up, work hard, and pay attention in his class. You have to participate and he WILL cut your grade if you don't show up. He almost made me lose my academic scholarship.

He's not the nicest person...he's very blunt and if you dont particpate then he gets upset about it

Great Professor! To pass his class though you have to attend every lecture meeting and complete all the assignments. Do not leave anything for the night before, it WON't work out.

I may be one of the few who liked this guy. He was always friendly and helped out when he could. His papers are very easy if you pay attention in class and TALK! he likes the class better if they talk. Dont piss him him off or your class will be miserable.

the man is a wack job. dont take this class.

He's a really cool guy, but he grades the essays really hard, so unless you know what you're doing, you had better pray for a C

Pretends like he's one of those cool teachers, but he's really not

Very Hard. Does not like what he reads.

Yes, he is a hard teacher. He gives difficult work and demands that you complete it all. My biggest complaint is that he is very unprofessional. He revealed individual students' grades in front of the class, insulted the entire class, and threw tantrums. However, my writing skills have improved.

Although Grader Boob comes off strong he is a great teacher. He is a tough grader but will answer any questions and always make time for hi students.

No Comment.

Great teacher! Knows what he is doing, and is always willing to help you out. Very tough grader, but well worth the work. Dr. X ROCKS!!!

Please stay away from this professor! He even told us that his best writers only get a mid B in the class. Got nothing but C's on my papers and as soon as a took 1102 with a different teacher i got an A on my first paper. He has somewhat lame humor and likes to cuss in class which was the only thing that helped. he is very moody! watch out!

I regret not dropping this class when I had the chance lets put it that way. He is not helpful, grades hard especially on the drafts. And he kicked entire class out one morning because nobody had any notes when he never said we had to have notes for the section we had to read. Drop before you take his class you are better off with another professor

Funny but not helpful what so ever

He is a very interesting professor and trys to involve everyone in his classa and get opnions. The class is difficult because most of it comes from 3 projects, but he helps it you ask for it. Ultimately he prepares his students well, and he is purposely ambiguous to offer writing freedom.

The guy is the Hitler of all English classes...As a matter of fact, you'd be better off having Hitler as your professor...Dr. X blows...DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS!!!!..skip a semseter of english if you have to in order to get another teacher....STAY AWAY FROM THIS CLASS!!!

Good teacher but also very hard. Will make you work for the grade but you get to choose a lot of the projects yourself. Helps out a lot. Three absences equals a B at the highest. Just ask for help and you will get it.

artificially caps grades. First essay average is always low to try and scare people off. Last two improve but corners are cut to lower the grade in other areas such as participation. Claims a student can ace the class but then sets a flat average for an assignment to a B-. Avoid this professor, the only thing you can learn is frustration.

Terrible teacher who is unclear about any assignments. Out of all of his class 2/3rds of the way, the highest grade was a C and 60% of his students were failing, DON'T take this teacher. He curses in his lectures and actually dropped the F bomb in one of em. Someone stole his phone and his book too.

Great Teacher! You have to come to class, however to do well, and he grades pretty harshly. Funny guy, and very smart.

Pain in the butt to be around...degrading. Makes the students feel like total fools. Talks down to us and grades papers totally unfairly.

He's willing to help for the few that seek it. Overall grades over excessively to the point it reflects as him trying to find any kind of grammatical or MLA error than reading the papers' contents themselves. Most likely done to isolate and eliminate slackers but hurts everyone in the process. Save yourself the headache and take someone else.

X is a terrible professor. He is egotistical and has crazy mood swings. got a comp 1 class he grades way too difficult. other papers that i have seen from other classes that suck have made better grades than papers i worked my butt off on.

Horrible teacher and biased with his grading. Dropped the F bomb in class and wondered why one of his students had stolen his textbook. I would highly recommend NOT taking this class and picking another professor like Y who actually care about their students. This class isn't worth the time or the effort to struggle for a "C" or a "B".

this professor was one of the best professors in writing i've ever had. his class wasn't the easiest class but i learned a lot, one of the only teachers that actually grades on quality and not completion. really helpful, whenever i needed help, he helped me understand whatever i needed help with. class isn't that hard though, i have a B so far...

ok here's the deal, the rest of the people posting on prof X obviously haven't quite mastered the english language, i was late every day, he gave the answers to every quiz, and homework. so automatic A on all, the final he gives ansers to during the test. The projects sre easy, i got an A-B starting every one at 10:00 the night before. take him.

Demands both respect and hard work from his class. He is strict but fair. You can't slack off in his class, so don't try it.

Prof X is a pretty good teacher. He is a harder grader, but if you're willing to put the work he demands into your school work, you can do well. He will tell you that he is the hardest grader in the English department, and he could possibly be. I just can't stress enough that if you are not willing to work hard, you will not succeed in his class!

He is a very good teacher contrary to others belief. I did very well in class and he only flipped out on us one time the whole semester. He will tell you he is considered one of the hardest teachers at U but that's just a scare tactic. He's actually really good.

Yikes. He wears the same outfir every day or so...He grades fairly hard, and didn't give any good feedback, only negative. He even walked out in the middle of someone's presentation b/c he didn't like it. Crazy guy, not too nice, but if you work really, really hard, you might get a B-. A bit of a grupmy guss I think. Good luck, you'll need it!

Alright, GRADES HARD! Definitly not a class to slack in. He tries to show you what you did wrong, but you never really understand. Also he has a good sense of humor on his GOOD days, on bad days, shut up listen and leave.

Ok heres the deal..i suck at english and still got a b+ in his class. If you go to class, sit in the front and talk to him even if you have no idea hwta your talking about, he will grade you easier!!He's alrite just a hard grader (if he doesnt like you:)

Great Teacher. He is a tough grader and expects you to work to your full potential. Will always keep you busy with some assignment but explains everything well. Awesome sense of humor. If you are willing to work hard, then I recommend you take him. If you are a slacker, DO NOT sign up for him.

Very bad teacher whos got something to complain about on all of your papers. Very hard grader and complained on one of my papers "This information hasn't been seen in a new light". If you don't already have PH.D writing, don't waste your time in this class.

hard grader, if you aren't already mark twain, then don't expect anything better than a B (if you're lucky). he has lots of bad days. towards the end of the semester it seemed like his goal was to get as many students as possible to drop. he would scare us by telling us the majority was failing

Teaches usually early classes, but if you are looking for a good laugh in the morning, then take his class. Very hard grader but always available to help. Teaches from a student's point of view and tries to make curriculm more interesting. Be willing to work, but overall a good professor.

I really enjoy this professor. He grades hard by a lot of peoples standards, but I believe he grades pretty fairly. The class is fun because of him, he gives you a lot of laughs, and a sort of carefree environment. He likes to get things done. Not a good class to slack off in. Great teacher.

This teacher is a complete nazi! Very hard to get a good grade, I do not think he wants anyone to recieve a B or higher. He grades super hard and writes comments that make students feel stupid. You won't learn anything new either. He expects you to be a perfect english major writer or graduate level

I am going to cry now, please get out of this class as fast as you can.



*My other Brother-Unit is a bookie and Grand Canyon trekker guide. I am still trying to figure out how to write that up...

Re-post -- Medical Bloggers: Touche Pas A Mon Pote!

J'ai passé une nuit blanche... during which I found myself missing Nurse K and her now defunct blog, CrassPollination. I hope that it, like the Phoenix, will rise from the ashes, or at least become available in some other format. Ummm, like a book -- that'd be cool.

Anyway, that led to laughing at my various references to her fine anecdotes, and my virgin shock at the âpre, biting depictions of the dread Problem Patients and the manner in which the well-raised, polite ED nurse reacts to them.

I don't know exactly why my dander was all up, back in November of 2008. By then, I had had the second of six surgeries, was not able to sleep at all (to the point of true toxicity), and was in the kind of pain that births dreams of loaded guns. I also had really just started to read medical blogs with any sort of attention. Okay, yes, I also had begun to hear the dreaded "ewww, you're a complicated patient, aren't you?" Add to that that I was a licensed, charter member of the Annoying Chronic Paineurs, and yeah, I might have been a tad bit touchy.


A hard time, to be sure, but I'm not the kind of person to project my issues onto someone else.

Cough.

Anyway, when I am feeling all righteous and stern, these medicos piss me off. When I am thinking straight? I am oh-so-grateful for each and every one.

*In deference to my broken leg, I am not going to make my damned fingers waltz around to see if the links in this repost remain in effect, and accurate. Do it your own self!

Cough.
Sniff.




"Touche pas..." has long been a favorite saying (and message) of mine. Indeed, I've always wanted the T-shirt. But how to explain to someone unfamiliar with both the situation and the language what it means? I had never googled it -- oh, the amazing act of googling! Anyway, I found this short passage, which does a pretty nice job of it (though the lack of an accent puzzles me -- why get something almost right?):

A Powerful Political/Social Sign: "touche pas a mon pote"
One of my favorite social-change campaigns of all time came to my attention recently when I saw it in the background of a film shot in Paris.

It's the ubiquitous yellow hand of the French anti-racisim organization SOS Racisme, which travels the French visual landscape coupled with the phrase "touche pas a mon pote," which translates roughly as "don't mess with my buddy."

The straight-ahead everyday slang of the phrase in French --- it's literally what one would say in a street confrontation --- and the powerful yellow hand have always been a model for me of really understanding both the potential audience for a social change initiative and the moment of decision the designer/strategist is trying to influence. This is what you say to protect a friend, and the implied strength-in-numbers and the sense that "we are watching you" and holding you up to social shame makes the slogan an absolutely brilliant piece of writing.

In an earlier post I quoted science writer Daniel Goleman on research showing that the more someone is perceived to be "like me" the more our empathic brain circuits are activated.


My name is Retired Educator, and I am addicted to medical blogs. (Hi, Retired Educator!)



I am one of those barely-there people. If you sneak a peek behind La Belle Bianca Castafiore's considerable operatic girth, there I am, ensconced in this drafty, ancient manor with my darling, but essentially clueless, Fred, and with the real brains behind the outfit -- the Felines.








Once upon a time, I was -- sniff -- a rising star; More importantly, I had considerable fame as a clothes hound and shoe afficianado. Chronic illness and pretty severe daily pain has reduced me to unknown status, and my wardrobe to oversized organic cottons, with the occasional silk and linen blend, all bearing the satanic marks of elastic and screeching velcro closures.









Sleeping became difficult, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the rising sun became an emblem of survival. The computer, and its incredible access to almost anything one can dream up, was a great tool to wield in the middle of those long nights. I was a member of several online communities of people who were also in pain, who were suffering from the same acronyms. Boy... was that depressing.









One 3 am (apparently, the witching hour), I was searching for information on a medical test that I was about to undergo -- something that doctors just adore -- and my googling returned a hit that turned out to be transformative. I had never before ventured into the blogosphere, thinking it a "place" for only the Smarmiest of Smarty Pants. I was ill-prepared for the pleasant shock of reading this acerbic nurse's blog. It beat the hell out of the navel-gazing and shrill cheerleading of the online support groups.

And so it was that Nurse K's blog, Crass-Pollination: An ER blog (ED if you're... oh, never mind), was the first medical blog I ever read. Medical blogs helped me get through some of the long nights that were already medically oriented, anyway -- and intense. It's much better to laugh than to cry -- and infinitely better to snort-laugh than to weakly titter. Nurse K supplied lots of those snorts, although I now regularly read a good dozen other medical blogs that are equally entertaining and informing.







These medicos are intelligent and creative people, turns out. For whatever reason, blogs maintained by Other Liberal Educators proved... unsatisfying. And so, I was hooked.

I never expected to learn some of the things that I have, however -- mostly things pertaining to intense professional frustration. There are a host of other nominatives that I sometimes would like to apply but won't. Probably. Well, maybe. We'll see. As I said way back in the beginning, whose blog is it anyway? That snappy-snippy attitude, and that respect, is due every blogger. Well, not every blogger. Well, maybe. We'll see. Cela dépend.

(Please recall: I am the prof who declares that "Yes, there *are* stupid questions, just as there *are* stupid students. That said, I never doubt my own ability to salvage all students and most questions. It is called getting to the heart of the matter.)

It turns out that learning what particularly challenges [blogging] nurses, doctors, and other health-related workers has impacted my interactions with those self-same people in my life. In some ways, it has been marvelously helpful -- mostly, it encourages me not to blather on and on, as I tend to do when not feeling well. I need to be an efficient, honest, and straightforward patient, since I expect as much from the people trying to help me. I now don't provide much in the way of information that is not pertinent to whatever the specific situation might be, and I do not ask for things that I might have in the past (mostly creature comforts -- a blanket, a pillow -- but also that meal that never came, or the medication that never arrived).

Unfortunately, the thing I learned most was fear of these people. Before anyone flies into some sort of fury-driven arrhythmia, let me qualify that use of the word "fear." It is the same fear that I experience when driving near speeding, lane-hogging, long distance rigs on the highway-- and it feels like a prudent response.

These [blogging] doctors, nurses, et al, are not malevolent, and they would not purposefully hurt anyone in a lasting way. I believe, however, that a small minority *does* intentionally inflict temporary pain -- they confess it, and they confess it with a certain amount of very disturbing pride. Of course, there will be a complete disavowal -- instead, my lack of humor will be suspect, or my intellect (more likely my worldliness, or common sense, saying, "Jane, you ignorant slut," to which I can only say, "Dan, you pompous ass...") Shoot, we all recognize the urge and understand it -- but acting on it? Oh, what are the words? Hmmm. Oh, yes: wrong and amoral. Criminal?

Faced with an annoying waste of time that is a woman faking a seizure, the response is:
I head to the cabinet that holds the STAT 16 Fr Punitive Foley Catheter, and Nurse Tinkerbell heads for the cabinet that holds the STAT 16g Punitive IV Catheter.It's called a "16 Squared", and it's the first line treatment for ODs and fake seizures.

[The whole entry itself is totally hilarious, and I am a great fan of this particular blog.]

The punitive foley and i.v. catheter are tame examples, really. Maybe what is most disturbing is that I have no difficulty believing that this sort of thing, and worse, happens. I guess it is not supposed to matter because no lasting damage is done, or the patient is presumed too stupid or "crayzee" to ever know.

And, it must be said, in this election time, that there are systemic cruelties that no human can match -- the idiotic aspects of EMTALA law, the medication too expensive to be had, the follow-up care that just won't happen, the dumping that has never really stopped (go ahead, challenge me on that, I dare you. I double-dare you. I will name names!).

Abuses? Good God, I don't know how health care professionals (I am thinking primarily of the ER/ED environment) maintain any semblance of a good attitude in the face of all the social ills that masquerade as physical or mental health emergencies. I imagine that almost everyone they see is at least a dual diagnosis. Despite this terrible complexity, they are called on to treat the presenting symptoms, the presenting problem -- but the background of addiction or some other chronic disease invariably creeps in to complicate the visit. It takes a lot of disciplined skill to keep the "emergency" visit on an "emergency" track.

In the blogs about emergency medicine, you will read stories of women wanting pregnancy tests or ultrasounds at 3 am -- after arriving via ambulance, no less -- and tales of homeless people who want something to eat (a sammich) and a place to sleep. Drug-seekers are an enormous drag on the general goodwill and dealing with them daily may well be enough to tarnish even the finest of attitudes. These folks are usually allergic to all medicine except opiates, and attempt to steer their treatment straight toward the drug they desire. WhiteCoat, who rants at another insightful and entertaining blog spot, tells a story respectful of all comers: "Drug Seekers Suck." There are *countless* number of blogged posts generated by the frustration of dealing with drug-seekers -- would that that provided something beyond temporary catharsis.

Most professionals worth their salt know frustration -- if they don't, they've chosen a niche of safety, more power to them. What said professional chooses to do with that frustration, however, speaks volumes.

Moi? In the built-in cabinets of the Ivory Tower, I kept a stash of amazing weaponry to throw at students, although chalk would always do, in a pinch. I converted every departmental or university-wide insanity into a reactive act of pique, usually in the form of a scathing letter -- or, if the matter were truly weighty, a collective effort with colleagues. Maybe a sit-in, or a huffy petition. When the problems were "emergent," so was my response. When the issues were more some systemic form of illness, working toward a cure required much, required deep study, required patience. Of course, I understand that an academic or intellectual emergency does not really matter, in that grand scheme of things, in, cough, the order of things. Except for two specific instances*, life itself was never in question -- although divestiture from South Africa did seem to matter... Blogging medical professionals, par contre, exist within a world of pain walled off from the rest of us. Not unlike an abscess. (Sorry, that came unbidden! But, really, how true! A good incision and drainage might be just what a doctor might order...)

And like the whining teenager, there's no way [we] could ever understand.

It must be very wearing to deal with the people who are inappropriately demanding the considerable medical talents of an emergency department. You don't have to follow many medical blogs before the problem list is set: people on Medicaid, the uninsured, drug-seekers, people with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, headache, homeless people, alcoholics, addicts, and general dirtbags who don't appear sufficiently grateful for the ministrations received. Just looking at the list is enough to make *me* sigh with anticipated fatigue and frustration. What can I say? I am a real fan of the genre and of the brave people driving the narration.

Then, it happened. Nurse K put me on the list. Oy! There it was: reflex sympathetic dystrophy (the inaccuracy of the name continues to be perpetuated by both sufferers and medicos alike -- nevermind that sympathetically maintained pain is not necessary to the condition, or that it does not include causalgia -- because CRPS is just too unwieldy to say!)

Anyway, this is the entrapment post in question:

CRAYZEE NOS
52 y.o. female with a past medical history of something like:
Fibromyalgia, chronic pain in other conditions, anxiety, depression, panic disorder, bipolar II, hyperventilation syndrome, cyclical vomiting, restless leg syndrome, reflex sympathetic dystrophy,IBS, endometriosis, L4-L5 "bulging disk", bunionectomy
AND
CABG 6 months ago....

...presents with "chest tightening". In the last month alone, she's had five negative chest-related work-ups including a clear cardiac cath.

Geez, Crayzee, why'd you have to have that CABG on there? Now we have to treat you like a real patient.

As part of the banter that appeared in the comment section following the post, Nurse K had occasion to write: I think all crayzee, anxiety-mediated diseases and "pain out of proportion to exam" complaints should just be lumped together under this ICD-9 code.

I often wondered how people with fibromyalgia felt when they were under attack. Now I was in the same position, and it pissed me off.

For all of five minutes! For what use is anger in the face of ignorance? And since stamping and stomping ouT ignorance has been the calling of my life... surely this would qualify as one of those euphemistic "teaching opportunities"!

Well, no. I don't have the energy or -- after that terribly uncomfortable aforementioned five minutes -- the desire. No, once again I come away convinced that these people are dangerous (and I hear the explanatory retort of 'we are just venting... we're professionals but we are also only human... we'd never say these things to patients or act on them...').

How much do you think it would blow these med bloggers minds to learn that they are teaching the public to second guess and seriously doubt their capacity for satisfactory treatment and diagnosis?

Of course it must be reiterated that the offending, offensive bloggers are a small minority, and I wish I were less thin-skinned, more able to "consider the source." Shoot -- it is illuminating just to remember the traits likely to a blogger to begin with! There is a need to be right, a desire to pontificate, a hope to be known -- just as there is knowledge to share, experiences to detail, and much fun to be had. And so it is that I remain enamoured of these talented people and the incredible tales of humanity they have to share, and wish the medical bloggers the best.

But always remember, and never forget: Touche pas à mon pote!

*Two students of mine, both Freshmen, turned in suicide notes as homework, and in so doing, cemented my rapid-turnover grading habit forever. Thankfully, both students lived; Sadly, they both had to drop out of college, though I am sure they returned -- both were phenomenally gifted.

Failure to Educate: Chiswick's Corollary of Classroom Co-Deficiencies

This post crosses the line into the unethical.

I don't bear the burden of HIPAA -- the only license I have is a License to Teach; The only legal threat to a teacher in these parts is that of being sued for "Failure to Educate." (I am not kidding. It has happened several times in the urban blight of a system where I last worked.)

Hmmm. Another ethical dilemma -- probably of little interest to most. The public school system teachers with whom I labored there at the end of my illustrious career talked about the "Failure to Educate" laws as if they were personal affronts. In part, I understand -- our system had fielded its share of trivial lawsuits brought by guilt-ridden parents. What is always hard to understand is why there are so many settlements. Sometimes it seems like we, as in "all of us," are too world-weary to see the truth to its end, to its real expression. We would rather just settle.

It could be that you don't know what I mean.

On the other hand, the laws' hand, Failure to Educate charges have also been used for a greater good, as in the case filed by the NAACP in Florida. Individual cases can also have a wide range of impact, as in this ruling for compensatory education for a Georgia student:

On March 20, 2007, the District Court of Georgia ordered the Atlanta Independent School System to pay Jarron Draper's tuition at a private special education school for four years, or until he graduated with a diploma from high school, as prospective compensatory education for their persistent failure to educate him.

Most viable lawsuits cite the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) under which disabled students are promised a free and appropriate public education. It is frequently invoked at graduation age by parents of students who have, for example, not learned to read, despite 12 years of Special Education designed to deal with their dyslexia, ADD, or other disability. Often the IEP process is under fire -- whether and how it was done, whether and how it was implemented. Amplified, Failure to Educate cases raise larger questions of access to education and fairness.

Lest anyone think this phenomenon is peculiar to the Deep South of the United States (and, yes, I admit to thinking that), please note that it also is/was a frequent occurrence in England and Wales. Even New Jersey!

"Incorrect" usage usually involves allegations about instructional competency. It rarely goes to trial, but just as any allegation of professional incompetence does, it wrecks good teachers' careers. I know that there are bad, very bad, even incredibly awful, teachers -- somehow, they don't seem to get ferreted out. Oddly enough, they tend to be the 20-30 year veterans who have little training in their subject matter, but loads of experience getting by, and many connections "downtown." Following some rule that I'm sure has been comically designated (Thelma's Third Law of Diminished Talent, Chiswick's Corollary of Classroom Co-Deficiencies), these veterans often end their careers as Principals or Administrators.

Dodge-artists, shifty sorts, they are responsible for the calibre of College Freshmen who end up in my Brother-Unit's university classroom, hopelessly remedial.

Well. I have done it again. The intended subject of this post has been successfully obstructed. Yet, it must be done, ethical challenge or not. Later. It has to do with the ketamine coma... again.

The Island of Hadee

You will recall that one of my Brother-Units, Grader Boob, is an English prof at a large public university.

One of his writing assignments for his Freshman comp students involved song analysis. Sorry to say, Grader Boob notes that, "apparently, the idea of a thesis merging literary and rhetorical analysis escapes most of my writers."

He offered the following quote from a student paper as clarification:

"Marley was a Jamican who sometimes visited the island of Hadee."

Critical Mass or Freshman Comp

A close relative of mine is an English professor at a university that I've never been able to locate on a map. This semester he has been stuck with some Freshman Comp courses, designed to instill good writing and research skills, as well as a measure of critical thinking.

Last week he assigned a critical and rhetorical analysis of some famous protest songs and first drafts are beginning to trickle in. He began the initial evaluation of these gestational pieces today.

It is a bad sign that I should receive an email about their content so soon.

My dear brother writes:

I'm spending the morning looking at first drafts of the song project; things aren't looking too good. I give them minimal guidance for the first drafts, hoping to see just how they've interpreted the assignment. Apparently, the idea of a thesis merging literary and rhetorical analysis escapes most of my writers. (Although I must admit, it is an odd notion indeed, smacking of a grad school assignment adapted for freshmen.)

So they tell me in very broad terms about the singer ("Marley was a Jamican who sometimes visited the island of Hadee"--No, I'm not kidding) or about the hippies roaming free during the 60s or about how Donovan wouldn't dare sing "Universal Soldier" to an audience of American patriots because as "[t]he movie 'The Punisher' said it best: 'if you want peace, prepare for war.'"

War indeed. Where do I begin?

Pedagogy

I found this hysterical and very effective instructional video over at FlautoNP's blog. Thank you, FlautoNP!





The ways we learn! I have always been a fan of outrageous teaching and made every effort, in my time, to underscore even the most arid of facts with some sort of demented presentation. Of course, there is only so much one can do with the French subjunctive, although I think collecting near-rotten fruits and vegetables for the students to throw in their inevitable frustration is an idea not without merit.

Adults learning a foreign language are very inhibited -- unwilling to throw caution (not to mention near-rotten fruits and vegetables) to the wind and make mistakes. The Effortlessly Poopy and Fluent Child is forever touted as the paradigm for the Tied-Up-In-Knots and Constipated Adult. Unleash that inner child, learning specialists cry, and language acquisition will have a recuperative and restorative effect (not unlike some revolutionary scheme for toilet training).

Those wacky learning specialists!

The idea, of course, is to trick the staid adult into risking just a little mimicry of the Crazy Educator in the hope that the over-the-top instruction would draw them out precisely to the point of what is correct.

Teaching language was always fun -- except when it was tedious, and even then, I [hope I] never let the tedium show. "Teaching" literature and a more enlightened form of contemplation, the critical essay, however, was perilous and nearly always tedious.



No, not so much tedium -- more like being flailed alive.



Like many people, I love En attendant Godot, Waiting for Godot. Beckett gives me shivers of delight, frissons of recognition. For some reason, we think his work is easily accessible and we offer it up on platters to new literature students, mint jelly on the side.



Class discussion of the play was abysmal. This being my first go with "teaching" literature at the university, and given my incurable optimism, I had done minimal direction of the discussions, vowing instead to follow my fearless students anywhere. Yes, I forgot that they were hopelessly constipated.



They talked about homeless people. Yes, Didi and Gogo served as exemplum of this "scourge taking over our cities and parks... " (I bought Maalox.)



Then, they decided to talk about the role of desire. (I contemplated a purchase of champagne.) However, this quickly devolved into a discussion of how brave it was for Beckett to present such openly gay characters. (I rolled a few joints, drank some more Maalox.)

What's the best way to "teach" Beckett's En attendant Godot? Certainly not by letting go of the reins and liberating student discussion! The next semester, I relied heavily on performance value -- we watched three different theatre presentations, we read it aloud as a class, not permitting anyone to fall behind in either reading or understanding (jusqu'à un certain niveau). They began to know Estragon et Vladimir, Pozzo et Lucky, understand the oblique references, and be comfortable in the silence of what they could not know.

I was psyched. The final papers were about to burn a hole in my briefcase. I pulled them out, stacked them neatly on my cleared dining room table, grabbed a Diet Coke. Found an ink pen, got a fresh legal pad. Deep breath of excitement.

"Vladimir and Estragon are two homosexual homeless men..."

How do I get in touch with this Mad German Doctor Dude?
In the interim, I find great comfort with the Parisian Sock: