Something Shiny! » School

On sex and Navy SEALs

emily — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:26:29 +0000

Or maybe sex with Navy SEALs, I’m not sure. I’m teaching a Women’s Studies class this semester and so far, it’s been… interesting. It’s still the first week, so I’m trying hard not to make any judgments about the class overall and, at the same time, embrace the differences between History and Women’s Studies. But, wow, have our discussions been… interesting. Wednesday wound up being a lot of sitting around and talking about feelings, so I tried to take today’s discussion in a more concrete direction, getting the students to think about definitions within the field of Women’s Studies and such. And somehow, I’m still sort of fuzzy on how, we wound up talking about how women aren’t allowed to be Navy SEALs and are also not allowed to be in submarines because (as one student put it), a woman’s presence would be distracting to them men on board. THAT then led down the rabbit hole of ‘men need to learn to control themselves’ and ‘biology, schmiology’ and oh, wow, did we get off topic. Thankfully, Monday is a holiday, so I can take the day to regroup and figure out how to guide the class in a more academically-grounded direction while at the same time not completely squelching discussion. In the meantime, in case you’re curious, women are going to be allowed on submarines as early as this year, once new submarines come off the line with (as I understand it) women’s restrooms and separate sleeping areas.

Lowest Common Denominator

emily — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:07:06 +0000

I’ve said before that teaching can be the most rewarding but also the most frustrating undertaking. There are some students who are so eager, so diligent, so interested and engaged, that they are a joy to have in the classroom. But there are others who need to be brought along much, much more. They are the reason that teachers wind up teaching to the lowest common denominator. These are the students who, after you’ve announced something several times in class, will come up to you afterwards and ask for the same information again because they weren’t listening the first several times. They are the students who lose and/or completely ignore assignment handouts. Who perform poorly on tests for the simple reason that they didn’t read the instructions. Understand that I’m not talking about learning disabled students; that’s a different matter. The lowest common denominator is comprised of students who are otherwise perfectly capable but who just don’t try. These are the students, in short, who make me crazy, who make teaching frustrating, and who (particularly at this point in the semester) make me really look forward to finals week!

Late

emily — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:49:20 +0000

I’m late getting home from teaching my morning class and I can’t believe the reason for it myself. We were in the middle of talking about the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford decision when we ran out of class time. I told my students we’d have to pick up on Friday where we left off, but they asked to be held late so we could finish talking about the case. They asked to be held late. In eight years of teaching, that has never happened to me. I’m still on such a high.

Prelude to a graduation

emily — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:27:16 +0000

What is it about big events like weddings and graduations that make all of us go a little crazy and do things in preparation that we wouldn’t otherwise do? I remember I went to a tanning salon a few days (days!) before my wedding, thinking that I needed to do something about my farmer’s tan, and then having a bit of a skin reaction to the tanning itself. Fortunately, it wasn’t noticeable and was gone by the time the wedding rolled around, but still. Still! Then last week I found myself picking up the phone and calling to arrange a pedicure for this week (what with graduation being on Friday and all). A pedicure. I never, ever get pedicures because they’ve always struck me as being such a girl thing to do and I’m so not a girl. I mean, technically yes, I’m a girl, but I’m not a girly girl. Never have been. (I’ve always been a girl, though, just to clear that up. Where were we?) So now I’ve got these beautifully painted toenails and I’m fussing over them, worried that I’m going to chip them or something and, anyway, what was I thinking getting a pedicure? I’m going to be spackling one of our walls later today, for the love! I also set out this morning to buy Spanx to, erm, even out any unevenness under the dress I’m wearing to graduation. John’s been pointing out for a full week that this idea was flawed because it’s likely to be a) ninety degrees on Friday and b) even warmer under my graduation gown and doctoral hood and, finally, c) why add more discomfort to all of that? I came back from my Spanx shopping trip empty-handed and thank dog for that: when I tried on the gown and the hood and the cap, it was fantastically warm enough without Spanx, thanx very much. All of which is to say, I’ve gone a bit bonkers in the lead-up to this, my third and final post-high school graduation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to check my to-do list. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something like, I don’t know, “buy fake eyelashes” or something.

Coming up for air

emily — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:41:53 +0000

Folks, I have missed this space. It’s been nearly a month since I blogged and in that time, I’ve been under water. To say “my dissertation has kept me busy” doesn’t even come close. It would be more accurate (and more colorful) to say “my dissertation has made me its bitch.” But! There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Today, I’m turning it in because today, I’m three weeks out from my oral defense. At the moment, on two hours’ sleep, I’m too tired to even have butterflies about the defense. I’ll spend the next few weeks formatting my dissertation to meet the university’s requirements (Microsoft styles, anyone?), and preparing for the defense, but right now? Right now I could just use a nap.

Suddenly

emily — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:14:11 +0000

Raise your hand if you’re tired of hearing about my students! Me, too, but here we go again. It’s now the end of the semester. Classes officially ended yesterday and we’re now solidly in what they call “reading days” at UF: days set aside with no exams and no classes and no anything so the students can prepare themselves for their final exams. And yet. What are they doing, you ask? They’re worrying about their grades. They’re setting up appointments (during reading days!) to talk about the grades they received on past assignments. Sure, they could have set up those appointments weeks ago when they got the actual assignments back, but that would be silly! Why do today what you can postpone until it’s too late? Of course I’m being sarcastic, and of course I remember what it’s like to be a student (I still am, after all!). But I also know the value in planning ahead. I got an email from one of my students yesterday that I think sums up perfectly my forehead-slapping feeling right now: “I am suddenly very worried regarding my grade in this class.” I should have said that instead of engaging in garment-rending and teeth-gnashing about past grades, this student (and others) ought to be focusing on studying for the final. They ought to be looking forward, not back. Instead, I resigned myself to sitting through another Monday meeting with tissues.

Offensive

emily — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 03:26:14 +0000

The last two Mondays in a row, I’ve had students crying in my office. Different students, I might add. Yesterday’s visit really baffled me, though. As the young woman tried to compose herself, I handed her a tissue and encouraged her to take her time and breathe. She then told me that she was offended by my comments on her paper. I take that kind of comment very seriously. Rather than asking her to elaborate, which I should have done, I instead assured her that I had certainly not intended to offend her in any way. After she stopped crying and left my office, I reviewed my comments on her last paper. Nothing stood out: beyond fixing sentence structure and punctuation, there were notes in the margins like ‘cite your sources,’ ‘proof your work,’ and ‘relate this back to your thesis.’ At the end, I’d written a lengthy paragraph suggesting ways in which she could improve the paper. I was, and am, completely flummoxed. Unless she doesn’t know the meaning of the word “offended,” and instead meant to say that I had hurt her feelings, she seems to have taken offense to fairly inert suggestions. Either way, it’s baffling. Is this really what we’ve come to? Are students so used to being coddled that they can’t handle constructive criticism? At eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, isn’t it time to take off the kid gloves?

An interesting question

emily — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 05:19:58 +0000

My students had to write their final papers about the cost of a good life and many of them chose to write about fighting for social justice and social change. Of these students, many argued that Dr. King was assassinated because of his beliefs: that the cost of a good life for King was his untimely death. Put simply, they argue that Dr. King believed in integration and James Earl Ray did not, therefore Ray murdered King because of King’s beliefs. And I find that a really interesting argument. I noted in their drafts that their causality was debatable, and I posed this question: Was King killed because of his beliefs? or was he killed by a racist because of the color of his skin? Invariably, they left the argument in their papers (an interesting question itself, no?).

City upon a hill

emily — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:02:18 +0000

I’m writing a lecture that I’ll give tomorrow about John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop gave the sermon in 1630, aboard the Arbella, as he and about a thousand other Puritans headed for the New World. It’s always hard to teach history to undergraduates because they are easily bored and their idea of history is that it is unequivocally boring. Nonetheless, I’m optimistic about this lecture. I’d like to give them a sense of what these people endured, and for what reason. What they gave up and why they fought so hard for what they believed in. Puritans left comfortable homes and lifestyles back in England for the promise of a better life. They sought religious freedom and the ability to live as they saw fit. So committed were they to this path that they put themselves and their entire venture on the line, braving a treacherous sea voyage and an uncertain future in an unknown land. The only thing that was certain was that they couldn’t stay where they were. To a certain extent, they knew what they were up against because they had learned the lessons of Jamestown. The men who attempted to colonize Virginia in the early 1600s established their settlement near brackish water, which meant that they didn’t have access to clean, drinkable water. They relied on being resupplied by England, having neither the means nor the desire to support themselves. As a result, their colony nearly failed and would have, had tobacco not saved it. The Puritans knew these stories and learned them well. They brought families and settled in tight-knit communities. They subordinated their own personal desires to the common good of their congregation. In this enterprise, they were acutely aware not only that everything they held dear was at stake, but also that they were being watched. Winthrop wrote, “we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.” They risked everything on a dream: a quest for a city upon a hill, a more perfect union. Surely that is something we can all relate to.

whatdoIneedtodotogetanA

emily — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:31:21 +0000

Ah, November. It brings with it crisp fall air, leaves changing colors, a hint of holiday cheer around the corner… and students who invariably open conversations with whatdoIneedtodotogetanA. It’s all one word in their vocabulary, you see, with no clear separation dividing the words. WhatdoIneedtodotogetanA? It’s usually uttered by students with whom you’ve had little contact. You may even wonder if they are, in fact, enrolled in your class. On the other hand, they seem so sure that you’re their teacher. And they look at you with those puppy dog eyes, all hopeful and optimistic. WhatdoIneedtodotogetanA? The inflection rises at the end with a lilt, the way Californians sometimes talk. Or Australians. Their hands may be shaking a little, the lower lip trembling, the head cocked to one side. So you take pity on them. Just this once. And you lean in close. “What you need to do,” you say, as they begin scribbling down your every word, “is build a time machine to take you back to the beginning of the semester…”.