Tuesday, March 2, 2010

inscrutable

I am bad at many, many things. I'm horrible at foreign languages. I'm pretty lousy at completing projects in a timely manner. I'm no good at getting bread to rise. I construct flimsy arguments that are easily poked through with holes. I can't seem to figure out the breathing in swimming. I almost never listen to phone messages (perhaps a sin rather than a failure). I'm late returning emails. The list could go on endlessly.

But I'm usually pretty good at one thing: reading my students. I know when they're confused. I can sense when they're engaged. I see it when they're on the verge of discovery. I know when to slow down and try another avenue. But this semester, well, not so much. My students, 17 young and diverse women, are completely and totally inscrutable to me. Don't get me wrong, there are moments that seem electric and I know everything is working--like during a particularly exciting conversation about Margaret Fuller's obsession with the Romans--but there are far more moments when I haven't a clue. They stonewall me every third class, and when two of them giggle on the far side of the table, I fear that they're laughing at just how stupid my question really was. A few are totally silent and several talk voluminously, without seeming to pause for breaths.

When I'm really, truly honest with myself I know that they've actually done nothing to suggest that they don't like the class. When my paranoia mounted to such a degree that I needed something to give (I used guilt as my pedagogical tool of choice), they blurted something out about loving me. But I didn't believe them, at least not for more than an hour. I can't seem to figure all this out. Even when I doubt everything about myself, when I feel nothing but dread at my chosen path, teaching has always been the thing that I could do really well. It was a place of affirmation. But something seems amiss; something has shifted and not in a good way.

I think it's about being at this particular college. It's not unlike my own alma mater, a place where I learned to value teaching genius. And I remember well what I -- and my pals -- revered: the wit, the erudition, the brilliance of a mind in front of a class. I didn't value a decentered classroom. I didn't long for student discussion. I wanted to be wowed by a brain on fire. And I wasn't often disappointed. I carry the weight of these expectations into my current teaching, even as I know how pedagogically foolish, how utterly unproductive to real learning, these techniques often are. But still.

I'm rarely a brain on fire. Mostly, I'm just a slightly anxious and often blunted teacher trying to motivated engaged discussion. Even when it happens, when everyone talks and everyone actually seems to listen, I don't leave feeling fantastic. I leave wishing I had proclaimed the truths of the universe.

2 comments:

Maura said...

I know that you aren't looking for affirmation here, but I have to pretty radically disagree with the comment that you're "rarely a brain on fire." From the minute I met you I was impressed because you seemed to be able to "play the game" that (from my perspective) would be necessary to make it through all these academic hoops - like you had the New England charm and wit and penetratingness that was sort of absent from our southern alma mater. Could you be cowed by them? Now that I'm back in an environment where wit and genius matter - though I'm sure on a less intense level than at your institution, I often find myself experiencing similar blustery moments - though more often it's with colleagues - wanting to respond in a funny and erudite way or have the perfect insight and feeling like my mind can be a little too slow on the uptake. But sometimes I'm surprised, though, at the difference that a slight mental shift makes - if I can momentarily embrace the mind that I have, and bolster myself up with a faith that my own peculiar odd perspective/approach/brain has something to offer (both students and colleagues), people react differently - they (thank god!) seem to embrace the weirdness and we all can relax a little. oh sorry for such a long comment.

Have you thought about talking about this in class? I mean, in terms of a conversation about what (theoretically) they want from college classrooms, and about what you wanted in college and what you want for them now, and about balancing "brain on fire" moments with the realization (and probably happy circumstance) that students often learn best when they - gasp - get to experience the move towards meaning themselves? even if they disagree or complicate things, it should be interesting and get them thinking, and it might clear the air by helping them to see that you (of course) are teaching and thinking in conscious and deliberate ways. And anyhow I bet it is going much better than you think it is. We worry too much. They're just kids.

EAL said...

You know how I feel about this but I'm sharing my story here anyway. I love love love brains on fire; I'm with you. And I agree with Maura that your brain is pretty much always on fire. Wouldn't doubt that if I were you. But what I loved more than brains on fire was the day I walked into a college English class having read my first chapter of Faulkner EVER, and shaking with fear about my inability to understanding a word of it. Until the man in front of the class said to start, "Does anyone have a clue what is happening on this first page? Because I don't." The walls of that room and my brain broke open at that moment. It was such a relief to see a professor (and a male one, at that) admit that he just didn't know, and maybe we could all figure it out together...

posting with love,
Miss Decentered:)