Listen to me

One of the most satisfying as well as enlightening assignments I give my communication skills students, is to listen to someone. In class, we talk about the distinction we’re all aware of: the mechanical hearing compared to the perceptive listening. Then I tell them that for an hour or two, they need to listen.

“This isn’t something that you want to do with a person you don’t care about,” I say. “This might be short, but it’s probably going to take more time than you thought it would.” Their assignment: find someone they consider worth the listening time (a commentary on how busy we consider ourselves, and how we insulate our emotions), and to listen. “You do not need to ask any questions. You do not need to find a specific answer. All I need you to do is listen.” Their faces tell me that they are humoring the instructor. Just listen? “Afterward,” I continue, “I want you to write a short essay about what happened. You’re not telling me how to listen; you’re telling me what happened in the listening assignment.”
“What if they don’t want to talk with us?” someone asks.
I smile. “That will be the least of your problems.”

The next week when we meet for class I do not need to remind them of the assignment. They compare results with each other. “I thought he’d never shut up.” “I learned things I never knew about my parents.” “It was crazy.” “It went on for hours.” Their universal response is a mixture of disbelief and awe. How could something as simple as listening create such a powerful response? Who would have thought that listening, simply listening to someone, was so important?

Remember what we learned, I tell them. We don’t feel listened to. If we are bosses, someone will follow our directions. When we tell the deli clerk to give us a pound of this and a half pound of that, we get what we’ve asked for. Our family members give us a mumble when we pointedly wonder, “How was your day?” But we do not feel that someone gives us that incredible gift of concentrated listening. Eye contact, quiet, and an open soul, tell us that we are worth listening to. Such listening changes more lives than only the one who is doing the talking.

Observations on life and literature from students

In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the family was killed. This was not a good outlook on it.


They were murdered, not on purpose but on accident.

A basketball game ends with the buzzard.

You underestimate onions.


Rude people eaves drop.

Synthetic motor oil works better. Don’t ask me why. It just does.

In the older cinematic versions, there was a hero whose job was to go and save the young girl from the vampire’s layer.

Near the end of the play [Othello] Desdemona excepted her fate.

Gregor [The Metamorphosis] has a tough time in his relationship with his family. Being a bug doesn’t help either.

You're a Failure: Fate and Grades

We are discussing “The Judge’s Wife” and it’s prophecy that Nicholas Vidal is destined to lose his head over a woman. He does: he falls in love or in lust (take your analytic choice) with the widow of his nemesis, and refuses to flee from his fate of capture and execution. Such is the power of love. Or of the cages of custom and society (as Heiko points out) that populate the story. Or of belief in self-fulfilling prophecy.

One of my relatives was greeted by the teacher the first day of class with, “Sit down. I can see you’re going to be trouble.” Now, this was not in a small school where everyone knew everyone. This was not a person notorious by second grade. No, it was a bright, articulate person, who was apparently typed by his teacher the first day. By what he wore? How he walked? His name?

Certainly, teachers do talk with other instructors for survival, basic information, helpful interactions, to be alerted about students’ particular issues. Also certainly, with our students, our friends, our loved ones, we don’t want to touch the points that hurt.

Vidal's prophecy and its fulfillment reminds me uncomfortably of some religions that state the believer’s fate is predestined. If we are bound to fail, then why try. But in a universe that encourages choice, if we don't try, we do fail. What kind of universe do we, or Vidal, believe in? Fate? Calvin had one monopoly on it, or believed he did. Hitler and his followers had another. Did Dick and Jane have a third? Or nth?

Last week I shared another of those Let’s look at where your grade is for the semester talks with a student. He initiated it. His analysis was, “I’m twenty-one. I screwed up once. I don’t want to miss this chance. How can I do better?” My answer was, “Follow directions. Get your assignments in on time. Participate in class. Let us see the thought you seem to have put into your essays when you take part in the class discussions and in-class writing.” Is he capable? I think so. Will he produce the above average work he says he wants to display in the class? I hope so.

Who succeeds? Getting where we want is not only turning it stellar work; it’s staying the course. Literally the course: 17 weeks at 3 hours of seat time per week, 2 potential hours of homework time per week; it’s showing up on time to hear those announcements that happen in the first five minutes of class.
Figuratively the course: this course, and the next, meeting the deadlines for registration, returning those library books, showing up for labs and exams.

Long ago someone said, “When the alarm goes off in the morning, nobody has a career. Everybody has a job.” It’s only when we’ve gotten ourselves out of bed and bleared at the mirror, that we remember we do have a career, life goals, and inspiration. There are mornings I heartily disagree with the career and job assessment; there are mornings when I’ve been up with children several times during the night, that I need to agree. I don’t want to go to work; I want to go back to bed. Instead, I go to work.

There are no fated failures. There’s only potential. Some exceed it. Some use it. Some put it under the alarm and choose not to set the clock.

Response

I like to hand back essays to students in class, before I post those grades online. This way, the people who are going to go to pieces over their grades can do so in context. It’s difficult to provide explanation though, when students skip class and then attempt to assess their progress by looking at the online postings.

“Call me,” Janice said on the recorded message. “I checked my essay grade and I can’t figure out why I got a 60.”
Janice had left class early (for the fifth time). She missed the discussions we had at the end of class; from students on how the essays could be developed; from me on how the essays were graded. She asked me to call her back, but left no callback telephone number. When I finally reached her, and identified myself, she said, “I can’t talk now, I’m just walking out the door.”

My notes on her work state that she wrote a “C” level essay. However she did not submit the required outline (-10 points) or provide the works cited page (-10 points). The online system allows me one slot to enter numbers. Explanations I write out, in complete sentences, on the essays, which I hand back at the end of the class. If Janice had been in class to listen to instructions, to ask questions during the writing of her work, or even pick up her essay, I could have explained the grade to her.

Post Thanksgiving

Here we go. The time between Thanksgiving and whatever we call the break coming up (Christmas, Winter Break) is one that tests our dedication.

Yes, we care about our students’ progress, probably more than we did in August or September. But we’re tired of repeated excuses, we have presents to buy and fruitcake to bake. The days are shorter, the nights longer. Our students are not the only ones feeling that there’s too little time and not enough patience. When someone’s grandma dies for the fifth time this semester, we want to call him on it, and then go off to the kitchen to eat cookie dough – or take our own children sledding.

We’re going to feel like this again in May, when the sunshine and early summer winds call us as we sit grading papers and trying to figure out how to keep our students involved in the classroom. We’re going to caution them against the senior swan dive, against giving up or slacking off just weeks from the end.

We’re going to give some of them the break of their lives, or remind ourselves that for some of them, the best thing we can do is stay true to our principles on late papers and lack of attendance.

And we will survive to teach again – in two weeks, in two months. We’re in one of the fortunate professions, where next year, next semester we have the opportunity to begin fresh. Fresh books, fresh attitudes, fresh students. All we need to do is stay true to our field of study, our beliefs, our students. Ourselves.

Teaching Thoughts

Punctuation keeps us monogamously in love and in our boyfriend’s [instead of boyfriends’] heart.


In an effort to make them produce, you’ve put the two most non-responsive students in a group by themselves. They report back, in whispers, telling you they have nothing to say.


Direction to the class: I want you to put yourselves in groups. Form a group with people you have something in common with.
[Results to date: tattoos, love of a musical group, work places, future professions]
So far, luckily, no group has formed, “because we were sitting next to each other.”

Onion Talk

“An onion is just an onion. You could put any vegetable in there.”
We are discussing “Monologue for an Onion,” a poem that I think is wonderful – and the one Maritza rushes to suggest when we’ve run short of time and need to choose only a few from the homework readings. “Oh, I just love this one.”
Woo hoo, I think to myself: someone else was drawn into the evocation of sounds (onion/union) and thoughts (Can we ever get to someone’s core? Is there a core? Do people have a central core or simply another layer of mystery? By probing too quickly into a relationship and demanding intimacy, do we destroy it? Can we know the depths of a person we love?).
“Think of the onion,” I begin, as soon as I have finished reading aloud and we are ready to talk about the poem; but I’m shouted down in the exuberant display of opinion.
“It could be any vegetable,” Josh repeats. “What do you want to be?”
I look from one class member to another, wondering how they would type themselves. Who’s a kiwi fruit? Who’s a banana? Are we talking about personality, or relationships, or performance in English class? Can we relate this back to Ginsberg’s tomatoes and avocados in “Supermarket in California” or Millay’s apples in the sonnets from Fatal Interview? Love is love, whether I’m using a rose or cowslips carried in my skirt or an onion to describe it. What kind of love?
“What about the symbolism?” I ask. “In ‘A Rose for Emily’ we had a rose; think about how the symbolism of an onion is different.” We return to the rings of meaning in the poem.
“An onion is an onion,” Josh repeats his major point.
“Poetry is not always easy to understand,” Whitney temporizes.
“There’s symbolism we do not have in another object. What about the apple?” I offer. “Think about how apples have parts – skin, the apple flesh, that central core – and if you turn an apple and cut it sideways…”
“You get a star!” Arreall and Kadie in unison are busily comparing notes on the beautiful five-pointed star in a hacked-apart apple.
Sarah leans into the discussion with rationality, looking at onions and life and love. Maritza interrupts Sarah and outshouts Josh. “You underestimate onions!”
There’s one of our thoughts in today’s discussion: never underestimate onions. Or classes when their thoughts catch fire and the stories and poems become part of their life experiences, much larger than one poem in the textbook.

Not my Fault

“I am very sorry but I have not been in your class. I was one victim of mugging and of attempt of murder. I was hospitalized but and home recovering. I will do anything it takes to catch up. George.”
~
“Dear George. I’m sorry to hear of the attempt on your life. My records show that you have missed 10 of the first 17 class sessions, beginning with the second week of class. You took no quizzes when you did attend and have not turned in any of the writing assignments. I would suggest starting a new section of this course next semester. Instructor.”


“I am Terry Smith’s mother and I want to ask about his grade. It was not his fault that he did not complete his first several assignments because amazon.com backordered his textbook. And he could not read it. Can he do the assignments late? Also, Terry has always done well in this subject with the other teachers. Why are his grades lower in your class. Let me know if there is extra work he can do to get at least a C. If he gets a D or belower he will not be allowed to take sports. Concerned Parent.”


My students are chronologically over 18: adults. Legally, I am in the same position as a health care provider: bound to observe patient confidentiality. Morally, I am in the position of wanting the students to grow. Emotionally, I wish they (and sometimes their parents) would. We’ve been working in this lesson for a long time.

The pre-K teachers listened to frazzled moms explaining, “Susie stuck the dog’s tail in the toaster, and Billy threw socks in the toilet: that’s why we’re late.” Those teachers had come from the chaos of getting children off to school themselves; they nodded understandingly. They reassured mom that things got better. Elementary level teachers listened to Bert tell them why he wasn’t the one who flushed the end of a roll of paper towels down the toilet even as they plucked the last section from his hand, and warned him that middle school teachers expected much more responsibility in actions and fewer excuses. Middle school teachers warned their classes that high school meant excuses wouldn’t work anymore; high school teachers told their classes that bosses and college instructors were not going to accept excuses.

My syllabus states “Work submitted on time will earn full credit,” and “You must meet deadlines. There are no exceptions, so please do not ask for them.” My irresponsible students say, “But I didn’t know that, because I didn’t read the syllabus.” Neither did their parents.

Their parents had no obligation to read the syllabus. We’re at adulthood. Being grown up isn’t always fun. I can spend this week’s grocery money on bakery, but then I need to tell the dog why his dish is empty. The dog’s glad his tail is not glowing, shoved in the mesh of the toaster, but he’d like supper too.

We don’t reach a time in our lives when we are happy about requirements and deadlines. Sometimes we shrug mistakes off with a laugh or a cliché (“my bad”). Sometimes we bring in updated excuses (“The guy in the car next to me was the victim of a drive-by shooting”). If we hate deadlines being imposed on us enough, we start our own company – and impose them on our employees. We sleep in on weekends. We rebel. Or we face up to the deadlines, knowing that whatever we do, there are things due ourselves and others, as well as obligations, responsibilities, consequences.

Late work

Some people operate on the principal that if they are not physically in class the day an assignment should be turned in, the assignment is not due.

We may choose to delete points from the grade, we may choose to assign bonus points to the papers arriving on time, asking ourselves, Isn't that a bit like giving overtime pay to someone working a regular shift?

Consistency is important. Consideration of circumstances is important. Fairness is essential. If we assess a grade penalty for late work we need to subtract those points no matter whose work is late; even our most exceptional students need to understand that brilliancy cannot always make them the exception.
On the other hand, we need to have a flexible enough mentality that actual surgery is a valid excuse and a strong enough sense of fairness to the students who do manage to submit their work on time no matter what, to require official documentation for the students citing medical emergencies as a reason for late submission.

Flowage

Today the faucet in the rest room went insane. Recently we were given a new faucet with an electronic eye, so all we need to do is hold our hands under the spout, and water rushes forth over them. We’ve still been allowed temperature adjustment, but we no longer need to turn on the faucet. Unfortunately, sometimes the faucet’s eye refuses to acknowledge our existence, and we wait with our hands under the spout, soaped but dry. And sometimes the faucet responds to information of its own processing, turning on and off in rapid succession while we are across the room, in the toilet stall, coaxing paper towels from the grumpy holder.

In the scheme of the universe, one faucet is not significant. Maslow said that our base needs must be fulfilled before we can concentrate on self-actualization. Though most of us are caught in our base needs before we can progress to things like artistic creativity, some of us have the genius to transcend levels in his hierarchy. I remember the video of the Olympic runner, running up lengths of stairways that ended in rubble, turning through the maze of buildings, training the streets of his war-wrecked city, as bombs exploded nearby.

After a semi-successful encounter with the paper towel dispenser, I closed the door on the insane faucet and went back to my office, to snitch to Operations about it.
“We’re getting a multi-video system in 202,” my office mate said hopefully, as I put down the phone.
“I’d rather have working restrooms,” I countered.

Mole Day

October 23
John was printing out Mole Day jokes on the printer when I stood there, waiting for the much more prosaic printout of Tony's grades for Tony's coach. When he saw me noticing the cute mole on one of his pages, John said, "Don't you know what Mole Day is?"In my English ignorance, I admitted I did not. John smiled. “6.02 times 10 to the 23rd power is the basic unit of weight in chemistry: a mole. All over the world, chemists celebrate Mole Day.”He warmed the instructor office with his smile. “This morning at 6:02, I went to the top of the Washington bridge, stopped my car, got out, drank a Moulson beer, facing east, got back in the car, and got out of there before the cops arrived. I keep inviting my students, but so far nobody’s joined me.”

“You’re probably better off not telling your students who are in the police science program,” I advised.

He turned, to head off class with his sheaf of Mole Day jokes.
Taking potential opportunity, I asked, "Can you explain particle physics to me?"He looked puzzled."Particles. Waves and particles," I said, making wave motions with the hand that was not holding Tony’s grade information. "I need it for a character in a story I am writing."
"I would take a lot more than one beer for me to explain that," he answered.
I think he realizes that explaining deep physics to English teachers is not the stuff of which successful science conversations are made. But it was very interesting, learning about Mole Day.

Note: Any identifying information has been changed in ensure John’s continued successful celebration of Mole Day.

You're setting my teeth on edge: Cliches

While we smile politely in response to clichéd communication, what’s in our mind?

Several phrases that take the place of “He Died” – he passed away, he has passed, he met his Almighty – the ones that gloss over what really happens when someone dies. I do happen to like, “He’s not coming down for breakfast today….” ~ courtesy Julie

For crying out loud
[Please cry softly so we can continue today’s grammar lesson.]

Mistakes

Mistakes remind us how we have grown.
I used to make mistakes when I added up a column of numbers. Now, I can do addition just fine because the calculator does it for me. Now, there’s an accountant who is willing to wrestle with the 1040. The answer we give indicates where we are and how far we have moved past our struggles with 583 + 67 + 320 + 4299.

Mistakes act as literary semaphores.
When the characters in “McIntosh Willie” mistake “Eye, eye” for “Aye, aye” we’re reminded of the boys’ guilt and the bottlecaps that were placed over the corpse of vagrant Willie’s eyes.
Othello is a catalog of hasty and mistaken conclusions engineered by malefic intent, leading to a tragic conclusion.
When the writer incorporates a mistake into the plot or dialog, we need to realize it’s a mistake and ask what that deliberate mistake does for the story. But we can’t recognize a mistake if we haven’t been paying attention to the plotline or our grammar.

Mistakes confuse communication.
"I need to go down this isle." reads the line in the essay.
The one in the Caribbean or the one in the South Pacific? Since the thermometer is hugging zero and there’s snow predicted, let me grab my bathing suit and join you. If English teachers had $5 for every aisle/isle/I’ll mistake, they’d be wintering in the tropics. If they had that $5 for every misuse of their/there/they’re, they would have no need to buy lottery tickets.

I know what you know what I know, what I have concluded.
Do I? Even if we’ve been friends for years, will my life experiences really reveal to me the processes of your mind based on your life experiences?
This detour is more damaging than changing the supermarket for palm fronds. If I know what you are thinking before you have even told me, I may tangle us up in a moral, political, or chemical debate because I know what’s in your mind. Scary.


Mistakes alert us.
It’s too easy to pass judgment on others, but when we see others refusing to learn by their mistakes, we might want to – not judge – but step aside. Consider our own involvement. Be alerted.

Instead of an automatic $5 for the there/their/they’re mistake, I could copyright a stamp clarifying the homophones, market it at conventions, and still have a winter Florida home. From whenever we first made the distinction, our students have had multiple opportunities to learn which “there” fits the situation. If they’re confused, that’s one thing. If they refuse to devote the brainpower to doing so, they’re telling us where their interests and values lie.

“My bad” is a contemporary cliché, a deliberate grammatical mistake, and possibly an indication that someone doesn’t want to take responsibility. Better to laugh it off instead.
Sure, we all hate being called on our gaffes and foibles, but regularly turning the mistake into a joke might be a warning sign: Is this person attempting to build a belief in her own invincibility; use the “poor me” technique; looking for a scapegoat?
What’s wrong with saying, “I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.” Nobody’s perfect. Maybe we need to worry about the people who can always find someone or something else to blame.


Mistakes are a “slow down” sign.
When the practice exercises and follow-up writings demonstrate that my class still can’t tell time or identify irony, I need to remember that they might not be developmentally ready to learn how to tell time, can’t distinguish gentler irony from the sledge hammer of sarcasm. Maybe I didn’t plan and teach the skill carefully enough. Maybe the students were more interested in the snow falling outside the classroom windows, anticipating recess when they could throw forbidden snowballs. Check feedback. Check Piaget and Gardner and Maslow. Reality check.

Mistakes keep us humble and remind us of our interconnectedness and human condition.
Most of us have winced when we looked in the mirror that hangs in our bathroom or is represented in our best friends’ eyes. We wince at what we’ve done, said, or thought. We messed up. Welcome to being human.
Sometimes we need to wince a few times before we internalize the lesson. But eventually one “next time” we’re tested, we remember what we saw in the mirror. Why? We decide we don’t want to hurt our friend’s feelings or betray our own principles. We change, not for our ego, but for our connectedness.

“We built it,” I say, “but there’s a lot of mistakes.” I’m showing her a project, yet telling my companion that I’m not bragging.
“We believe that there is nothing perfect,” she answers. “If I am beading a design, and it’s done exactly right, I will set one bead just a tiny bit out of where it is supposed to be. Nothing is perfect except the Creator.” I like her answer better than mine. We all need to accept that learning involves mistakes. The skills we have today, have grown from the mistakes and clumsy attempts we made in our learning.

Mistakes belong in our world. It’s what we do with them that tells our students, our friends, and ourselves who we are. If we could do everything perfectly the first time, we wouldn’t call it learning.

Teaching Thoughts

Fighting plagiarism is guerilla warfare: no matter how developed your policies and your radar, there’s always a freeessaysonline counteroffensive lurking in the shrubbery.

Credo

After semesters of trying to explain why “plagiarism is wrong” to my students, I pondered the subject and wrote the following explanation to share with them:
----
About plagiarism…

We live in a point-and-click world. With a few clicks of the mouse, it’s possible to find almost any information and to move it easily into our own “My Documents.” While access to information keeps us up to date on current events and allows us ease in research, keep in mind that one of the primary goals of education is encouraging people to think for themselves.

Some of our goals can be stated as:
The reasons plagiarism is unacceptable can be argued as:

The student should be encountering skilled writers.
A student who reads online study guides and summaries reads the words of another student, not the literature.

The students should be working through the text of high level (literary) writers.
The student who searches for answers written by others is reading mid to low level writing, not literature.

The student should be exchanging his own ideas and practicing discussion.
The student who posts something captured online has learned to search by topic, capture the first or second essay he finds. He is not practicing debate or discussion.

The student should be writing his own ideas and conclusions.
Cutting and pasting text may develop skills in searching by topic or mouse dexterity, but not in thinking.

Plagiarism is when you use of any of these (or variations of) that have been produced by someone else and submit as your own words:
Sentence or phrase, paragraph, or complete paper
Idea
Conclusion
Drawing
Thesis statement

Before you submit material:
Spend your time reading and thinking about what you have read.

Use Safe Submit (or other plagiarism checks available through other sources). If your response is rated above 40% correlation, it is likely to be considered plagiarism.

Papers, and discussion responses are checked for plagiarism. If your work results in an online/in book match or a very close similarity, you will receive a 0 for that assignment.
----
Some of them read the advice. Most of them follow it. Some of them ignore it and continue to submit copied material. Maybe I should set out the rules about plagiarism through an iPod format using music lyrics (aka poetry).

How old is this character?

We’re discussing Elizabeth Tallent’s story “No One’s a Mystery”: love/lust/marriage/adultery are the topic of the week, and the readings reflect how various writers and poets (Barrett Browning, Shakespeare, Marvel, Singer, Chopin, Chekov) chose to focus on our basic topic of Love. “How old is Jack,” I ask, “the one who’s been dating the 18 year old girl for 2 years?”
“Too old.” “Eeeeuw.” “That’s creepy.”
“What’s creepy?”
“Well, an old guy and a young…a teenager…” the student shudders. “And they weren’t just dating.”
“Are your mom and dad the same age?”
“They were, but my stepdad’s six years younger than my mom.”
There’s a chorus of reaction to her comment.
According to the class, it’s okay to date someone within a 2-year age span, but anything more is too much. “It’s okay when you get old,” one of them offers. “You know: past say…35 or so.” She considers. “Forty. That’s old enough. Then you can date someone who’s even 15 years older.”
“I’m 20,” another answers. “My boyfriend’s 32. Guys my own age are just too immature.”
“That’s twelve years,” I comment, not mentioning Charles and Diana as a comparison. “So maybe it works? Sometimes? How do we determine when it might and when it won’t – and – taking this discussion back to the story, why do you think it does not work in ‘No One’s a Mystery’?”
Because there is deceit involved, they answer. Because there’s a lack of respect. Because Jack’s closing comment to the narrator, “If you want to know the truth,” intimates as much her reluctance to confront the facts and their expectations spiraling in two directions, as Jack’s past in which he unwillingly learned the truth.
This discussion happens in the classroom, but it’s similar to the consideration that’s part of every story, poem, play. I'm writing a story, and the character in my story is going to be kidnapped. I’ve given the character black hair and blue eyes, an unusual enough combination that other people in the story might notice the character as she crosses the street with her kidnapper. I’ve avoided unusual hair color (red, striped, a coronet of braids) that might pique a lot of interest. I don’t want the kidnapper caught too early in the story, and I want my readers to empathize with an everyday appearance in the kidnapped character. How old is the character? The story is going to develop differently and impact my readers differently if the kidnapped person is 6 or 26, male or female.
How do we explore the gaps of age, background, friendship, and understanding in the relationships we form? Life. Literature. Jack and that narrator confront us with more than a diary, and their fictional future is determined only to a degree by their ages. We’re analyzing fiction and considering perspectives about our own lives and futures. We’re finding our own truth.

You're setting my teeth on edge: Cliches

While we smile politely in response to clichéd communication, what’s in our mind?


Let me give you my honest opinion.
[And before this you were lying to me?]


Quite frankly
[Half frankly? Give me half a frank and half a burger – to go.]

Literally
He literally ate the entire pizza.
No kidding... so it's not an allusion to the Crimean War? It's actually about pizza? ~ courtesy Greg

Drop dead date
[Students who wish to submit late papers need to do so from their graves.]


Does it bite? (referring to a dog)
[Only people like you.
All dogs bite, given enough provocation.
Do you really think I’d bring a known biter to a public venue?]

Teaching Thoughts

Sometimes we realize much more about a student, a colleague, or a friend by how our lives are when he or she is gone.


‘Too late’ is just as helpful applied to homework assignments and curfew as ‘fair wage’ is applied to labor negotiations.

Teaching Thoughts

You don’t always need to know what you’re talking about, but it helps when you’re writing a lab report, an essay, or a final exam.


Our perception determines our reaction.
School nurse talking to 5th graders: It’s important to be aware of the health risks in the foods you eat. For example, raw eggs.
Student: Ugh. Never.
School nurse: What about when your mom is baking and she offers you a beater with some cookie dough?

You can teach an old or young dog new tricks, if you understand its motivation.

Age is important if we think it is important. Motivation is a much larger factor. I’m not arguing we should teach calculus in first grade, or expect college students to display the same reckless enthusiasm in phy ed class that we see with fifth graders. I mean that we need to avoid using chronological age as a yardstick and emotional age as an excuse.

“I could learn easier when I was younger and in practice.” That may be true: your brain cells may be atrophying, leaping ship to your bloodstream, or creaking at their dendrites. On the other hand, you have many more tactics and experiences that assist your learning. You have enthusiasm. You’re probably paying for your own schooling, if you are a returning-to-the-classroom student. You know that you don’t have a lot more time to go back to school later in life, because you’re already later in life by your standards. [You didn’t notice the white-haired 60 plus person in the row behind you, taking the class on senior discount.]

You have more than a better job riding on the outcome of the class. You’re setting an example for the school age children in your home, sitting down to the books with them, each doing homework. If you look over their report cards, they are likely to be interested in your transcript. You motivate each other.

Nobody’s life is free from emotional incidents. If the elementary student is struggling through best-friend situations and the high school student is surviving Romeo and Juliet relationships, the older student is out of a divorce, trying to keep his own child motivated, caring for aging parents, going to school on a moonlighting schedule. Life for the older student may have more factors; every student deals with stress.

On the other hand, young and old students who succeed tend to not use emotional and stress issues as an excuse. The semester Jan earned an A in the communications class, she also planned her wedding, worked full time for the utility company, ran a very successful community fund raising campaign, and had time for her friends. I doubt she slept. I was honored to be interviewed as a reference when she applied for her first position as a trust fund lawyer. That was shortly after the graduation party celebrating her joint graduate degrees: JD and MBA. Her husband stood next to her, wearing a T shirt with the law school logo. “I thought it would be easier to get a job if I had a law degree and a Master’s in business,” she said, smiling. I still doubted she was sleeping, especially since she edited the law journal her last year there.

What leads some of our students to this semester’s academic success and others to getting an extra hour’s sleep instead of attending class? If we could answer that question with surety, we could point to an infallible success rate in life and in the classroom. Maybe we are not meant to.

As teachers we are part of the equation. Success comes in many ways, in many parts of our lives, and generally in its own time. Motivation – ours and theirs – is an enormous aspect of the whole.

Teaching Thoughts

If they’ve been told for years that they cannot succeed, and they’re going to argue with whatever you say, phrase your compliment in specifics not opinions: “You have 9 out of 10 correct on the spelling test,” rather than, “You’re doing a good job in spelling.”

Teaching Thoughts

Duck tape and library paste may not be able to glue everything back together, but writing about the breakage goes a long way toward doing so.

Revision

When I say, “Revision,” they ask, “Is it contagious?”

End of semester tech support perspective:

English teachers are commenting to me that whether they are reading through six vertical inches of paper or six vertical inches of file names that need to be graded, they are still doing more work (and using more words) than the other disciplines;

Social studies teachers are debating the finer points of the Middle Ages while they doth slapth Downe their LapeTOpe and tell me to Make it Work like Things did during World War II;

Math Teachers are proving to me that their laptops don't work.

Cross specialization IT denominator: “Make it work.”

The semicolon

I like semicolons, because they do so much in a sentence. When I tell them this, the students look at me, wondering if this is going to be a grammar lesson and they can go to a safe place behind their eyes while I talk.

Semicolons are like the iron filigree dripping off a balcony or adorning a gate; you never know how strong they are until you begin looking at the structure.


Semicolons point up the unexpected: He asked her to marry him; she fell out of bed laughing.

Semicolons note that there are more aspects to the subject than we might prefer: I can agree with your points; however there are six areas we need to discuss.

Semicolons offer several perspectives: Group work; or, stacking the group stacks the results (a chapter title from a book I wrote titled Teaching from a Positive Perspective)

The period is a full stop, the comma is a partial slide, the question mark wants the audience to participate, the colon says that we better pay attention to the enumerated list that’s going to follow; the semicolon insists that to know what’s going on we need to analyze the parts and then synthesize their relationship.

Teaching Learning; Learning Teaching: Looking for a title

We can’t really teach learning, though we can teach tactics that may make learning easier, or less time consuming. We can share our enjoyment in what we are teaching, and ignite the desire to learn in others.

We can learn teaching, though sometimes what we learn is that the more we share the process with our students, the better we all learn.

Teaching and learning are interrelated, and though we may be “on vacation” or “doing something else,” we never leave teaching As Julie says, “Our jobs begin with a bunch of kids and a teacher in a classroom. Everything else comes after.”