I don't want to become that weirdo prof with the weird quirk, but I'm rapidly on the way there I'm afraid. I'm finding this term that the first thing I do when I enter any of the classrooms that I'm teaching in this semester is to open the blinds.
It's downright cavernous.
I can only assume that the instructor before me in each case is primarily using powerpoints and that's why half the lights are always off and the blinds closed. Thing is, one of the classrooms is north-facing, so there's never any glare. I've taught in this classroom in previous terms, and I can vouch for never having to draw the blinds to show anything on the screen, even in April, when the sun is higher.
I teach with powerpoints occasionally, but I'm finding this consistent drawing of blinds confusing. Part of the reason I don't use powerpoints very frequently is because I think they are structurally limiting, and students rarely interact with either each other or me when the screen is up. Another reason is that the darkness is just too much sometimes for students who are sleep deprived. I have students who have a difficult enough time staying awake with all the lights on and a discussion going on. Turning off the lights just seems to invite them to nod off.
So if the classroom is like a cave, does that mean we're presenting our students with just the shadows? I can't help but think of Plato's cave and the shadows that are just a poor representation of reality that we mistaken for reality itself.
Doesn't that sound a bit like a powerpoint? A shadow of the reality that effective pedagogy should aim at?
Monday, September 28, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The good and bad of canons
I've been thinking about canon formation a lot lately and the publication of the JIL last week has of course raised the anxiety level that I feel about the canon to higher levels. I'm taking the meaning of canon to be broad, perhaps even so broad that what I'm talking about constitutes a field, but because I also see fields as being largely constructed of texts, and acknowledge that some texts are more central to a field, I'll use the idea of canon.
So for me, the canon is the texts that you start with when embarking upon the study of a particular field. You can carve it up into larger and smaller bits, but in some ways, it is easy to see how some texts should be tackled first, while others might be read after one has an understanding of the period.
And let's face it, the canon makes it easier to put together a syllabus the first time you teach a course, because you've at least got some idea of what kinds of texts the students should encounter in your course if they're going to go on to take other courses. (This mostly applies to introductory level courses, but could be applicable at higher levels as well)
Of course, canon formation is fraught with problems, particularly because you can't include everything, and sometimes the things that get included, or even labelled as important, are there for reasons that one might (and should!) question.
So there are serious downsides to canon (or even field) formation. One of my greatest regrets in not pushing to stay in medieval studies is the loss of comfort in a fairly clearly defined canon or field. After all, the primary texts are all there (even if some have yet to be unearthed or discussed) and no more will be produced. It is also a well and clearly established field.
Now before you jump on me, I realize this is an overly simplified explanation of medieval studies and it does not do justice to the vigour and intellect in debates about what constitutes the field.
But what I would point out is that in comparison with the literature of the twentieth century, it is far easier to talk about "medieval literature" as some kind of coherent whole, even as its parts are lumped together under that label than it is to talk about the twentieth century in some ways.
For example, where does the twentieth century end? You could define the field chronologically (as many fields are) and say that the canon could include anything written between 1901 and 2000 (or 1900 and 1999 I suppose). But there's already some debate about the first decade or so of the century as to whether it is more closely related to the Victorian period in the previous century, or to the modernists in the later few decades. So where exactly do you draw the line?
One could legitimately draw it at 1901 at the beginning of the century since that coincides with Victoria's death, but that is more relevant for British twentieth century literature than American or Canadian, or Australian, or,... well, you get the idea. The first World War might be an appropriate place to begin since it involved a radical change in outlook on life, society, nationalism, technology etc. and involved many people from different parts of the globe.
You also then need to figure out where to draw the end of the century, and that's where I think things could get difficult. Certainly Y2K is a candidate and fits very nicely with the calendar, but the hype about Y2K seems in hindsight to be such a joke, that I think I might be reluctant to base the definition of the field I work in as being bookended on at least one end by a joke.
Of course part of the problem in figuring out the line that one might draw between this century and the next (assuming that even drawing lines roughly chronologically is something that we want to do) is that we have so little of the next century to work with. After all, there's only been a decade on the calendar of the twenty-first century, and I'm sure in 1909 it would've been pretty difficult to predict even two decades into the future, let alone further. So the end of the twentieth century could conceivably remain in flux for decades, barring something global and monumental enough to change prevailing ideas or attitudes toward one or more aspects of social interaction or development.
(That's just one of those really long qualified ways of saying, "I ain't got no idea")
Though I do have an idea. I've been thinking about 1989 as the actual endpoint for the twentieth century as a period. My sense generally is that there is a radical difference between the 1980s and the 1990s. Even as I say that, I realize that part of that sense of difference may simply be a by-product of my own life at that point - for most of the eighties I was a teenager while by the nineties, I was a parent and a working schlepp - but I think we can also point to some interesting changes in culture that were reflected in literature.
First, 1989 was the year the Berlin wall came down, which marked an end to a decades-old era and a real hope for the future, not just of Germany, but for world peace and all those good kinds of things. Although AIDS emerged in the early 80s, it really only caught the public's attention with a series of celebrity deaths in the early nineties. The 1990s also marked changes in the space race and consumer technologies with the personal computer becoming affordable.
In literature, it seems at once a little harder and a little easier to characterize a shift between the 1980s and the 1990s. Part of the difficulty in seeing difference is the proximity of the problem - it is always easier to categorize a literary movement from afar than from up close.* Whether this is a problem with categorization or just a reality is hard to say. But literary postmodernism, and cyberpunk as a genre, seem to have mostly died around this time, and if we think of cyberpunk not as a species of science fiction, but as the ultimate expression of a kind of postmodern sensibility in literature, then there seems to be a shift between the eighties and nineties.
I'm hesitant to try to define that shift or articulate what I see going on, partly because I think I am too close to it to see it clearly, partly because what came after will undoubtedly only become clearer as we get further and further into it, and partly because I think my personal history and transition from childhood to adulthood is caught up in much of my general sense of it.
But if you had to pin me down to say "where would you draw the line between a course in twentieth-century literature and twenty-first-century (contemporary) literature? I would say that 1989/1990 would be the place to put that boundary.
*The prognostications of writers in the late twentieth century about metafiction and experimental fiction forms, or even about the death of the physical book were made over and over and yet looking back, many have not come to pass, leading me to suggest that when you're too close to it, it's hard to make predictions about trends.
So for me, the canon is the texts that you start with when embarking upon the study of a particular field. You can carve it up into larger and smaller bits, but in some ways, it is easy to see how some texts should be tackled first, while others might be read after one has an understanding of the period.
And let's face it, the canon makes it easier to put together a syllabus the first time you teach a course, because you've at least got some idea of what kinds of texts the students should encounter in your course if they're going to go on to take other courses. (This mostly applies to introductory level courses, but could be applicable at higher levels as well)
Of course, canon formation is fraught with problems, particularly because you can't include everything, and sometimes the things that get included, or even labelled as important, are there for reasons that one might (and should!) question.
So there are serious downsides to canon (or even field) formation. One of my greatest regrets in not pushing to stay in medieval studies is the loss of comfort in a fairly clearly defined canon or field. After all, the primary texts are all there (even if some have yet to be unearthed or discussed) and no more will be produced. It is also a well and clearly established field.
Now before you jump on me, I realize this is an overly simplified explanation of medieval studies and it does not do justice to the vigour and intellect in debates about what constitutes the field.
But what I would point out is that in comparison with the literature of the twentieth century, it is far easier to talk about "medieval literature" as some kind of coherent whole, even as its parts are lumped together under that label than it is to talk about the twentieth century in some ways.For example, where does the twentieth century end? You could define the field chronologically (as many fields are) and say that the canon could include anything written between 1901 and 2000 (or 1900 and 1999 I suppose). But there's already some debate about the first decade or so of the century as to whether it is more closely related to the Victorian period in the previous century, or to the modernists in the later few decades. So where exactly do you draw the line?
One could legitimately draw it at 1901 at the beginning of the century since that coincides with Victoria's death, but that is more relevant for British twentieth century literature than American or Canadian, or Australian, or,... well, you get the idea. The first World War might be an appropriate place to begin since it involved a radical change in outlook on life, society, nationalism, technology etc. and involved many people from different parts of the globe.
You also then need to figure out where to draw the end of the century, and that's where I think things could get difficult. Certainly Y2K is a candidate and fits very nicely with the calendar, but the hype about Y2K seems in hindsight to be such a joke, that I think I might be reluctant to base the definition of the field I work in as being bookended on at least one end by a joke.
Of course part of the problem in figuring out the line that one might draw between this century and the next (assuming that even drawing lines roughly chronologically is something that we want to do) is that we have so little of the next century to work with. After all, there's only been a decade on the calendar of the twenty-first century, and I'm sure in 1909 it would've been pretty difficult to predict even two decades into the future, let alone further. So the end of the twentieth century could conceivably remain in flux for decades, barring something global and monumental enough to change prevailing ideas or attitudes toward one or more aspects of social interaction or development.
(That's just one of those really long qualified ways of saying, "I ain't got no idea")
Though I do have an idea. I've been thinking about 1989 as the actual endpoint for the twentieth century as a period. My sense generally is that there is a radical difference between the 1980s and the 1990s. Even as I say that, I realize that part of that sense of difference may simply be a by-product of my own life at that point - for most of the eighties I was a teenager while by the nineties, I was a parent and a working schlepp - but I think we can also point to some interesting changes in culture that were reflected in literature.First, 1989 was the year the Berlin wall came down, which marked an end to a decades-old era and a real hope for the future, not just of Germany, but for world peace and all those good kinds of things. Although AIDS emerged in the early 80s, it really only caught the public's attention with a series of celebrity deaths in the early nineties. The 1990s also marked changes in the space race and consumer technologies with the personal computer becoming affordable.
In literature, it seems at once a little harder and a little easier to characterize a shift between the 1980s and the 1990s. Part of the difficulty in seeing difference is the proximity of the problem - it is always easier to categorize a literary movement from afar than from up close.* Whether this is a problem with categorization or just a reality is hard to say. But literary postmodernism, and cyberpunk as a genre, seem to have mostly died around this time, and if we think of cyberpunk not as a species of science fiction, but as the ultimate expression of a kind of postmodern sensibility in literature, then there seems to be a shift between the eighties and nineties.
I'm hesitant to try to define that shift or articulate what I see going on, partly because I think I am too close to it to see it clearly, partly because what came after will undoubtedly only become clearer as we get further and further into it, and partly because I think my personal history and transition from childhood to adulthood is caught up in much of my general sense of it.
But if you had to pin me down to say "where would you draw the line between a course in twentieth-century literature and twenty-first-century (contemporary) literature? I would say that 1989/1990 would be the place to put that boundary.
*The prognostications of writers in the late twentieth century about metafiction and experimental fiction forms, or even about the death of the physical book were made over and over and yet looking back, many have not come to pass, leading me to suggest that when you're too close to it, it's hard to make predictions about trends.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
It may not be the water cooler...
...but I did have an excellent hallway conversation this week that has me pretty excited about the possibilities.I ran into one of the philosophers in the humanities department across the hall from us and we started talking. We shared what kind of classes we were teaching and what we liked about them, and he told me he was teaching a philosophy of science course.
Since I read some science philosophy in the course of the dissertation, I asked him a bit more about the course, and we talked for a bit about different elements and ideas within the discipline. Although the course he is teaching this term is a basic introductory course, he did indicate that they were proposing a new kind of course for next year. It would be a gen ed course called "Social Constructions of Science" and they were hoping to put it together in such a way that instructors from multiple disciplines would be able to teach it, bringing their own experiences and interests to the course.
I told him I would be very interested in seeing the instructor guide and participating in the later stages of the course development when they start shopping it around to instructors in other disciplines to see how it might work on the ground.
I would love to teach that kind of a course. Even though it isn't a literature course, I think there's a lot of room within a course like that where I could potentially show students how literature might be used to engage with questions about how we understand science. I don't teach much literature anyway, so it's not like I'd be abandoning the teaching of literature if I took on a course like it, and I'm coming to realize that I will probably be happiest in a place where I could work more as a generalist than a specialist (as long as I could still continue to research as a specialist as well).
But the point of the story is that if I hadn't made an effort to get to know this other instructor's name, and took the opportunity to chat in the hall for a few moments, I wouldn't have even heard of this potential opportunity. So even if my group isn't going as well as I'd like, there are other opportunities. I just need to keep my eyes open!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Thinking aloud
I had an interesting meeting today with a couple of other instructors at my school. I suppose you could think of it as a professor support group, though it's a bit more than that since we also talk about teaching, sharing assignments, techniques and ideas about how to keep students engaged (or even awake!)
The university I teach at has a great system of support, and these informal groupings are just one of the programs that they encourage, which is really nice, but at the same time, I feel like none of us are sure what we want to do in this group. See, the problem is, the groups are ideally supposed to be composed of someone who has been around for a while, and then maybe a couple of new people.
In that kind of configuration, the person who has been around awhile gets to hear new ideas and such, while the new people get to learn those invisible ropes that no one tells you about and the rules that aren't written down but count very importantly when evaluation time etc. comes around.
Problem is, there are two of us newbies in the group, and our one member who has been around for a while has been around as part-time faculty for all of that time. Which means that the whole learning the ropes part of the group is less useful since part-time people are kept out of some of the loops. This is partly because the hoops and loops don't apply to them, but also partly because only a few part-time people who put themselves out there and get involved in everything and anything for several years are really noticed by the department.
In all fairness, this makes sense. When I was working part-time, I saw my job as teaching and little more. I was collegial and came out for events that interested me, but I felt no obligation to do a lot of the additional duties that full-time people are expected to undertake. So there is a real divide between full and part time people. It's not an overtly hierarchical divide, but it does divide the two groups in terms of responsibility and presence around the department.
Long and the short of it is, in this group we've formed, we can talk about classroom experiences, and maybe share ideas about marking or assignments, but neither of my group members are going to give me the inside scoop on what's what around here.
Guess I'll have to hang around the water cooler instead... too bad we don't have one...
The university I teach at has a great system of support, and these informal groupings are just one of the programs that they encourage, which is really nice, but at the same time, I feel like none of us are sure what we want to do in this group. See, the problem is, the groups are ideally supposed to be composed of someone who has been around for a while, and then maybe a couple of new people.
In that kind of configuration, the person who has been around awhile gets to hear new ideas and such, while the new people get to learn those invisible ropes that no one tells you about and the rules that aren't written down but count very importantly when evaluation time etc. comes around.
Problem is, there are two of us newbies in the group, and our one member who has been around for a while has been around as part-time faculty for all of that time. Which means that the whole learning the ropes part of the group is less useful since part-time people are kept out of some of the loops. This is partly because the hoops and loops don't apply to them, but also partly because only a few part-time people who put themselves out there and get involved in everything and anything for several years are really noticed by the department.
In all fairness, this makes sense. When I was working part-time, I saw my job as teaching and little more. I was collegial and came out for events that interested me, but I felt no obligation to do a lot of the additional duties that full-time people are expected to undertake. So there is a real divide between full and part time people. It's not an overtly hierarchical divide, but it does divide the two groups in terms of responsibility and presence around the department.
Long and the short of it is, in this group we've formed, we can talk about classroom experiences, and maybe share ideas about marking or assignments, but neither of my group members are going to give me the inside scoop on what's what around here.
Guess I'll have to hang around the water cooler instead... too bad we don't have one...
Sunday, September 13, 2009
This is getting old...
I just got a notice from one of the professional associations that I belong to - I am no longer eligible for the graduate student membership rate because I've used that for seven years.
That's a long time! Granted, I began my membership when I was in my Master's program, so that isn't just the doctoral program, but that's still a really long time!
That's a long time! Granted, I began my membership when I was in my Master's program, so that isn't just the doctoral program, but that's still a really long time!
Friday, September 04, 2009
Double your fun
My city now has two universities, not just the one.
It's been a long time coming, so it's pretty cool!
It's been a long time coming, so it's pretty cool!
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Training horses
This weekend we were invited to the acreage of some friends who are starting to breed horses and during that time, we were able to observe a training session.It was interesting to see the mixture of authority and respect that is necessary to horse training. On the one hand, the trainer has to make it clear who's in charge. By on the other hand, horses are large animals, and they are so powerful that the trainer has to have a healthy respect for that power. It results in a trainer who might use ropes, or a whip (for the sound more than touch), or a strong voice, while keeping a respectable distance from mouth and hooves.
The power of the horse needs to be respected. The trainer needs to be in charge. It's a situation that doesn't make for any easy answers. Kinda like the power dynamic between teachers and students, particularly when it comes to evaluations!
Think about it.
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