I surely don’t know, but I guess I use this as a warning shot, of sorts, that I am more likely to sit back and let my child figure things out for himself amongst his peers. Obviously I would step in to prevent injury or to deescalate a bad fight, but I like the idea of kids experiencing gain and loss, of struggling to understand their own power. But you know what? This view of parenting may make my child incompatible with other kids (or, more likely, it may make me incompatible with their parents). He may be seen as a bully or a jerk and I might be seen as a Bad Parent if I take this tack. But I strongly believe that we learn better through experience, not verbal remonstration. Teaching when they’re ripe for it, not green, as the article discusses.

It’s going to be like trying to find firm footing in a marsh, this theory of letting my kid understand power via experience.  I suppose the best thing that I can do is ask other parents, Do you want me to step in, or can we let them figure this out? But parents I see on the playground are so quick to jump in before other parents, almost as if they’re competing to see who can be Most Involved, as if that makes them a better parent, so I can’t imagine they will respond well to my approach. And I certainly don’t argue the opposite, that neglect produces “better” or more creative children. I just want to find that middle, somewhat squishy ground where my kid can develop his understanding of power naturally, operate within the parameters of a semi-polite society, but where we his parents serve as guides, not dictators or interventionists. That balance just seems incredibly tricky, if not impossible, to find.

I know this blog isn’t a hotbed for discussion, but I would welcome thoughts and experience on this topic, as it’s one I’m just beginning to contemplate.

Dear Ms. Waters,

To be perfectly honest, when this quarter first started, I thought that English Composition 101 was going to be a breeze. I expected ABC-style, elementary writing where I would be able to knock papers out in twenty minutes or less, like a pizza joint. This class was supposed to be my easy “A.” Boy was I wrong.

The first paper I turned in was the 5-paragraph essay on the novella, “A River Runs Through It.” Assuming I was a great writer, I had a smug attitude and was looking forward to my first “A” of the quarter. When the paper was returned, however, I was greeted by a smack in the face: a “C”! Surely this must be some kind of mistake, I thought. Upon reviewing the notes and comments, I was dismayed to discover that I was not as great of a writer as I initially believed, and was, in fact, heavily flawed. I didn’t know how to properly cite sources, I was unclear in my arguments, and I was not summarizing in my own words. Worst of all, I was the next worse [sic] thing to being a plagiarizer.

[...talks about assignments he worked on and how his grade improved]

Writing is something that many people don’t understand how to do well. While the concept of explaining something in the written word seems so simple, to actually do it is something else entirely. The lessons that I have been taught in English Composition 101 are ones I will always remember. They have given me the confidence to write thoughtfully and intellectually on just about any subject. Grist for my mill, I suppose you could say [reference to G. Graff article "Hidden Intellectualism"]. In the future, I plan to use this knowledge to produce academically sound papers for my other classes and hopefully pursue a post-graduate degree once I get out of Washington State Penitentiary.

I would like to thank you, Ms. Waters, for taking the time to come to this environment and bringing higher learning into our lives. The lessons that you have taught me have inspired in me a confidence in my academic ability that I didn’t have before I took this class. I hope that you take at least a little satisfaction in knowing that you have helped a student begin his journey towards something better in his life. Wherever you end up going with your teaching career, you will always have students out there that will remain forever grateful for having been better educated by your lessons.

Sincerely yours,

[...]

I don’t post this to pat myself on the back; instead, I post it to remind myself, and I hope others, of the very high highs that come with this career.

And I’ll just add a sentence from another of his papers, which was pretty much the best line in a student paper, ever. The context is, again, Gerald Graff’s article “Hidden Intellectualism,” wherein Graff argues that students should tackle texts that are interesting to them, and that they can exercise the same rhetorical muscle with contemporary, popular texts as they can with traditional, canonical texts. This student’s response:

Sorry Shakespeare, but thou doth not standeth a chance against cars, music, friends, or girls, in any particular order, on any given day.

Anyway, when I returned to the forum to see how the episiotomy discussion had progressed, I discovered that these particular pregnant women were far more interested in the bandwagon approach to pregnancy decisions, and an immoderate number of women voiced their decision to avoid an episiotomy “at all costs” because they’d “heard it’s easier to heal if you tear naturally.”

Yeah, well, I hear that ninety percent of bad decisions are based on hearsay.

I don’t say this because episiotomies are a good idea; I just think having a categorical refusal to have one is ignorant (have you read about anal fissures**? NOT FUN), and I’m kind of alarmed at how these women made healthcare decisions — based on not evidence, but on what they’ve heard. Perhaps a great deal of the blame falls on the medical community for not educating patients as to evidence-based medicine (and, in some cases, not performing evidence-based medicine), but as patients I think we need to step up and educate ourselves. And by that I don’t mean the first Google search result or polling other pregnant women in an online forum.

* I assume I lost nearly half my potential readers at this point; oops.

** And I probably lost the other half here.

Seriously: how can you be so articulate about what we talk about in class and then NOT APPLY IT TO YOUR PAPER?

*

I have just given a paper 27%, an all-time low not counting plagiarism. The paper before that got a 90%. WTF, people.

I may, come to think of it, have a bit of a control issue.

Anyway, this is relevant because in last night’s childbirth education class, I found myself mentally critiquing the educator, which of course is ridiculously hypocritical since it’s not like I’m the most fabulous teacher to spin the magic web of rhetoric. But seriously, I give you the following situations:

1. To start with, she made a sexist generalization at the beginning of class, something about how women’s labor stories are like men’s fish stories (implying something about lying about the length thereof, I guess), and mostly I was offended because I fish, too. And I have not yet lied about my labor experience (head’s up: I WILL win), so the expectation rankled.

2. Then there was this dandy question, clearly meant to gin up some discussion in the class:

Educator: How do you time contractions?

[ten seconds dead silence]

Me: Um, with a watch?

I knew what she was getting at, although not exactly — something to do with frequency and/or duration of contractions — but when you ask an unclear question and no one answers, rephrase and clarify what you mean. Or else you get smart-asses like me answering. (Though, professional confessional time: I love smart-asses. They make class fun and keep me on my toes. Double bonus. Although I’m not sure this educator feels that way about me.)

3. This is a rhetorical complaint: Everything she says is declarative: You WILL do this, you WILL do that, you WILL like this, you WILL not like that, etc. Um, no, thank you. Being told what I will and won’t do or think works about as well on this 30-year-old as it did on this 15-year-old. I realize I’m knocking my own maturity level here, but thanks to feminism and consumerism AND SCIENCE, women have a lot more childbirth choices than we used to, and I don’t appreciate childbirth “education” being presented as a map with stations where you get your hand stamped before moving on to the next level. If that works for the next woman, great — but not me.

Tangential confession: Last night I was a little taken aback when the educator asked who all was reading books on childbirth and I was the only one who raised a hand. Seriously?! How can you approach one of the biggest events in your life without planning? (And no, I don’t think childbirth education indoctrination counts.) I mean, I know I like to plan, but … HOW DO YOU NOT PLAN?

4. Finally, this childbirth educator pronounces the word “dilated” “dillatated.” THAT IS NOT A WORD, and I know because I triple-checked it on dictionary.com so as to not be made an ass of (which happens often enough as it is).  And I know I should be more worried about what it means to be 10 cm “dillatated” than how she mispronounces the word, but it strikes at the heart of her ethos and those twelve or whatever years she spent on a Labor and Delivery ward.

Ugh. Somehow in my life I have morphed from the back-row, I’m-not-here student into the front-row, know-it-all critic. What’s worse, I remember how I hated those people in college, and thus this post is halfway between a cry for help and a blubbering confession. I guess when I’m stuck spreadlegged and naked at 8 cm dillatated and wondering why my epidural isn’t working, I’ll have time to ponder this further.

You see, one assignment is to watch a documentary and then to analyze its rhetoric in a paper. The students voted on the documentary they’d most like to see, and although “Super High Me” came in first, it was rated R which is generally not approvable, plus my research into it didn’t seem like it would present an argument per se, so we went with the runner-up, An Inconvenient Truth. To be clear, while it wasn’t their first choice, it was still their choice.

Oh. my. gawd.

Such wailing and gnashing of teeth — you’d think Al Gore personally done them all wrong what with all the whining and death wishes directed his way. And what kills me is how this film – that they voted to see — is so irrelevent that they see the idea of human-caused climate change as boring, yet they all want to see 2012. Um, guys? Srsly?

On Wednesday we’re going to talk about ad hominem logical fallacies and evaluating an argument, not a person. In the meantime, I wish aspirin were good for fetuses (feta? fetii?). Or alcohol.

NO IT’S NOT. The SOURCE may have paraphrased, but YOU did NOT.

*tearing out my hair*

****

Update: Have fixed typo in title. Now am considering live-blogging Meltdown to Baldness 2010. Ugh.

****

Those faint screams are the sounds of me checking my students’ sourcework.

****

I must speak a different language when I teach. It’s the only explanation for a couple of these research papers.

****

It’s really only three out of twelve papers (and two of those weren’t my students in ENGL 101) that are so awful, but they’re THAT AWFUL. (And this is one benefit of teaching at the pen: my students will never know I liveblogged my hairloss.)

****

I think the key here is to not read all the good papers first. Stupid, stupid planning.

****

Remember copyediting? That was a nice, stress-free career with regular hours….

****

The delusions are getting stronger.

WTF, I think the neighbor just drove his motorcycle across our weeds. I mean lawn. But still!

…anyway: mostly because some of my responses will be longer than others. Like this one.

Question 1: I’d be curious to hear more about the roadblocks I remember you talking about (limited access, pencil trading, obnoxious bureaucracy, etc.) and how you’ve learned to work with or around them. I’m also curious about what they are writing about, if you have received any particularly interesting papers, etc.

There are still plenty of roadblocks. We still have librarians do the research part of research writing, which is frustrating in that the students should be doing it, but I am working on getting us to buy access to a database specifically designed for teaching in prison situations that we can load onto some of the computers in my classroom so students can find journal and magazine articles related to their topics (so much research is online these days, something I have trouble explaining to bureaucrats whose last research paper was written decades ago!). I am trying to get more books for the fledgling library, but no one wants to spend money on books (the sarcastic part of me says, Yeah, let’s give these students an education but god forbid they read books! *sigh* I do understand budget constraints, but there are so many cheap, used books out there that it seems preposterous not to buy them). I do think I have an in right now to get a series of books, which I am hoping for, but I find that doors open and shut here with little warning.

You may recall my minimeltdown over whether or not students could use highlighters. Last quarter there was a clamor for highlighters, and I was able to procure both the highlighters and permission forms for students carrying them. (Yes: Permission forms to carry highlighters. It kind of makes those fucking dorm hall passes they required in boarding high school pale in comparison.) That said, there has been no such clamor this quarter, so I am not worrying about it right now, but it’s nice to know that there are workarounds for some difficulties. I guess learning to be a grownup/bureaucrat and pose my requests with potential solutions is working.

I think sometimes there is unnecessary harassment of students; for example, one student got a disk to use to save his Word documents on and took it back to his cell not knowing he wasn’t allowed to have it there. He was taken out of class and remonstrated for having done this. He came back angry and embarrassed, and I thought it was unnecessary. I mean, where the fuck is he going to use this disk, anyway? I’m pretty sure the dinosaur computers in our classroom are the only ones that still have a disk drive. But this is why I teach instead of guard: I don’t have to worry about how a disk could be broken down and fashioned into some sort of weapon, which was probably the concern. But still — humiliation is not an effective form of punishment or correctional education, in my opinion.

Other little things that might be of interest: I can only give my students one pen and one pencil — and the pens are closely guarded in a locked supply room (pencils are more freely available). The reason for this, as you can probably guess or already know, is that the pen ink is used for prison tattoos, and therefore pens can become objects of barter and trade instead of tools for education (huh, grad school flashback). And let me just say this: I love my students, but some of them have some seriously ugly-ass tattoos: all manner of skulls and flames, barbed wire, naked women; lots of knuckle tats (you know, the type where you put your fists together and it spells out a word); a surprising number of facial marks, such as teardrops. You can tell the difference between a prison tat and an outside one: prison tats are black/blue and sometimes either very artistic and thin, or very poorly done and blunt, depending on the artist; outside ones are full color or deep black (no skimping on ink). I don’t ask the guys about their marks, but I’ve really wanted to. One guy obviously has the name of his dead child on his arm, which makes me sad every time I see it.

To the second part of this question, what they write about, I would answer that I gave them more latitude to write about what they wanted in the first couple quarters. Seriously interesting shit, but I found myself getting so into their stories that it was difficult to assess their writing, and anyway, I’ve changed the direction from personal writing to topical writing to better fit the course goals as laid out by the English department. Some would write about why they were in jail (it surprised me how many cited alcohol and/or drug addiction as their downfall, which generally led to whatever they did to go to prison); many wrote more idealistically and nostalgically about times and places they enjoyed before prison, or, somewhat depressingly, between prison stints. What I find particularly interesting are the guys who write about their ethnic heritage: one of my favorite papers was from a student who wrote about learning the language of his heritage when he was an adolescent; another wrote about male patriarchy in his native culture and how language was actually a tool for male dominance and female subservience — the women aren’t allowed to address or speak to men the way they would speak to women — wow! I probably enjoy these essays more because they are born from research writing, not just experiences, which when woven together are particularly more compelling to me than experiences alone.

Another aspect of research writing in my classroom is how many students are interested in prison reform: when we had to decide on a topic for the first research paper, prison reform was second only to the oil spill in popularity, and several students are doing it for their individual choice paper. I know it’s probably an interest that comes from their frustration, but I hope that it is also educational/enlightening to them to find out how to get out and stay out. This topic sometimes gives me an opening to tell them, Hey, learn this stuff, and don’t repeat your mistakes; I don’t want to see you back here. (Some students are open about how they consider themselves career criminals, which is depressing and probably self-defeating, but I am not always in a position where I can say anything. And I will say that I think my ethos to challenge them on these things is growing — I can say things now that I couldn’t and wouldn’t've said my first quarter, but some classes, and students, have different chemistry than others.)

Many students, despite their inability to vote, are politically aware, though sometimes I think there is an odd disconnect between the politics they support and the politics that would benefit them. But it makes for interesting discussions and papers. One student wanted to do his research paper on why social progressivism was a bad form of government (bet you’d never guess how he feels about the president), whereas another is doing his paper on what type of government structure is closest to utopia.

So that’s a small overview of bureaucracy and the topics my students write about. Coming soon: Part 2 — why my job rocks and I could never go back to working at a desk.

…Ugh. That’s it. I am starting my own country and it will be totally anarchist and I will be the only person there, so I will have total freedom. Total freedom and total control. I’ll have it both ways, too.

For today’s Opinion, I’ll start with Doug Batchelor‘s recent sermon on women in not in the ministry. This was fucking appalling, and I’m ashamed that people weren’t walking out of his sermon in droves. There is no excuse for misogyny. None. Doug Batchelor needs a restraining order to keep him away from pulpits, and his ovis-audience needs to check their cud before they chew it. (Although I suppose these people seem like the type who blindly swallow, but that may not be the best metaphor….)

Chiefly amongst my uncharitable toughts toward the mallustrous preacher man is that I hope purgatory is real, or that hell is temporary, but I also hope that purgatory/hell is individualized per a person’s sins. My hell, for example, would be full of engineers who dam rivers and that abomination of imitation chocolate, carob. And from that experience, I expect I would learn to respect others’ work and not be so quick to stuff what appears to be chocolate in my mouth. Doug Batchelor’s hell, I hope, would be full of women who are more intelligent than he is, and not only preach but are fucking preachERS. I also believe, in this imaginary purgatory/hell, that close-minded people will take longer to learn their lessons, and in doing so, be there longer. Batchelor’s going to steam for awhile, I think. Though I prefer not to conjecture on the length of my interment.

Hell.

Teaching three writing classes is not doable, or at least not for me. The only way I have a single nostril above water right now is because my research writing class is in the research phase; even that is slated to end this week as the annotated bibliographies come in. Of course part of the stress is teaching two new classes, where I have to devise new lesson plans (oddly, it’s the daily grammar lessons that are sapping my will to live…hmm, tangent:

I learned this teaching ESL learners: if you don’t teach grammar, students complain that they don’t learn grammar. If you do teach grammar, students either don’t apply what you’ve learned (because writing is more complicated that sample sentences on an overhead projector), or they don’t care, or they believe they are the exceptions who may abuse grammar because they think they know better. Which they don’t. In my experience, the only way to learn grammar is to use grammar, and revise until you learn how to use it correctly. I don’t know how to teach this effectively.).

Anyway. This is week five, I think, so we’re nearly halfway through. That does not, however, in any way help me get started on what needs to be done this week. It’s a strangely paralytic feeling, knowing how much needs to be done and not being able to actually summon the strength to do it, then stressing about the mounting stress, then imagining my dad saying, “Quit fiddling around and get started,” which only further stymies my will to live.

And the water, I can feel it seeping into that last remaining nostril.

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Edit: five hours later, I have more or less gotten my shit together, have quit feeling quite so sorry for myself, and am … er, don’t remember how this sentence was going to end, as I’m not fixated on whether “gotten” is a word. Okay, it is. Life can go on.

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Edit No. 2: six hours later, I am finished; better yet, the last few papers were great!

Well, that may be, but I don’t think so. I’m beginning to see climate science not as a science with a defined (or definable) truth, but rather as a developing and evolving truth, much like a wiki. To take that metaphor further, imagine that the “climate change” Wikipedia article is just beginning to be written, and there are an awful lot of smart people involved. But, like all people, they have biases, beliefs, and politics that come into play, even though most strive to leave them at the door. The point we’re at is the nasty editing wars where accusations are hurled here and there, where people feel the dichotomous pull to one side or the other, even though there is a large and poorly defined area in the middle. There is not Truth, not yet, even though we’re working on it. Some of us feel we can dimly see where it’s leading, and others boldly plunge down that path, blind to obstacles and Reason and so forth. Others dig in their heels and refuse to budge. You see where this mangled metaphor is headed.

Remember when J Harlen Bretz thought the Pacific Northwest had been formed by catastrophic floods and everyone laughed at him? Truth wins out, if given time and energy. We’re just not to the point where we can quite see what that will be.

Until, oh, about 6:53 a.m. this morning I thought the class was from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Fortunately, I guess, it’s always been a nightmare of mine, missing the first day of class as a teacher, so after sleeping in a bit, making a cup of coffee at 6:45, and sitting down to print off a roster, I happened to notice the class time: 7 to 8:20 a.m.

WTF.

I said some bad words and there was a great flurry of coats and scarves and keys and papers and running, and it is very fortunate that we live on this side of town. I made it with about a minute to spare.

Always good to start things off on the right foot, I say.

Well, I probably will make it: I’ll probably meet the challenge, if barely, because that’s what I do: when I was taking three graduate school classes and teaching two and commuting from here to there, I managed. But last quarter, teaching only one class — it almost kicked my butt. Not because it was hard, but because it was so different, and I had to start anew on so much pedagogy. This quarter is the first time in my entire three-year teaching career where I’m finally teaching the same class twice in a row, and I hope to reach the point where my class prep is at an absolute minimum — reusable assignments made ahead of time — and I can instead focus on my students and their writing.

Here are my goals for the quarter:

• Minimal daily assignments — less busywork and less for me to grade
• Return to rubrics so students have clear goals and I have a clear framework for assessment
• Delve more deeply into readings
• Focus on pragmatic writing skills, including grammar (oh, I can imagine the gnashing of teeth from some comp people!)
• Convey the idea of research to a population unable to actually conduct research

I say the following honestly: I am often a mediocre teacher, and I want to be a good teacher. I will never be inspirational, I’m sure, because that gene doesn’t grow on my family tree, but if I can provide clear, straightforward instruction and advice that my students use, and if they go on to write well and think clearly, then I will have done my job.

For example, I recently read of a person who died that she was now “sleeping in Jesus.” I get it, but I don’t like it. Looking at that literally, it’s (a.) creepy and (b.) impossible, as if one regressed Benjamin Button-style to reimplant as an embryo on someone’s uterus. The phrase I think was meant was that she was “sleeping in Jesus’ arms,” which to me is a lot more peaceful and sensible (in a metaphorical way, anyway), the way many would like to imagine falling asleep and awakening.

Yet the prepositional disturbance that is “in Jesus” is prevalent in much religious rhetoric: meant to calm and assuage, it instead sounds eery and mindless. Take, for example, the following phrases:

Victory in Jesus: Would you ever say “Victory in Napoleon” or “Victory in George W. Bush”? Probably not, and not just because the latter was a dismal failure. “Victory over death through faith in Jesus” would perhaps be more accurate, so why not say it? Does the shortcut help anyone not already persuaded to understand?

Joy in Jesus: this is just incomplete. Joy in Jesus’…what? Life? Death? Sacrifice? Pick your object. Or better yet, rephrase your sentence: “Jesus gives me joy.”

New life in Jesus: Again, creepy, suggestive of pregnancy. Rephrase.

Of course, the problem with clarifying your rhetoric so that it makes sense grammatically and to a constituency less familiar with traditional religious verbiage is that you may end up making yourself less clear to the constituency that is educated “in Jesus.”

Well, to plagiarize that one singer, no one said it would be easy.