It's true. I'm going to the Paris conference in July and I couldn't be happier about it!
Despite my abject poverty and the pressure of finishing the dissertation, the conference was too good to pass up. The conference organizers are paying for grad students' hotel rooms and conferences fees, including lunches and the banquet. Evidently, my aunt and uncle didn't want me to miss this opportunity that I've talked about for, oh, four years, so they sent me a check that more than covers airfare. I tried to refuse (no, seriously, I really tried), but they were adamant, so...I'm going.
A friend I travel with a lot (or used to travel with a lot before poverty set in) is also going with me. We're staying a few days extra because I've never been to Paris and I don't know when I'll get back and I really want to see The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry and Abelard's grave and Sacre Couer and Notre Dame and all of the beautiful churches, really, and I want to wander around the streets, eating baguettes and cheese. Can you tell I'm excited? I can't wait!
The paper is already written, just needing a few revisions because it is similar to a paper I presented last year (the horror! but no one from that conference will be at this conference) and it's also part of a chapter that I've been working on, so it's in pretty good shape. If I stick to my schedule, I'll have three dissertation chapters written and two of them fully revised before Paris, assuaging some of my guilt about taking a break in the midst of heavy writing. So far, so good. More importantly, though, I already have heard from a few people expressing interesting in my new project. It's all starting to come together. Finally.
If anyone has any recommendations about where I need to go in Paris, I'd love to hear them. I especially like oddball places that not everyone knows.
May 17, 2013
May 9, 2013
Writing, Writing, and More Writing
It seems as though I am making decent progress on the chapter revisions, which were not too many to begin with, thankfully. The Montgomery Plot is kicking my butt, though, and making me not like it. It just won't fit into my chapter nicely, but it has to and so I've sat here for hours, struggling with it, trying to get it to play nicely because tomorrow is the deadline for these revisions and I can't afford to take longer on this chapter right now.
It doesn't help that I'm stressing about this because I have plans for tonight (for once!) and those plans start in roughly two hours and I still need to shower and get dressed and pack for the night. Perhaps a break to shower and pack will clear my head and I will come back and kick the Montgomery Plot's butt. Whining just a little bit about it has already helped, so did signing up for JaneB's writing group, which leads me to the entire point of this post...
As a reminder, Jane B is hosting the Top Left Quadrant writing group for the summer. Don't forget to sign up if you're interested. It starts this weekend!
It doesn't help that I'm stressing about this because I have plans for tonight (for once!) and those plans start in roughly two hours and I still need to shower and get dressed and pack for the night. Perhaps a break to shower and pack will clear my head and I will come back and kick the Montgomery Plot's butt. Whining just a little bit about it has already helped, so did signing up for JaneB's writing group, which leads me to the entire point of this post...
As a reminder, Jane B is hosting the Top Left Quadrant writing group for the summer. Don't forget to sign up if you're interested. It starts this weekend!
May 6, 2013
That's the end?
My semester of teaching is over and I'm...underwhelmed? It's not like I was expecting a party at the end of the semester, but a "goodbye" email from the chair would have been nice. I don't even need a "thank you," just some recognition that I was there and now I won't be would have been nice. Heck, even just the letter of reference he promised would have been fantastic. Instead, I had to email him to remind him about the letter and to let him know that I'd arrange with a prof teaching summer classes to drop my keys off to her one day this week, since no one was there to give my keys to Friday. What an end.
It would be different if I was a large school and just a face in the crowd. The department has three full-time professors and four adjuncts, one of whom is supposed to be a full-time professor in the fall, if everything works as promised. So...really? Nothing at all? I must expect to much. Courtesy. Courtesy is too much.
On the bright side, my students sound like they will miss me. Before the final, I was trying one more time to convince a student to at least do a minor in history because he was very engaged and able to grasp the larger concepts of what I was teaching. After he asked what classes I'd be teaching in the fall so he could sign up for one and I said I wouldn't be here, he said, "Oh. Well, never mind. I don't really like history. It's boring, but your class was different. You made it different." He then went on to tell me how he dropped a Western Civ class with the chair because it was so boring. That's not information I wanted. I recommended two other profs and he said he'll think about it. The same thing happened at the end of the final when a student I felt certain hated me all semester asked what classes I'm teaching in the fall and I had to again explain that I'm an adjunct and the school isn't bringing me back because of "enrolment." I managed not to roll my eyes or use air quotes when I said that, too, so I was a little proud of that. She was disappointed, though - genuinely so - because she wanted to take another class with me, she'd enjoyed it so much. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I really thought she hated me. Evidently not.
At least it was a great end to the class, if not to my time at the school itself. And now I promise to be done whining about this school. That's over, too.
It would be different if I was a large school and just a face in the crowd. The department has three full-time professors and four adjuncts, one of whom is supposed to be a full-time professor in the fall, if everything works as promised. So...really? Nothing at all? I must expect to much. Courtesy. Courtesy is too much.
On the bright side, my students sound like they will miss me. Before the final, I was trying one more time to convince a student to at least do a minor in history because he was very engaged and able to grasp the larger concepts of what I was teaching. After he asked what classes I'd be teaching in the fall so he could sign up for one and I said I wouldn't be here, he said, "Oh. Well, never mind. I don't really like history. It's boring, but your class was different. You made it different." He then went on to tell me how he dropped a Western Civ class with the chair because it was so boring. That's not information I wanted. I recommended two other profs and he said he'll think about it. The same thing happened at the end of the final when a student I felt certain hated me all semester asked what classes I'm teaching in the fall and I had to again explain that I'm an adjunct and the school isn't bringing me back because of "enrolment." I managed not to roll my eyes or use air quotes when I said that, too, so I was a little proud of that. She was disappointed, though - genuinely so - because she wanted to take another class with me, she'd enjoyed it so much. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I really thought she hated me. Evidently not.
At least it was a great end to the class, if not to my time at the school itself. And now I promise to be done whining about this school. That's over, too.
May 2, 2013
April 30, 2013
A Sphincter Says What?
I typed up my student evaluations from last semester because, well, I'm an adjunct and no one in the department cared enough to have it done for me. These evaluations were done by the department itself, in addition and separate from the college evaluations that are online. All the history department asked was what students liked best and least about the class. Typing them up myself was its own particular kind of torture, not just having to read the comments that I can't respond to but also having a very good idea of who wrote what because I still remember most of their handwriting styles.
I decided to take to Twitter and tweet some of the gems (those that made me feel all warm inside *and* those that were particularly heinous), as a way to help me process the comments. When I came across a comment that said "I didn't like how early the class was," I tweeted that quote with my response at the end: Then don't sign up for an 8:00 class. It got some laughs and retweets. It also helped me not get angry at the student, who I in no way forced to take an 8:00 class when I am anything but a morning person and was certainly not thrilled at having to be there at 8:00 myself. I have a 45 minute drive in the morning. They have to walk across a street. (See? This is the downfall of seeing the handwriting, knowing who wrote the evaluation, and remembering all the things they told you throughout the semester.)
The tweet that got the most response, however, was this one:
"I liked how the teacher lectured, but you had to study. Most teachers make PowerPoints that give all the information and you don't do anything on your own."
I decided to take to Twitter and tweet some of the gems (those that made me feel all warm inside *and* those that were particularly heinous), as a way to help me process the comments. When I came across a comment that said "I didn't like how early the class was," I tweeted that quote with my response at the end: Then don't sign up for an 8:00 class. It got some laughs and retweets. It also helped me not get angry at the student, who I in no way forced to take an 8:00 class when I am anything but a morning person and was certainly not thrilled at having to be there at 8:00 myself. I have a 45 minute drive in the morning. They have to walk across a street. (See? This is the downfall of seeing the handwriting, knowing who wrote the evaluation, and remembering all the things they told you throughout the semester.)
The tweet that got the most response, however, was this one:
"I liked how the teacher lectured, but you had to study. Most teachers make PowerPoints that give all the information and you don't do anything on your own."
When I first read it, I was stunned, hence the Wayne's World reference. You can get through college-level classes without studying? Professors just want you to regurgitate what they tell you? Call me naive, but that's horrendous. I almost didn't tweet it. I was so taken aback that I thought it had to be a one-off. But it wasn't. There were a few more comments in a similar vein, so I tweeted it and my response, which was "I don't know what to say about that last tweet eval. I feel sorry for those students who are taught to be robots."
Apparently, a lot of people agreed to me because there was a flurry of retweets, favorites, and replies with some very good points made. What happened to critical thinking? What happened to independent learning and studying and thinking for yourself? Is it wrong to expect students to study in college?
It is very easy to criticize students for not understanding what it takes to succeed in college, that they are largely responsible for their own success, that grades reflect performance, not effort. After all, how many times have we told students they don't get an A because they do the work, they get an A because their work meets a certain standard?
But are we complicit in their misunderstanding? Evidently, some of us are. In this age of the assault on higher education, this is not how we should represent ourselves if we expect society at large to believe our protests that higher education is important and relevant and vital. If we don't make the effort to teach as well as we can, why should we expect students to make the effort to learn as well as they can?
I say this fully aware of the all of the changes taking place in higher education right now, fully aware of all of the other demands on academics that can push teaching to the back burner, and fully aware of the adjunct situation, since I've lived it for the past year. I say this as someone who tried to write her dissertation while teaching four new classes.
Do I regret spending what a lot of people would consider too much time on teaching? No. I really don't. I just graded a student's final exam and the grade was more than double what they earned on the first test of the semester. The student obviously learned something this semester and it wasn't just modern U.S. history. They learned how to read for comprehension, how to study, how to think critically. How do I know this? I worked with that student quite a bit. I can see the change. That's why I don't regret it. Whether the student realizes it or not, I made a difference and that's enough for me. Well, that and evaluation comments like these:
"I liked the fact that this course taught things that weren't common knowledge. I deeply enjoyed my learning experience."
"I liked that we learned many things that could possibly change our views."
"I thought history was boring until I actually got engaged with it."
I might not have been at this school for long, but I can leave without regret, knowing that I did the best I could and that the school is losing an asset, someone who cares about their students, not someone who throws up a PowerPoint slide and tells their class to just copy it down. I care and I can make a difference. That's the point of being an educator.
April 19, 2013
Writing Group Week 16 - That's All We Wrote!
Well, well, well. We survived another writing group. Did you meet your main goal? Did you meet last week's goal?
Before we get to that, this is just a reminder that the next writing group is being hosted by Dame Eleanor Hull over at her place. The group she is hosting will be significantly different than this one, with DEH asking that participants focus on one piece of writing. Her group will provide a place for "public accountability and acknowledgment of interim goals met." JaneB has offered to host a kind of tandem writing group where participants can discuss more general goals, work process, OBW(hatever), etc., similar to what has happened in this particular writing group.
When I offered to host this group, I thought that there were enough of us ABDs or ECRs in the previous groups that it might be beneficial to have someone coming from that perspective co-hosting, particularly because my co-host is mid-career and could provide a counterpoint on behalf of those of you who are not ABD/ECR. I also, perhaps naively, hoped that as someone who struggles with the writing process (which is new for me because I never struggled as an undergrad, during my M.A., or during the first two years of my PhD) and, therefore, reads a lot about that topic, I might be able to provide some helpful new ideas or reminders of old tricks to those of you further in your career who might be stuck in a writing rut. Sometimes a change in perspective can get you out of a rut, after all. Certainly, when I could only offer questions, not solutions, others in the group did; however, if anyone feels as if they did not get anything useful from this group because of my particular perspective, I apologize.
Writing groups are what the participants make them and I, for one, am grateful for the increased sense of community I gained from this particular group. I could write it off as saying I've been feeling particularly isolated this semester with no real, physical academic community right now, but I think academia can be a lonely place, as a lot of you have said or shown in these groups and on your blogs. As I said over at JaneB's, I really felt as if you all acted as a support system for me and cheering me on through my successes and my struggles and I hope you felt the same from me/us in return, if that's what you wanted from the group. I could not have handled the stresses of the semester - writing, teaching, and personal, a lot of which didn't even get mentioned in the group, if you can believe that - without the support from all of you, so thank you all.
Enough of that. Let's celebrate the end of this group and all that we've done. Here it is - the final roll call (original 15 week goals included - sorry if you changed yours and this isn't up-to-date):
Amanda@ladyscientist: no check-in
15 Week Goal: completely finish two fellowship apps, get halfway through a third, turn my dissertation intro into a minireview, write my final section of TheReviewThatNeverEnds, and any other small writing projects that come my way
Amstr (writing account): 1) write 1500 words (or more!!), 2) read 3 articles, 3) notes on 5 articles (or more), 4) make office functional and call electrician to put in safe outlets.
15 Week Goal: finally finish the darn dissertation!
Bardiac: no check-in
15 Week Goal: working on a paper for the Shakespeare association, and also working on moving a paper from conference to publishable
Contigent Cassandra: finish & give lecture; continue grading; regroup/plan final push on chapter (including, if necessary, asking for a 1-2 week extension well in advance of the May 1 deadline. That's more professional, right?)
15 Week Goal: complete a chapter for an "approaches to teaching" volume (we'll call this the T chapter), due 5/1, and to keep up with freelance assignments. If I have any additional time, I'd also like to finish the J article that I was trying to finish last fall, and make some sort of progress on the P project, but, based on past experience, that seems unlikely
Dame Eleanor Hull: polish 1000 lines of translation and send it to my team. Review the companion-piece against the journal's style sheet and send it. Allow self 15 minutes a day with MMP-1.
15 Week Goal: finishing and submitting the MMP is my main goal, and if I finish it before the end of the group I hope I can declare a new goal.
Danne: 1) write first thing in the morning and 2) work on my PhD for at least three hours a day
15 Week Goal: read and take daily notes of my reflections and the progress I'm making. I want to work at least 3 hours a day, 6 days a week on my thesis
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell: no check-in
15 Week Goal: finish up article O, which I researched and got close to completion in the last group, for submission. I then have article O prime, the offshoot from article O to flesh out, complete and submit
Good Enough Woman: Spend a hour each M and W mornings reading secondary text, order two books from ILL.
15 Week Goal: "Finish draft of Chapter 5, Draft Chapter 3, Revise article"
heu mihi: Do what's on the to-do list. Finish the sucker, really.
15 Week Goal: get a workable draft of the article finished by the end of April. What I'd like to do is write 5 hours a week, plus fit in some reading time as needed
humming42: 15 minutes a day.
15 Week Goal: work on the reconfigured book project, which now includes some incremental steps like drafting a survey, getting IRB approval, and applying for a travel grant
Jane B: a) outline the results and discussion sections for the Paper That Wants To Be Written, and b) spend time with the Stupid MSc Paper - let's say three lots of ten minutes, as a goal.
15 Week Goal: make measureable progress' - I want to be able to report actual numbers in terms of papers moved from one key developmental stage to the next
Jason: no check-in
15 Week Goal: I need Chap. 4 & Chap. 1 drafts. Ideally, the Chap. 4 draft will come together in the next few weeks (sent to advisor by end of Feb.)
Jodi: Seriously finish the chapter because this is ridiculous.
15 Week Goal: 1000-1500 words/wk
kiwi2: Again, read and take notes on two papers a day for my exotic synthesis. Also write 500 words this week, to start putting some ideas together.
15 Week Goal: "conference talk to give in two weeks and have a big pile of analysis to do for this over the next week- hence, my first goal, is - do this. All week.
2)Paper X from the previous writing group needs reanalysis of one section (arggh), and general rewriting. Its a collaborative effort, and I am anticipating writing will drag on for some time although I would like to submit, like, immediately.
3)Paper Z, I want to finish the analysis of one dataset, and the writing of these results (probably two paragraphs max.). I am half way through this, and would like to just get it done.
4) There are other projects too that I want to get done, but I will focus on the above first, and then concentrate on two hours of writing a day. I think if I can achieve this, the other pieces of research will also fall into place"
kiwimedievalist/zcat_abroad: no check-in
15 Week Goal: 6000-word article due on the 1st of April, of which I have done a fair bit of research (much of it spinning out of my PhD thesis (aka dissertation), and about 2500 words written and bits(?) of a novel if possible)
luolin88: 30 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday
15 Week Goal: write and submit an article
Matilda: revise my plan for a new paper.
15 Week Goal: 1. Finish an article A. 2. Finish an article B. 3. 15-minute writing every day
meansomething: no check-in because of travel
15 Week Goal: continue to devote time each week to poems (drafting new ones while continuing to revise the sequence); to find a publisher for my second book ms.; and to experiment with breaking out some pieces of the lyric essay draft, possibly as shorter pieces on their own
metheist: incorporate the new ideas about gesture into my chapter.
15 Week Goal: finish chapter 4, write my introduction, edit, and defend. Also, I want to work more on embracing the present, not obsessing on the past or worrying about the future.
nwgirl: no check-in
15 Week Goal: Finish revisions of two chapters
Pilgrim/Heretic: no check-in
15 Week Goal: write 21,000 words by April 26
profacero (Z): finish and submit both abstracts
15 Week Goal: to reserve time daily, 25 minutes if that is all there is but ideally 2.5 hours. That is it, 25 minutes to 2.5 hours, 7 days a week, no vacation ever (on vacation, 25 minutes), and ideally closer to 2.5 hours most days
Susan: no check-in
15 Week Goal: first, a plenary talk at a major conference outside my discipline in late March, and second, a draft of a piece for one of the "companion" volumes that speaks to some of the conceptual issues of the book project
tracynicolrose: Finalize Frameworks for presentation; tackle citations in BE; continue with new MS matrices
15 Week Goal: work on 3 new papers this semester: BE paper, Methods paper, and HT paper. My aim is to get a decent draft completed on all three so I can submit over the summer
Zabeel: revisit article and make plan of future work
15 Week Goal: to get the book manuscript finished and submitted to press (finish final 2 chapters and conclusion; edit all for consistency; incorporate comments as they come in). I'd also like to finish converting a conference paper based on a new topic into an article
Before we get to that, this is just a reminder that the next writing group is being hosted by Dame Eleanor Hull over at her place. The group she is hosting will be significantly different than this one, with DEH asking that participants focus on one piece of writing. Her group will provide a place for "public accountability and acknowledgment of interim goals met." JaneB has offered to host a kind of tandem writing group where participants can discuss more general goals, work process, OBW(hatever), etc., similar to what has happened in this particular writing group.
When I offered to host this group, I thought that there were enough of us ABDs or ECRs in the previous groups that it might be beneficial to have someone coming from that perspective co-hosting, particularly because my co-host is mid-career and could provide a counterpoint on behalf of those of you who are not ABD/ECR. I also, perhaps naively, hoped that as someone who struggles with the writing process (which is new for me because I never struggled as an undergrad, during my M.A., or during the first two years of my PhD) and, therefore, reads a lot about that topic, I might be able to provide some helpful new ideas or reminders of old tricks to those of you further in your career who might be stuck in a writing rut. Sometimes a change in perspective can get you out of a rut, after all. Certainly, when I could only offer questions, not solutions, others in the group did; however, if anyone feels as if they did not get anything useful from this group because of my particular perspective, I apologize.
Writing groups are what the participants make them and I, for one, am grateful for the increased sense of community I gained from this particular group. I could write it off as saying I've been feeling particularly isolated this semester with no real, physical academic community right now, but I think academia can be a lonely place, as a lot of you have said or shown in these groups and on your blogs. As I said over at JaneB's, I really felt as if you all acted as a support system for me and cheering me on through my successes and my struggles and I hope you felt the same from me/us in return, if that's what you wanted from the group. I could not have handled the stresses of the semester - writing, teaching, and personal, a lot of which didn't even get mentioned in the group, if you can believe that - without the support from all of you, so thank you all.
Enough of that. Let's celebrate the end of this group and all that we've done. Here it is - the final roll call (original 15 week goals included - sorry if you changed yours and this isn't up-to-date):
Amanda@ladyscientist: no check-in
15 Week Goal: completely finish two fellowship apps, get halfway through a third, turn my dissertation intro into a minireview, write my final section of TheReviewThatNeverEnds, and any other small writing projects that come my way
Amstr (writing account): 1) write 1500 words (or more!!), 2) read 3 articles, 3) notes on 5 articles (or more), 4) make office functional and call electrician to put in safe outlets.
15 Week Goal: finally finish the darn dissertation!
Bardiac: no check-in
15 Week Goal: working on a paper for the Shakespeare association, and also working on moving a paper from conference to publishable
Contigent Cassandra: finish & give lecture; continue grading; regroup/plan final push on chapter (including, if necessary, asking for a 1-2 week extension well in advance of the May 1 deadline. That's more professional, right?)
15 Week Goal: complete a chapter for an "approaches to teaching" volume (we'll call this the T chapter), due 5/1, and to keep up with freelance assignments. If I have any additional time, I'd also like to finish the J article that I was trying to finish last fall, and make some sort of progress on the P project, but, based on past experience, that seems unlikely
Dame Eleanor Hull: polish 1000 lines of translation and send it to my team. Review the companion-piece against the journal's style sheet and send it. Allow self 15 minutes a day with MMP-1.
15 Week Goal: finishing and submitting the MMP is my main goal, and if I finish it before the end of the group I hope I can declare a new goal.
Danne: 1) write first thing in the morning and 2) work on my PhD for at least three hours a day
15 Week Goal: read and take daily notes of my reflections and the progress I'm making. I want to work at least 3 hours a day, 6 days a week on my thesis
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell: no check-in
15 Week Goal: finish up article O, which I researched and got close to completion in the last group, for submission. I then have article O prime, the offshoot from article O to flesh out, complete and submit
Good Enough Woman: Spend a hour each M and W mornings reading secondary text, order two books from ILL.
15 Week Goal: "Finish draft of Chapter 5, Draft Chapter 3, Revise article"
heu mihi: Do what's on the to-do list. Finish the sucker, really.
15 Week Goal: get a workable draft of the article finished by the end of April. What I'd like to do is write 5 hours a week, plus fit in some reading time as needed
humming42: 15 minutes a day.
15 Week Goal: work on the reconfigured book project, which now includes some incremental steps like drafting a survey, getting IRB approval, and applying for a travel grant
Jane B: a) outline the results and discussion sections for the Paper That Wants To Be Written, and b) spend time with the Stupid MSc Paper - let's say three lots of ten minutes, as a goal.
15 Week Goal: make measureable progress' - I want to be able to report actual numbers in terms of papers moved from one key developmental stage to the next
Jason: no check-in
15 Week Goal: I need Chap. 4 & Chap. 1 drafts. Ideally, the Chap. 4 draft will come together in the next few weeks (sent to advisor by end of Feb.)
Jodi: Seriously finish the chapter because this is ridiculous.
15 Week Goal: 1000-1500 words/wk
kiwi2: Again, read and take notes on two papers a day for my exotic synthesis. Also write 500 words this week, to start putting some ideas together.
15 Week Goal: "conference talk to give in two weeks and have a big pile of analysis to do for this over the next week- hence, my first goal, is - do this. All week.
2)Paper X from the previous writing group needs reanalysis of one section (arggh), and general rewriting. Its a collaborative effort, and I am anticipating writing will drag on for some time although I would like to submit, like, immediately.
3)Paper Z, I want to finish the analysis of one dataset, and the writing of these results (probably two paragraphs max.). I am half way through this, and would like to just get it done.
4) There are other projects too that I want to get done, but I will focus on the above first, and then concentrate on two hours of writing a day. I think if I can achieve this, the other pieces of research will also fall into place"
kiwimedievalist/zcat_abroad: no check-in
15 Week Goal: 6000-word article due on the 1st of April, of which I have done a fair bit of research (much of it spinning out of my PhD thesis (aka dissertation), and about 2500 words written and bits(?) of a novel if possible)
luolin88: 30 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday
15 Week Goal: write and submit an article
Matilda: revise my plan for a new paper.
15 Week Goal: 1. Finish an article A. 2. Finish an article B. 3. 15-minute writing every day
meansomething: no check-in because of travel
15 Week Goal: continue to devote time each week to poems (drafting new ones while continuing to revise the sequence); to find a publisher for my second book ms.; and to experiment with breaking out some pieces of the lyric essay draft, possibly as shorter pieces on their own
metheist: incorporate the new ideas about gesture into my chapter.
15 Week Goal: finish chapter 4, write my introduction, edit, and defend. Also, I want to work more on embracing the present, not obsessing on the past or worrying about the future.
nwgirl: no check-in
15 Week Goal: Finish revisions of two chapters
Pilgrim/Heretic: no check-in
15 Week Goal: write 21,000 words by April 26
profacero (Z): finish and submit both abstracts
15 Week Goal: to reserve time daily, 25 minutes if that is all there is but ideally 2.5 hours. That is it, 25 minutes to 2.5 hours, 7 days a week, no vacation ever (on vacation, 25 minutes), and ideally closer to 2.5 hours most days
Susan: no check-in
15 Week Goal: first, a plenary talk at a major conference outside my discipline in late March, and second, a draft of a piece for one of the "companion" volumes that speaks to some of the conceptual issues of the book project
tracynicolrose: Finalize Frameworks for presentation; tackle citations in BE; continue with new MS matrices
15 Week Goal: work on 3 new papers this semester: BE paper, Methods paper, and HT paper. My aim is to get a decent draft completed on all three so I can submit over the summer
Zabeel: revisit article and make plan of future work
15 Week Goal: to get the book manuscript finished and submitted to press (finish final 2 chapters and conclusion; edit all for consistency; incorporate comments as they come in). I'd also like to finish converting a conference paper based on a new topic into an article
April 16, 2013
Teaching Torments and Triumphs
Today I had a conversation with a student that felt more like a confrontation. I was actually shaking after the student left the office, but I'm not sure if it was out of fear or rage or both. Both, I think.
This student has been on a slow decline in the class for awhile now, but has decided to blame me rather than take responsibility for missing classes, missing a test, missing a quiz, falling asleep in class, and ignoring my comments on a rough draft of a paper. The student is also very intimidating, in a quiet, glowering kind of way, so when he attempted to silently stare me down multiple times in a ten minute conversation, as if I would cave and let him take the quiz he missed, I was a little worried. I held my ground, though, and stared right back. After the first two staring contests, I started to get annoyed. What is the purpose? The intimidation is not working. I have asked you if you are having problems that are affecting your work that I need to know about or could help with. Silence. I have asked if you have anything else you want to talk about. Silence. Any more questions for me? Silence. Why was he just sitting there, glowering? It was creepy. Eventually, he left, came back, apologized for giving the impression that he didn't care about the class, and left again. Awkward doesn't even begin to describe the situation.
There was an upside to today, though. I got the department's student evaluations of last semester's classes. There was the usual love her/hate her, too much/not enough discussion and/or classwork, great lessons/worst lessons ever comments. Two students from World Civ said I was terrible and couldn't answer their questions in class (sure, that happened twice and I found out the answers for the next class, but whatever) and one of those students went on to rage about how dare the school employ someone who only had an undergrad degree and was only a step above them and didn't know what she was doing. I actually laughed at that because, first of all, I have a Master's degree and, oh yeah, am five years in to a PhD program, but, sure, I'm just a step above you. Second of all, my department does actually employ a recent undergrad who just started his M.A. teach and it is painfully obvious that he has never taught before and isn't comfortable doing so yet, mostly because he has not training for it. There were a lot more students with positive reviews, like I'm obviously interested in the students and want them to do well, that I am a hard grader but will go out of my way to make sure they understand a concept, and they liked that I explained my PowerPoint slide ideas and concepts, rather than just telling the class to copy down what's on the slides as my lecture like other professors do (seriously, people do that? These poor kids!).
But it gets better. I got the comment I've always dreamed about, the Holy Grail, if you will. Are you ready for it? Someone wrote that they "liked that we learned many things that could change our view. I thought history was boring until I actually got engaged with it."
OH MY GOD. I think I passed out from joy.
I should quit teaching while I'm ahead, shouldn't I?
This student has been on a slow decline in the class for awhile now, but has decided to blame me rather than take responsibility for missing classes, missing a test, missing a quiz, falling asleep in class, and ignoring my comments on a rough draft of a paper. The student is also very intimidating, in a quiet, glowering kind of way, so when he attempted to silently stare me down multiple times in a ten minute conversation, as if I would cave and let him take the quiz he missed, I was a little worried. I held my ground, though, and stared right back. After the first two staring contests, I started to get annoyed. What is the purpose? The intimidation is not working. I have asked you if you are having problems that are affecting your work that I need to know about or could help with. Silence. I have asked if you have anything else you want to talk about. Silence. Any more questions for me? Silence. Why was he just sitting there, glowering? It was creepy. Eventually, he left, came back, apologized for giving the impression that he didn't care about the class, and left again. Awkward doesn't even begin to describe the situation.
There was an upside to today, though. I got the department's student evaluations of last semester's classes. There was the usual love her/hate her, too much/not enough discussion and/or classwork, great lessons/worst lessons ever comments. Two students from World Civ said I was terrible and couldn't answer their questions in class (sure, that happened twice and I found out the answers for the next class, but whatever) and one of those students went on to rage about how dare the school employ someone who only had an undergrad degree and was only a step above them and didn't know what she was doing. I actually laughed at that because, first of all, I have a Master's degree and, oh yeah, am five years in to a PhD program, but, sure, I'm just a step above you. Second of all, my department does actually employ a recent undergrad who just started his M.A. teach and it is painfully obvious that he has never taught before and isn't comfortable doing so yet, mostly because he has not training for it. There were a lot more students with positive reviews, like I'm obviously interested in the students and want them to do well, that I am a hard grader but will go out of my way to make sure they understand a concept, and they liked that I explained my PowerPoint slide ideas and concepts, rather than just telling the class to copy down what's on the slides as my lecture like other professors do (seriously, people do that? These poor kids!).
But it gets better. I got the comment I've always dreamed about, the Holy Grail, if you will. Are you ready for it? Someone wrote that they "liked that we learned many things that could change our view. I thought history was boring until I actually got engaged with it."
OH MY GOD. I think I passed out from joy.
I should quit teaching while I'm ahead, shouldn't I?
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