the little response that grew... and grew... and grew...

[For context, please see Agathon's comment on a recent teaching thingy]

A,

Vroom, vroom... lots to get my wheels turning here. Let's start with your question: So when you stand up in front of 115 students, do they think you're there to bring them into a world they don't yet know, or simply to amuse them?

I think that many of those 115 students expect me to entertain them. They may have been entertained (or not) since they started their schooling, and teachers like me have been trying to wheedle some engagement out of them. They have probably grown up with a genuine belief that BOREDOM is REALLY bad. Some of them have the attention span of-- what? Insert some comparison that conveys the idea of SHORT or nearly non-existent.

My particular teaching niche seems to be in developmental education, once known as remedial education or even special education, but we have to be sensitive. We'll use the current label until it gains the stigmatizing, derogatory implication that will damage the participants' self-esteem.

I teach developmental college reading and writing classes. I'm near the end of the assembly line, trying to polish up a few dented or badly formed parts enough to send them further along the line towards higher education or whatever Lifelong Learning opportunities come along next.

I try to squirm out of generalizing, but sometimes it's convenient to establish context. Here are some generalizations, with commentary, about my students and teaching situation:

--There are between 28 and 35 of them in each section. I teach anywhere from one to five sections, so that I could max out at 175 individuals under my tutelage in a given semester, though that truly is the outside range. I usually have a "real" job elsewhere to support my teaching habit, but let's leave those duties and demands aside for a moment with only that nod of acknowledgment to the realities of adjunct teaching.

--When I teach at the community college, a good portion of my students are older than me. At the university, 98% of them are 18 or 19 years old.

--At the community college, I may have students from Mexico, Burma, the Ukraine, Lebanon, Jordan, the Czech Republic, Thailand, Somalia, or any number of places outside the United States. At the university, I may have one or two from Mexico, three or four from Korea, and a whole bunch from New Jersey.

--The older students almost ALWAYS make more progress on the standardized tests and under my own rubrics because they come to class every day, they come to visit me during my office hours, they ask questions until they get a satisfactory answer, they prioritize, and they value their time spent learning because it's damned hard to fit in classes and homework between child or elder care responsibilities, work, and all the other adult demands. Sometimes when the young'uns start acting up, one of the Moms will stand up and put them in their place. I was grateful for their interventions when I was a fresh-faced novice college teacher. Now I'm a mom, so I can deliver the whithering look for myself.

--At least two students have been so rude in my classes that I've kicked them out. I tried written notes on the latest draft returned with my painstaking corrections and suggestions and encouragements, but those papers ended up in the trash can before they read them. I pulled them aside for private consultations on their behavior. I finally had to resort to public humiliation, demanding that they pick up their bags and leave (not quite as feisty as Bill Maher with his rude students, but with the same effect). It's really not negotiable in my classroom: during the 50 to 110 minutes they are on MY time, they may not listen to their IPods or answer their cell phones or act like maniacs. I know some of them are sly with the phone texting, but staring at them long enough usually lets them know they're caught. Why are they so surprised? They are as incredulous as my three-year-old when they get caught doing something stupid RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. If they fall asleep, I handle that on a case-by-case basis. For one student, I began to suspect that my classroom might be the only safe place he had to sleep. A little rest was far more important in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs than even my most brilliantly crafted exercise in metacognition.

--My older students and my foreign students make my job rewarding, and yes, "FUN" for me. Lots of the others demand a slick sales campaign. It's sad, but true. I would love to teach a higher level undergraduate class or a writing workshop or a literature seminar where everyone does the reading and contributes to the conversation and writes perky and insightful papers, but that doesn't seem to be my calling. I HAVE to do a little dance, sing a little song, and do the best I can to dazzle them into paying attention. I just want to get them hooked. Once they are Hooked on Learning, they'll be okay-- I'll be able to sleep at night, at least.

Here are some other swift reactions to other topics you mentioned:

--I bet the students in Taylor Mali's classes have "fun." I bet he orchestrates sneak attacks on apathy all the time.

--I have a major crush on Thomas Jefferson. If a larger proportion of our citizens were half as engaged in half as many disciplines as that man worked to master in his lifetime, we'd all be better off. I'm getting an urge to go reread some good Jefferson stuff to see how to incorporate that into my next syllabus. That's a conversation for another time.

--My clear, irrevocable transition from childhood to adulthood was not getting married, nor giving birth, nor mourning the deaths of a parent, a step-parent, or friends by disease or accident or their own hands, nor the deaths of all my grandparents by complicated conditions exacerbated by old age. All of those occasions served all kinds of other purposes in my life, and were steps along the path to adulthood. I became an adult when I had to take the family pet to the vet and hold him as he died, by my choice, in my hands. I realized then that my parents or nature had done that hard work my whole life, and I said to myself, "Now I am an adult." Exercising volition in the death of a beloved creature who had been in my care for years--that was when I grew up. I guess any of us who ruefully or proudly call ourselves adults have our own stories about that particular transition [Invitation for commentary, hint hint].

Our society seems to have lost the benefits of ritual passages, tribal initiations, formal acknowledgement of attaining adulthood, etc. I consider this a loss. But then, I didn't have to get my clitoris removed when I became a woman, either. I suppose we go to extremes, rejecting ALL initiations just in case they have any flavor of "primitive hoodoo" because we're more civilized, because the idea of self-sufficiency is shoved down our throats, because we should know by now how to do it better, etc.

Okay, abrupt end to long winded response to A's comment.