my life 2007

Now I know why this "no particular reason" vacation was invented.

Contrary to popular belief, we don't have spring break to provide for student decompression, but to prevent teachers from unexpectedly marching into a classroom with an Uzi and opening fire. (I suspect the popular belief persists because students will always outnumber teachers by something like 200 to 1.) I love my students--I confess to forming rather strong attachments to them--but faculty stress levels go into the black around the first of March. As a member of the faculty, I suddenly see the necessity of spring break; oddly, as a student, it was just a chance to not go to class for a while and perhaps--if I felt like it--catch up on a paper I was writing.

As far as I was concerned, spring break began Wednesday afternoon around 2:23 when my last class let out, even though I saw students individually until after 5pm. Spring break means no pressure for lesson prep for over a week. It means grading at my leisure. It means cleaning my office, finally, arranging my files, cleaning out my in-box, chatting with colleagues, and reading what I want to read, just for once.

Speaking of which, I was in the library Thursday afternoon looking for those "vintage" textbooks to provide solid outline instruction (which I found; I even found one to teach me how to teach them), and in my browsing, I stumbled across a rather small tome called The Art of Teaching, by Jay Parini. I read the first page and, utterly charmed, I checked it out.

Parini has taught at the college level for 30 years. This is a brief book with his seasoned thoughts on teaching and generally, life as a prof (most notably, how to teach and publish, too). Among other things, Parini wrote a biography of Robert Frost. He provides the following excerpt:

In 1976, I interviewed John Dickey, who was president of Dartmouth when Frost taught there in the 1940s. He recalled that "Frost came into one class early in the term and asked the students, who had just written their first paper, if anybody had written anything that they could stand by passionately. When nobody raised a hand, he promptly threw all the papers into the waste basket and left the room, telling them to come back next time with something they could stand by passionately." In this age of consumer-driven education, when teachers are often terrified of student evaluations (upon which their careers depend), one can hardly imagine such a scene taking place, however instructive.

Sad, but true. Martial arts masters bemoan the same shift, incidentally, that has effectively placed the consumer in a position of power over the teacher. I rather enjoyed this excerpt for its tacit comment upon student interest and personal investment in their educations. How, I wonder, can we provoke the desire to excel and improve, even if the subject area isn't in the student's area of interest?

So anyway...my boss caught me yesterday morning to ask if I was taking leave next week. I said No sir...I'll be here. He told me to take two days as a pass anyway, since I've been doing such an outstanding job. The days off are welcome, of course, but just as welcome is the boss acknowledgement that he's that happy with my performance. :D

So. Today, I slept in until almost 7pm, y'all. No kidding! I did some grocery shopping, and am currently making a pot of brunswick stew to die for. (I haven't attempted this dish since I made it for my parents and grandparents when they visited my home in Alabama almost two years back; I goofed and "over-tomatoed" it, and haven't had the guts to try it since. This pot came out terrific, though.)

I have a nice pile of books to keep me happy, and a trickle charger making the bike rideable, too. On top of that, I gave two cat baths this morning. I've been productive, the days are longer, I'm accomplishing things in my time off, and enjoying every minute. It's good to be alive!

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