#notes on teaching

[arigratch]

A Review | The Slow Professor

The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy is an encouraging read. Coming in at only 90 pages, I imagine it will be one of those books I return to over and over again. It’s not that Berg and Seeber are telling us anything new. Academics understand that universities, especially public institutions, are becoming increasingly corporatized: the language used to discuss just about everything (e.g. students as customers/consumers), the value of business faculty over all others (e.g. I make about $40,000 less than accounting faculty at the same level; at UGA the difference is upwards of $70,000), and a culture that rewards quantity, yet cares little for quality. What makes this book so helpful is the reminder that, though we may feel locked into this corporate climate, there are things we can do (and some we can’t) that will break down the corporatization of our work.[1]

The book is divided into four chapters dealing with time, pedagogy, research, and collegiality. The chapter on time focuses on the divide between fast and slow and urges us to focus on creating a sense of timelessness. Citing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, they say that ideally, rather than time management, we would enter a state of “flow…an optimal state of inner experience…in which there is order in consciousness” (26). In other words, our work would be so engrossing and pleasurable that the passage of time no longer becomes a concern. Instead, we forget about time and simply exist in an ideal mental environment. This may be a 10-minute conversation with a colleague or an hour and fifteen minute lecture/discussion. The point is that, in a state of flow, how long we spend at an activity does not concern our thoughts. This becomes the framework for the rest of the book and as I read I continued to think of moments of flow that I’ve had in the past and the pleasure that accompanies such moments.

For example, in the book, Berg and Seeber talk about finding the pleasure in our pedagogy and I think most professors will be able to tell you of times of pure pleasure in the classroom. One instance stands out in particular for me. I was teaching a class on Communication and Culture at LSU and mid-discussion, a student raised his hand and said, “I think class ended 5 minutes ago…” I said that we could continue talking anyway, but that students were free to leave if they had somewhere else to be. Two students left to go to work, but the rest stayed for another 15 minutes to continue the discussion. The pleasure of the discussion trumped our normal attachment to the structure of time. In the next chapter Berg and Seeber note how the search for knowledge in research makes it difficult to achieve flow since we’re looking for something that does not yet exist. Rather, they argue, much great scholarship stems from a search for understanding – it’s our unique way of understanding an idea that often makes our research matter. The issue, of course, is that in a publish or perish culture understanding is never as straightforward as the knowledge afforded by new data sets, so both getting to the point of understanding and then translating that understanding to an audience is often a much slower process. In light of the tenure clock always ticking, it’s difficult to make an argument that we should leave our search for knowledge in the hopes of gaining understanding, and Berg and Seeber are not able to provide us with a way out of this bind, though they do offer advice for how to seek understanding. Finally, they discuss the need for collegiality and community, presenting some compelling arguments for both the necessity and accessibility of these things.

The Slow Professor is a welcome reminder that there are others holding onto the values of a pre-neoliberal Academy. This is especially comforting for those of us who come across sites like The Professor is In, which may help new graduate students prepare for the current academic landscape but does nothing to challenge the normalization of the corporate model of education (Kelsky practically chants “Publish! Publish! Publish” on every page, reiterating the contention that output is valued higher than input).

While I thoroughly enjoyed The Slow Professor, it also made clear that Berg and Seeber are writing towards academics with fairly uncomplicated lives, i.e. those for whom a work/life balance might be or become an everyday reality. Those of us living in commuter marriages, as single-parents, or caring for a medically fragile family member are still in dire need of tactics that make this a life worth living. The ideal, of course, is that by enacting the ethos of the slow professor, those who can will slowly change the Academy into something that is less corporate and more welcoming and healthy for all involved.

[1] If you’re reading this and wondering “why does it matter if higher ed takes on a more corporate culture?” then I would argue you haven’t fully considered the importance of the humanities OR you’re a staunch supporter of neoliberalism. If the former, then you can just run a google search with something like “why the humanities matter” that will yield a number of informative articles. If the latter, then I would simply ask you to reevaluate your ideology and consider that some aspects of how we live might be better if we leave them by the public and for the public.

[arigratch]

Notes on Teaching

Around this time last year, while at an academic conference, a few friends asked, “so what's up with your blog?” I was wrapping up my first year of Notes on Teaching and wasn't really sure what I was up to. One thing I often tell my students is that if you feel compelled to do something, just do it. You can figure out why you're doing it later.1 It's an idea I picked up as a performer. Make a speaking or movement choice, and see how it feels. If you like it, keep it. If it feels a bit wonky, try it differently. For this blog, over the last two years I was both learning my role on the tenure track and honing my skills as a teacher. When something interesting happened and I had a few spare hours, I'd write about it. Then, a few days ago as I was driving to work, I began thinking about the posts I've written and how I'm using the blog became clear. With this clarity, I'm going to continue the blog with a little more direction. Eventually I would like to incorporate other teaching voices,2 but I imagine that will come in its due time. For now, here's what I've been writing about and will write about in the future.

Self-Assessment

More than anything else, I've been assessing my own skills as a teacher. I will either critically reflect on my own performance in the classroom, or post an evaluation of my teaching conducted by students or colleagues. These posts serve two purposes. First, they make my teaching practice more transparent. Higher education  has been maligned and de-funded at an alarming rate over the last few years. While I was a graduate student at LSU, I spoke up against the massive budget cuts to higher education, and similar cuts have now become an endemic problem. I think a large part of this has to do with a misunderstanding of the purpose of the liberal arts. More governors are touting the line that our universities need to prepare students with the skills they'll need to succeed in business. It's a shift that we might say started in the early 20th Century when Harvard opened the first business school, but at some point in the recent past our governors seem to have forgotten that, especially in the business world, humanities based skills are increasingly important. Indeed, I would argue that the analytical,  critical thinking, and communication skills gained through a liberal arts degree separate leaders from the rest of the pack. So why are the humanities under fire? Well, there are lots of reasons, but one has to do with the myth of the ivory tower, the idea that academics are disconnected from the everyday life realities their students will face upon leaving university. My self-assessments are meant to demystify academic work, particularly work in the humanities, as opposed to business or the sciences. I write about what happens in my classroom and how I use qualitative and quantitative research to plan lessons that will help my students most as they prepare for the world outside of academics. Second, and more straightforward, self-assessment makes me a better teacher. I regularly return to previous posts to see what worked and what didn't, and I continuously reevaluate my teaching strategies.

Developing Teaching Strategies

Related to assessment is the development of teaching strategies. These posts tend to mix personal narrative with curriculum design, some tending towards the former and others towards the latter. My research focus in storytelling compels me to couch many of my lessons in the oral traditions, particularly in personal narrative and folktales. One of my research goals is to play a part in reestablishing storytelling as an essential cultural form of communication in the United States and one way I accomplish this is by employing storytelling as a mode of inquiry (storytelling helps us re-frame questions to see them from a different perspective) and as a means of expression (giving voice to personal identities by connecting to universal subjects). Hence, my teaching strategies posts are places where I can highlight a strategy that worked or critique a strategy that fell flat.

Opinion Pieces

As an academic, whether it's through research, teaching, or my performance practice, I am bound to the field of education. Everything I do is intended to play a part in making sure that our country has one of the best education systems in the world. So when something at any level of the field seems to be amiss, or when something seems to be working particularly well, I'm inclined to offer my thoughts. These posts draw on my expertise in communication studies as a way to intervene in larger discussions. Occasionally I might get a little cheeky, and post something satirical, but more often I'll post straight up opinion pieces. And either way, they will focus on how a communication perspective might offer insight to a problem in the field of education.

Academic Freedom Posts

Finally, though I have not posted any posts squarely in this category yet, I plan to in the future. The notion of academic freedom is that academics (and really, because we live in a country that values free speech, anyone) should be able to research, write about, and discuss any topic without fear of personal, political, or professional ramifications. This does not mean that I will post bombastic, self-aggrandizing, or vitriolic pieces, though if that's your thing, godspeed. Instead I will write posts that are more sharply critical than I have been in the past of the institutions that matter to me. These posts will take longer to write than an average opinion piece because they will require more investigative work on my part, but I hope to be able to publish a few every year.

Of course these categories will bleed into one another. One thing I've realized over the last two academic years of writing this blog has been that the posts I think work best are the ones where the categories do blur, because teaching is so often a complex mix of research, skill, and opinion. I'll be writing more as summer begins, especially as I re-imagine my teaching philosophy and prepare for the fall semester. Looking forward to sharing with you all what's in store!

↩[1]: Just to be clear, I do not say this if what they are compelled to do is morally reprehensible and/or may cause bodily harm.

↩[2]:

Please do get in touch if you would like to contribute to the blog.

[arigratch]

Applying for Scholarships

One of my jobs as a mentor and adviser is to help students find and apply for scholarship opportunities. Some of these scholarships are local in scope (e.g. a local chapter of a worker's union supporting the education of a member's child) and some are national or international in scope (e.g. Rotary and Fulbright scholarships supporting the international exchange of knowledge, understanding, and support). No matter the scholarship, though, I stress five main points to my students wishing to take their knowledge and learning beyond their home institution. The first three are philosophical in nature and the last three are practical. I've found that students who follow these steps are able to put out stellar applications, all while enjoying the process.

Philosophical Elements to Prepare for Scholarship Applications

1. Pursue What You Love

Yes, we hear this all the time, and no, it's not always practical, but competitive scholarship applicants are those who know the value of spending their life pursuing their passion. And I don't mean that if you love skydiving you should just spend all your time skydiving. Rather, to pursue what you love means to both do and understand what you love. Look introspectively and figure out what it is about skydiving that you love. Ask others who have gone skydiving what they love about it. And by all means, keep skydiving, but look for all that the activity has to offer. Engage in it as a sport or as an artistic endeavor. Understand skydiving as a community. Explore how skydiving communities contribute to other communities through philanthropy and service. Doing these things will help you fully articulate how what you do matters, not just to you but to a whole community. It will also give you experience listening to others tell their stories. We articulate our identities through the stories we tell and learning how to interpret stories is an important skill. Listening to someone talk about why they love something that you love is a good way to learn to listen for the different personalities and identities that make up any community.

2. Do What You Do Well

Sometimes what we do well and what we love are different. So the call to do what you do well might sound like I'm asking you to ignore your dream of becoming a professional skydiver and stick to accounting (apologies to those who love accounting – just reverse the sentence and we should be good). In fact, when we have an aptitude towards a type of work, we might confuse the aptitude for the work. For example, I am a good communicator. I always have been and when I was younger I was pushed by many people who cared about me to consider sales or business management. But I wanted to travel and learn. And for a while what I was good at and what I loved seemed to be on opposite ends of the career spectrum. Eventually, however, I kept practicing and doing what I was good at (by working as a supervisor at a coffee shop) and spending my spare time traveling. Eventually, while traveling in Prague, I came across a tourist site that was ethically problematic. I began talking about it and writing about it, and to make an incredibly long story short, I began studying and now teaching tourism and ethnography (the study of cultural groups) in a department of communication studies. Extending your learning through grants, scholarships, and fellowships works best when you are able to connect the things you love to the things you do well. This shows adjudicators that you will remain passionate about your proposed course of study and/or action.

3. Do What You Don't Do Well

I was a theater major as an undergraduate. I was a good actor and I loved performing in front of an audience. During my junior year, in the middle of a performance, I found myself utterly bored and I began to wonder why I was acting. The audience seemed to enjoy my performance, but I did not, and that was a problem. So I finished out the major, but instead of taking electives that would have made me a better actor or that would have been an easy 'A', I took courses in chemistry, philosophy, and 19th and 20th century feminist lit. I learned how to tend bar and wait tables, I wrote a screenplay and some short stories, and I put together an experimental music group. I never stopped loving performance, but when I finally did return to theater, it was as a very different artist, one who was inspired and changed by trying something new. The risk you face when you only do what you're good at and what you love is that you can develop a myopic view of the world. I might not love chemistry, but I now have a sense of wonder about people who are as skillful with chemical equations as I am with storytelling. That sense of wonder has made it into my performance work and has made my performance work stand out from many other artists in the field. When you do something you're not good at and you learn to marvel at those who are good at it, it not only widens your knowledge base, but also helps you clarify why you are good at the things you're good at.

Practical Elements to Prepare for Scholarship Applications

4. Do Your Research

Any sort of external funding is a commitment between you and the funding organization. It's tempting to look at a well-known and/or interesting organization and imagine how cool their sponsorship would be, and the prestige that would come from being able to tell people that you, for instance, are a Rhodes Scholar. However, each granting organization has a mission and a purpose for awarding scholarships and fellowships, and not every project will fit within a given organization's purview. Rather than focusing on which award you want, then, focus on what you want to do first, and then find an organization that would like you to do that as well. This means that there are two levels of research you must conduct. First, the research that will help you design and justify your own study and second, the research that will connect your study to the mission and values of the funding organization.

4.1 Justify Your Own Interests  If we return for a moment to the philosophy section of this post, figuring out what you want to do should be as simple as combining what you love to do with what you're good at, while maintaining your own unique perspective. The important thing at this stage is to avoid considerations of the funding organizations. Develop the project you want to do and that you think will be personally, socially, and/or culturally beneficial. Only then can you begin pursuing funding. In terms of figuring out what you want to do, consider first how what you do and what you love to do could both benefit. Perhaps you love fishing and are good at graphic design. Might there be a problem with fishing, or in the fishing industry that with more knowledge your graphic design skills might help solve? Maybe a changing landscape is threatening a fish population and raising awareness through eye-catching design could prove beneficial. If you think a better understanding of the specific landscape is in order, there might be a scholarship that would allow you to work with local fish and game officials to better understand the situation. Or maybe a similar situation once happened abroad and you could benefit from studying how they fixed the situation. The point is to either find a problem that you could use your skill set to intervene in, or figure out what knowledge someone with your skill set would be able to get special access to.

4.2 Justify How Your Project Connects to the Award Organization  Once you know what you want to do, it's time to figure out who can help you get it done. The important step here is to find an organization that is looking for someone like you to do a project like the one you want to do. Notice the use of the word like in the previous sentence. There will rarely, if ever, be a perfect match between award granting organization and applicant. And that is not a bad thing. Remember what I said above in point 3 about expanding your horizons? Allow the missions of these organizations to push you to imagine the project you want to do from their eyes. What would a successful fish project look like to Rotary international? Or to the Fulbright committee? Or to a local chapter of the Freemasons? The mission and values of the granting organization will influence how you explain the project and/or how you would use the scholarship. If, during the course of your research you realize that the project you would work on is no longer a project you want to do, perhaps that granting organization is not a good fit.

5. Keep an Excellent Calendar

While this point holds true for all undergraduate students, it is especially true for those seeking external funding and/or looking to further their academic career. First, it's just good sense to schedule what you have coming up so you won't forget. More important, though, is the ability to return to your calendar to remind yourself what you have done. A few years ago, for example, I was denied a grant because I did not show evidence that I had engaged in enough community outreach. I scratched my head for a minute, thinking about the community storytelling and communication workshops I led just that year. I opened up my cv and much to my chagrin, no workshops were listed! What a mistake! I then opened up the emails confirming the dates of the workshops and, upon checking my calendar, realized what the problem was. With each of the workshops I led, I neglected to enter the dates into my calendar (I have an excellent memory for dates, so this is not uncommon, though I should know better). When I revise my cv every six months, I use my calendar to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, some gaps were never filled, so now I enter everything I have to schedule in my calendar:

Entering your activities into a calendar has two benefits. First, it allows you to easily and quickly maintain your cv, and when you need to write an application letter, you'll want to focus on highlighting the elements of your cv that will be most relevant to what you're applying for. Second, most calendar apps allow you to return to events and add notes. If something eventful or worth remembering happens, it's worth it to return to the calendar and jot down what happened:

Above all, the scholarship application process should provide students with the opportunity to clarify their goals and values, and to create a plan to help them pursue their passions. A well executed application, even one that does not result in an award, should benefit a student both personally and professionally. 

[arigratch]

Shooting for an ‘A’: A Modest Proposal to Welcome Guns into the Classroom

Due to new legislation that mandates open carry on college campuses in Texas and Georgia, teachers might find it useful to incorporate language into their syllabus that will help students navigate the new classroom dynamics.

Due to the fact that you and/or other students in the classroom may be legally concealing a deadly weapon, a few precautions have been taken to assure that we will focus on academics. As some professors may choose to avoid touchy subjects, we must remember that one goal of a college education is to help you learn to think for yourself. Hopefully these guidelines will create a learning environment where our guns will only be drawn during an imminent threat.

Guns and Grades

Over the years I have found that what upsets students most is a bad grade. A bright sunny day might turn dark and gloomy in an instant as the student realizes that they will no longer be maintaining their 4.0 average. It’s not that I enjoy giving bad grades, but grading is a good way to let the student know how they’re fairing in the subject at hand. In the past I’ve had students yell at me, cry, and threaten me over bad grades. Eventually I can usually get them to speak rationally about their performance in the class, but with some of you concealing deadly weapons, I worry that we won’t make it past the fear and anger stage of these conversations. So, in order to create a learning environment where I can still offer valid critiques of your work without fearing for my life, I’ve taken the following precaution: If you are the type of student who feels like their self-worth and/or future demands that they get an ‘A’ in the class, just let me know. I will still provide you a critique of your work, but know that no matter how harsh the critique, you will still get the letter grade that you want. Additionally, if you are not the type of student who needs an ‘A’, yet you feel like it’s unfair that some students are getting ‘A’s because they might be concealing a weapon, just let me know and you will get an ‘A’ as well. In this new environment, I believe this is the best way to make sure that you get the education you deserve and the grade you want, and that no one gets hurt in the process.

Guns and Group work

In this class you will be asked to engage in group work. As your grade on these projects is riding on the quality of the group as a whole, and as it can be difficult to work with others you don’t know particularly well, bringing a gun to a group meeting might serve to escalate any conflict that might arise. So, instead of meeting in the classroom or in the library, all group meetings must take place in the dorms or at a sorority or fraternity house, where guns are not allowed. This should prevent any accidents from occurring.

In the unlikely event that you forgot to leave your weapon at home AND someone realized you were carrying at a group meeting, you run the risk of expulsion and will be asked to attend a hearing. Expulsion hearings are rarely without emotions, so even though you are allowed to carry your weapon into administrative buildings, I urge you to leave your guns at home, lest your temper gets the best of you.

Guns and Course Materials

Course materials can be expensive. Some textbooks cost hundreds of dollars. And while these books contain valuable knowledge that will help you better understand course content, safety must take precedence over knowledge. Instead of spending your money on a textbook then, for this course each student will be required to pay a $100 “course protection” fee. This fee will go towards paying a full-time, off-duty police officer to provide protection during our class sessions. Because even with all the precautions we’ve put in place, tempers might still rise and get the best of us, so an extra layer of protection never hurts!

The officer we hire is trained, of course, to shoot to kill. And he or she will know that some of you might be concealing a deadly weapon. He or she will also know that the stress that you’re under as a college student might not be readily apparent. Hence, the officer will look at each of you as a potential suspect. In order to protect yourself, be sure to make no sudden movements in the classroom. Should you need to pull anything out of your bag, do so slowly. Make sure to get the attention of the officer so they know that you’ll be reaching for your bag. Failure to comply might compel the officer to use deadly force. Additionally, should you need to get the attention of the teacher, instead of raising one hand, you will now raise both hands, slowly. Make sure your palms are open and facing forward. Failure to do so might compel the officer to use deadly force.

Guns and Office Hours

While I love speaking with students about their projects, some of these meetings can get a little heated, especially when a student is developing an argument. As I play devil’s advocate students may get frustrated. So, meeting in my small, confined office seems like an accident just waiting to happen! Instead, all meetings will occur through video conferencing.

I realize that these rules and regulations might take a little while to get used to. But if you take the time to incorporate this new thinking into your actions during the semester, it is likely that few, if any of us will be injured or killed. And then, some real learning might still take place.

[arigratch]

In Praise of Les Miles | A Teacher’s Perspective on Student Athletes

The LSU Tigers Football team currently has a record of 7-3. In most conferences that’s a pretty legit record. In the SEC, however, three losses in a row means people might be losing their jobs. At LSU, it means that the grass-eating, weird-hand-clapping, white-hat wearing, trick-play-calling coach, Les Miles, might be losing his job. And while the boosters are busy trying to find a coach that will win more championships[1], LSU’s student football players stand to suffer because of this decision.

I have taught at three different institutions of higher education and I am typically excited when student athletes show up in my class. They are, with few notable exceptions, some of the most committed and driven students I have the pleasure to teach. In part, this commitment comes from how high level competitive athletics structures their daily lives, and in part it comes from the coaching staffs that commit to making sure that their students succeed as both athletes and students. And not all coaching staffs are created equal.

What strikes me about teaching student athletes is that on my best days as a teacher, I am as regimented and organized as they are on any given day. Their schedules are typically structured from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed. Classes are supplemented with tutoring and group study sessions and practices are supplemented with conditioning and strength training sessions. And yes, there are typically teams of advisors, tutors, and coaches to make sure that student athletes accomplish their daily goals, but these students, the vast majority of whom will not become professional athletes, commit to the regimen and prepare for a future in their chosen field.

What I tend to see in my classes is a student population that disproportionately speaks up and seeks extracurricular help with their projects. For example, while teaching a freshman seminar last year, during season, a student athlete turned in her first paper two weeks early in order to get feedback. I responded, she revised, and turned it in again a week before the due date for more feedback. I responded, she revised and turned in one of the few perfect papers I’ve ever graded. In addition to writing feedback, though, she also came to my office to go over the feedback and ask questions about her writing style. If I could have these conversations with students every day, I’d be a happy teacher. And while this particular student was exceptional, she was not too far ahead of her teammates in my class, or other student athletes I’ve had in the past.

There have been two exceptions to this rule. I won’t say the team, but there were athletes on a specific team who, when they showed up in my class, were consistently a problem. They were disruptive, they put forth work that was sloppy, and made it a point to let me know that they did not care about taking classes. I had students from this team in my classes for a number of years and it was always the same. When I contacted their coaches to let them know they were at risk, I never received a response. The second exception was when I worked as a tutor for student athletes at LSU. I had a football player who refused to talk during tutoring sessions. As I tried to get him to respond, he just stared at me. Finally I told him that if he failed his classes he wouldn’t be able to play football anymore. He laughed and said “I’m so good no one’s going to fail me. And if they do, I’ll still go pro.” I don’t know if he failed, but I know that after that semester he was no longer at LSU. His coaches contacted me to find out what was happening in the tutoring sessions and they asked if I could try different strategies, which I did. When it was clear that he would never commit to being a student like he would to being an athlete, his coaches sent me a letter thanking me for my efforts.

That was the only problem I had with an LSU football player. But what struck me about the rest of the football team was the reverence and respect they held for their head coach, and how that reverence and respect transferred to the classroom. In public speaking classes I regularly had students praise coach Miles for his commitment to them as “whole people.” Miles knew intimate details about their families, asked them about specific classes they were taking, and wanted them to know that he cared about their life off the field MORE than he cared about their life on the field. In the classroom, football players routinely volunteered for class exercises and consistently spoke up when I asked questions.  

What I have found teaching student athletes is that the students are generally committed, and coaching staff generally cares about the success of their students in the classroom. LSU football players under Coach Miles, however, regularly spoke up about the care their coach has for them. If LSU decides to fire Miles, the people most effected will be his students and future LSU football student athletes.

[1] It should be noted that Coach Miles has won a championship and currently has the second most wins of any LSU football coach and the highest winning percentage of any LSU football coach. But the boosters want a championship now!

[arigratch]

Creating Your Credibilitree

As I’ve noted elsewhere on this blog, the more I teach a particular class, the more I tend to tweak it. Not because things aren’t going well, but because things begin to go so well that I’m able to leave my comfort zone without fear of getting lost. When the material is both fun and my expertise is clear, I can play without worry that my students won’t receive the information and knowledge that they need and expect from the course.

A few weeks ago I tried a new activity in my Public Speaking class. It was inspired by one of my drives home earlier this semester. While driving, as I watched the trees pass by I realized how little I knew about trees. What I knew amounted to the following: they are made of wood, they have leaves, and they have roots. Also, there are different kinds of trees. Fortunately, this particular reverie would not have benefited from me being any more of a dendrologist.

Because I am in the midst of writing a Public Speaking textbook, my drive home often has me thinking about how best to teach the course. This particular evening, my thoughts of Public Speaking merged with the sight of all the trees, and BAM! I thought of a new way to teach ethos (character). When teaching ethos I focus on the fact that it’s one thing to say what we value, but living that value is something altogether different. When speaking to an audience, they invariably know a few things about us through our past actions and they use this to judge the credibility of our speech. A gifted speaker may be able to convince an audience that they are capable of things greater or different than the things they have done, but an ethical speaker will only make such claims if they believe that they can and should accomplish such things. So, while I may be able to convince an audience that I could lower their taxes and raise their quality of life, such a claim would be unethical as it is neither possible nor true.

In order to teach this concept, I decided to try using a metaphor: The Credibilitree! Our credibility is rooted (ß see what I did there?) in our values, but those values are better judged through our actions than through our declarations. When giving a speech, we use our past actions (researching our subject, the completion of a specific course of study, work experience, protest/organizing experience, leadership, etc.) as a way to demonstrate that we are capable of speaking about our subject to this audience. As we perform our speech, we gain credibility through the ease with which we are able to speak, the structure of the speech itself, the logic of the claims we make, and the way we are able to evoke an emotional response from our audience. In other words, our values are the roots of the tree: unseen, but what keeps us connected to the earth and passionate about our subject. Our actions are the trunk: the prominent structure that let’s an audience know if the root system is healthy. Finally, how we perform and create the speech is the foliage and branches: they not only make the tree worth looking at, but also are the source of the seeds that may lead to new trees, i.e. to others taking the action that we hope they will take.

In class, I explained the different parts of the credibilitree, and then, by way of example, we looked at Dr. King’s “How long, Not Long” speech. We discussed how Dr. King’s values could be deduced from his own actions that we were aware of before the march along with the actions of engaging in the march and his presence as a speaker at the march. Then, addressing the speech itself, we could see how Dr. King was using rhetorical proofs to encourage and commend his audience. Finally, the students said that as a credibilitree, the speech could be seen as an oak: a solid trunk and compelling foliage that implied a strong root system.

To conclude the class, each student made their own credibilitree based on the speech they’re working on. In a short response to the activity, students wrote things like: “My trunk isn’t very big, so I need more foliage to get my audience excited about the topic”; “It makes us realize that we need to spend time figuring out what our own roots are”; “This activity reaffirmed why I’m speaking about this topic.” “It helped to be able to visualize my speech in this way.”

All in all, a really great teaching moment, made possible by both the freedom to experiment with my course material and the experience of having taught this course so many times.

[arigratch]

Teaching as the threat grows

Malcolm Gladwell’s essay in the current issue of The New Yorker, “Thresholds of Violence,” is fascinating and disturbing. It's a long read and well worth it, but the gist of the claim is that school shootings are like riots in slow motion. As more and more people engage in an activity that would otherwise be socially repugnant, people with a higher threshold for what they won't do find that their limit is reached and so they engage in the activity as well. One person throws a rock with a threshold of zero, the next person throws with a threshold of one, until the person with a threshold of 100, who is altogether an upstanding citizen with just about no capacity for rock throwing, decides that picking up and throwing a rock is what he should do.

Due to personal reasons, I find myself posting less this semester. I hope to remedy this soon, but for now I’ll just say that over the course of the semester thus far, I often find myself having greater difficulty confronting and addressing student needs. The reason for this is the recent shootings and the continued culture of gun violence. I find myself thinking first “will this offend” or “is this a student that could lash out” before I think “how can I help them solve their problem.” It makes my teaching less about pushing students to excel and more about making sure that they feel comfortable in the classroom. I try to push against this by rationalizing that a shooting on my campus, let alone in my classroom, is highly unlikely, but the thought is, of late, always there. 

[arigratch]

On Plagiarism

Plagiarism, as I’ve found, is not unusual. I have a case or two most semesters, and students tend to be surprised when I “find them out.” Their incredulous responses (and yes, with every case of plagiarism I’ve dealt with the student has been incredulous) tend to take one of three forms: first, they had no idea that what they were doing was plagiarism, second, despite the evidence I have at hand, they refuse to admit that they plagiarized, or third, they admit it and were just hoping they wouldn’t be found out. The first case is usually fairly straightforward. For example, a student giving a speech on how and why to treat sea life better gave a complex, imaginative, and realistic solution. Given the student’s lack of sources, the nature of the particular assignment (introduce yourself to the class), and the fact that we lived hundreds of miles, at least, to the nearest ocean, I suspected this wasn’t his idea. When I conducted a search, I found a website offering an innovative approach to ocean management espousing the same idea. The student, who was not affiliated with the website, admitted to taking the idea from the site, but thought that plagiarism only meant taking words from someone else, not ideas. In the second case, the student refuses to admit they’ve plagiarized. This one is the most infuriating for me. In one example, I found an entire paragraph lifted from a book (one assigned for the course). I confronted the student who adamantly argued that they were his words. I showed him the paragraph in the book next to the paragraph he had “written,” and asked if he expected me to believe that he just happened to come up with the exact same words. He argued that those exact words are the only way that the thought could be expressed, so it’s not weird that he happened to come up with them. I mumbled something about monkeys and Shakespeare and failed him. Finally, a student a student may know they’re plagiarizing, but just hopes they won’t get caught. Like when I had a student try to give a quirky example of how we present ourselves across different social media. The problem was that I saw the same example, presented as a trending buzzfeed article, the previous day. I emailed the student to let her know that we needed to talk. Rather than respond, she simply dropped the class.

While each infraction is different, they are all plagued with the same underlying lack of moral imperative. Of course the waters are muddied when we consider the willful appropriation of the intellectual and artistic work of others as a means of intervention and/or creativity (see: Guerrilla Girls). 

Acknowledging that plagiarism can be a powerful tool for the disenfranchised, however, does not mean that it is likely to be so, or that such an act can be accomplished with as little thought as many students seem to have put into their own plagiarized works. Additionally, while I believe that the classroom space should be a space for students to experiment, the nature of those experiments are meant, at least in my classes, to further understand ideas and concepts. In other words, papers and performances I assign are meant to help students understand the process of intellectual and creative activity. Failure in executing these activities does not mean they will fail in the class. Rather, I ask my students to fail with aplomb, to dive in to an idea and try to work it out. If I see them engaging in the process, I know how best to help them continue making and thinking – I can see where they excel and I can see where they still need help. For those who try to cut corners and just turn in a finished product, there’s little I can do to help them progress because I never get an idea of what they’re interested in and how they learn best. Still, cutting corners is not offensive. Typically it is an expression of other things the student has going on in their life. When they choose to plagiarize, though, we’re in different territory altogether. It’s not just that they have something else going on in their life. Instead it suggests that it’s more important for them to look good in the eyes of another than it is for them to struggle to actually become better. So when I say that plagiarism denotes a lack of moral imperative, I say so because students who choose to present another’s ideas as their own are more concerned with the grade and/or how they are perceived by others than they are with their own advancement of knowledge.

While I make this claim, I also acknowledge that there are forces at play that might push a student to lose their moral grounding. Overzealous parents, the attempt to keep a scholarship, and professional advancement are all forces that have been evoked by students I’ve seen plagiarize. What troubles me most is that when students choose to cheat in order to assuage these fears, it suggests that the value of higher education is placed in the diploma one receives at the end and not in the process that one went through. When students eschew the process and go straight for the product, and when larger societal forces seem to be pushing them to make those choices, it becomes more difficult to see the value in my own work as an educator.