Doesn't that title make you feel like reading?
I've begun to wonder why people can't seem to discuss teaching methods and philosophies around these parts without fighting or getting upset, or at the very least not being very fruitful. I've heard a bit of this going on, and it's very very foreign to me, having worked two other places where since we had nothing else in common, really, talking about students and teaching was a nice neutral ground where we were, more or less, guaranteed to have a nice conducive discussion. Weird.
Of course, this is probably why Jeff doesn't let us discuss these things very often in class. I thought he was being persnickety, now I'm thinking he was being smart. Hrm.
I have discovered that there is a limit to the number of external drives my computer (mac) will find at boot up. I am amused. Next time I get one of these damn things I should get a bigger hard drive.
My mom's car died last Wednesday night, which is bad because I may need it Thursday (I have to sub and then will get 15 minutes to drive to campus, and it's supposed to be freezing rain/snowing then). Yes, it's warm now.
Now, I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong with it, so I wrote it down and had her take it to the dealer to have the part replaced. Apparently, since it is not setting a code in the computer AND they couldn't get it to "not start" then there's nothing wrong and she's out of $80. She wouldn't let them yell at me. They quiver in their manly boots when they see me coming.
And of course as of yesterday it was once again not starting. Technology had fucked us over, right?
But no no, I *like* computers remember? Even the one in her car that can't bother to record the 10-15 times her car is idling incorrectly and dying.
So I took my video camera, out for the project I'm doing for Jeff's class, and recorded the damn thing "doing its thing" and told her to take it back, camera with tape in hand, tomorrow. They can't possibly claim that nothing is wrong with proof right there.
All hail the glorious cyborg, for she screws with misogynistic mechanics. Whoot.
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4 comments:
"Of course, this is probably why Jeff doesn't let us discuss these things very often in class"
Huh? When did I say that?
The only thing I "didn't allow" was the constant dismissal of ideas early in the semester. It was highly unproductive - especially since the course asks that students use ideas from the readings to generate a pedagogy.
And as I explained, my response was because the class is not yet ready to engage in that kind of critique; all the class was doing was shutting down ideas before any discussion or consideration of ideas had occurred.
While nothing was explicitely stated, any time we've gotten off topic and started talking about specific classroom stuff you've definitely steered us back onto theory. Having witnessed very little agreement amongst more advanced TAs on any subject aside from comp theory, that probably isn't a bad idea. I've not seen a single conversation that didn't fall into some sort of strawman teaching philosophy argument unless one person just eventually shut up... which is actually somewhat interesting if I didn't find it vaguely annoying at the same time.
Since when do the senior GTAs even agree on comp theory?
What I believe you mean is when folks start speaking from "experience" and at that point, I want us to stop for a second and not reduce the complexity of whatever teaching issue we are discussing to anecdotal experience.
Why? This is the hardest part to say or to hear: the class doesn't have that experience yet.
And even where it kind of does, it has not yet put it that experience into juxtaposition with the ideas we are reading.
Whatever you've done at Tech and Baker is valuable. On the other hand, it cannot stand for teaching in general. My job is to get you to either suspend that anecdotal evidence (learning process) or place it in juxtaposition with ideas you are not yet considering. Because the class often wanders outside of the texts we are reading (notice that I often say "where does it say that?"), I am pushing for such juxtapositions.
That is a process much different than shutting something down. And btw, theory is pedagogy. No difference.
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