Song and Dance
The typical student here seems not to be one who knows how to advocate for their own education, or, to put it less flatteringly, knows that learning is an active verb.
In class on Wednesday, I asked how many people had read one of the four assigned poems--some of Tennyson's Camelot poems, specifically, so not like they're super boring . . . Two students raised their hands.
Moments like this, I often perform a bit of anger and dismiss them on the spot--but it's too early in the semester for that (although another case like that and it'll happen).
But What I've been thinking about is not student effort but mine. I am a failed actor, but a performer by nature--I love a rapt audience. On the other hand, I know that lecture is not the most engaging pedagogical method; Instead, I run a mean class discussion.
Thing is, it's oftne very much a teacher centered discussion. Sure, I'll break them into groups to collect evidence; sure, I ask questions where the answer is open-ended. But I am always making an argument, I am always, through the evidence I ask them to collect, through the questions I pose to them, driving toawrd a specific reading of the literature.
The result for me is a very active pedagogy, kinetic, hyperactive, even. When students are lethargic, I threaten to tap dance. They still don't answer and I shuffle off to Buffalo. I make sure to hit all of the sexual references. I make analogies to hip hop lyrics (and those who know me know how comical this must be).
I fear that at its worst, it is pandering to apathetic learning tendencies. At its best, it keeps one or two or more students engaged so when I do the more rigorous work (and my classes ARE rigorous), they're still along for the ride. But I am ambivalent about the pedagogue-as-entertainer, even as it is the role I take on with the most gusto.
Of course, this is bound up in my anxiety about masculinity in the classroom, but its also, I suppose, the basis for a question to the pedablogosophere: How entertaining a teacher are you? Why/not?
Comments
Rather than hog your comments, as I almost did, I've decided to do a response-post over on my blog. By the way, I'm happy to have found you, and I'll put you on my blogroll the next time I update :)
Posted by: Dr. Crazy | October 6, 2005 2:44 PM
Nice to see you Dr. C. I'll look for the response at your site. (Oh, and I'm trying to fix comments now)
Posted by: RMC | October 6, 2005 3:15 PM
At a teaching workshop about 15 years ago, a professor suggested that in the classroom, to "be yourself plus 15 percent." Lecturing is a performance. The advice has served me well.
Posted by: jerryg | October 6, 2005 10:15 PM
I am, to put not too fine a point on it, a "tits out" professor. Which is to say that while I don't actually flash them my chest, I make it implicitly obvious that if they doze off for even a second, they may have missed the big show.
Oh, OK, that is an overstatement, but being a professor can be quite carnavalesque.
Posted by: chica toxica | October 7, 2005 12:06 AM
There was a really good article about this by a prof from UVa, which I have subsequently lost... but if I can locate it I'll send it to you. It's by a professor who reads his "end of the semester evaluations" to discover that he's "entertaining" and "funny" but dismayed by the classification because the learning was supposed to be the center of the room. Unfortunately, he didn't come up with a magic solution.
For my 2 cents, I think that if you're an "entertainer" by nature and if your enthusiasm for the material and teaching are part of who you are, then it's not something that you repress. By repressing that, you force yourself out of the enjoyment you get from the course... and that lack of joy contributes to the classroom environment. And to teach that learning is a rewarding experience, you need to model the joy that one gets from the act of reading/learning/studying.
It sounds like this is a shift in student culture from your past environment to your new one that will require active readjustment. I think you and your students need to meet somewhere in the middle if there's any progress to be made. If students aren't required in other courses to be active learners, they won't know what you expect... and when you seem shocked and surprised... they're not going to know why. (I think this is evidenced by the seeming lack of "shame" in the classroom when only 2 people raised their hands.) I don't know what your "course policies" look like anymore, but I do know that in the past, you've "described" what the average class should "look" and "feel" like. Perhaps this is even necessary in the 200-level courses. Could you have a frank discussion with the class about what coming to "your" class means.
Also, you're talking about reading poetry... which from previous experience sometimes means to students that you don't "seriously" mean to "read that stuff." No joke. Most think, well, it's a poem, so we'll read it in class anyway, why bother. When it comes to assigning poetry for homework, I've found that less reading and more active responding to the reading works better. Much better to focus on fewer poems and to get a deeper reading than to focus on too many and not get a sufficient discussion.
Sorry for the long comment.
Posted by: cj | October 12, 2005 9:49 AM
I suspect most of us end up pushing for certain readings, whether we mean to do so or not, but students so often come up with their own readings—many are defensible and quite interesting, at that. Then life gets crazy.
I have been told—by more than one student, which is rather frightening—that mine is the only class in which these kind students do not fall asleep. I hit the sexual references, sure, but I am usually moving, whirling, walking amongst desks. If one student in ten can walk out with more excitement about or interest in English than when he or she walked in, I count myself successful beyond what the department requires.
I have been told, mind you, that the idealism that carries me forward on my mad whirlwind lectures and discussions about literature will soon fade. I hope the man who told me that is wrong, but perhaps he knows better than I. The key for me is remembering what it was to be a student, especially in classes taught by the best. All I want to do then is top that experience for my students.
Posted by: Andrew Purvis | October 20, 2005 10:22 PM