by Dr Davis on May 4, 2009
I got a call for another job interview via phone tomorrow. They said that finalists, whoever those are, will be contacted in June for on-campus interviews with administration and the committee.
I am wondering whether they will be using the same questions that the developmental people did. I doubt it, but maybe.
And I’m trying to figure out what questions I can ask them. They made a point about Shakespeare, so I’m guessing I could ask what made them decide they needed that as a litmus test. But I’d need to phrase it better.
I think they will expect a question about the differences between them and CC1. But I actually know most of the differences. I guess I could do the, “This is what I think based on what I know is that an accurate representation of your campus?”
And I received an email notification that a third job I applied for is just beginning review of the CVs. They said it would be sixty to ninety days (which is practically school starting time!).
May I just say that community colleges really wait till the last minute around here? I wonder if that is true everywhere.
by Dr Davis on May 4, 2009
In “The Prophylaxis of Insanity” by Mary Putnam Jacobi (originally published in 1881), she critiques education. The critique comes within a discussion of people who don’t learn well, which is, according to her, a major cause of insanity.
In minds predisposed to insanity there is often, perhaps always, a marked deficiency of elasticity. An impression sinks and remains; the mind cannot disengage itself or recover its tone; it cannot pass quickly enough into the contrasting mood… This capacity should, therefore, be carefully cultivated by encouraging alternations of attention at the first sign of fatigue. The contrary practice of forcing an immature mind to continued attention while under the influence of fatigue, instead of teaching it how to quickly change, is the habit of commonplace education. Injurious to all, it is especially so to persons predisposed of depressing forms of insanity. It exhausts still further the elasticity in which they are naturally deficient. (193)
from Essays on Hysteria, Brain-tumor, and Some Other Cases of Nervous Disease.
So when our students are tired of one topic, we should lead them to another… Which is what people now say we have to do because our students have such short attention spans. For them, this is not considered a positive. I wonder if people like Jacobi influenced our present culture.
by Dr Davis on May 4, 2009
Besides using the fairy tales to introduce the different types of literary analysis, I also use them to introduce different forms of criticism.
Since my one student wrote on it, I talk about the Marxist interpretation of “The Three Little Pigs.” I think you can imagine what a Freudian interpretation of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” might be and “Little Red Riding Hood” lends itself to a Freudian interpretation historically. More modern versions, like “The Grandmother,” are overtly about sex. Jungian criticism offers an interesting approach to the forest often included in the fairy tales. … And I go through all the different schools of criticism that students are likely to run into later when they are writing a literary research paper.
For the final short paper on fairy tales, I allow students to either use a fairy tale we have covered in class or to pick a story they grew up with.
Using fairy tales to introduce literary analysis has worked well for my classes.
This was part of a presentation given at the Conference of College Teachers of English: Texas in March.
