New Teacher

Joe (the amazingly articulate and involved art teacher) wrote on evaluations:

I was on a Fulbright Scholar’s Grant to the Palace Museum in the early 1960s, being caught up in Chinese thought, painting and culture. All the Fulbrighters traveled in a bus across the island to I-Lan, a small village on the eastern shore of Taiwan. Our hotel was high in the mountains, overlooking I-Lan, and I was restless. I went for a walk.

Across a ravine, on a moonless night, with a raging river below, I could see the outline of a pagoda which I wanted to visit. I found a swaying footbridge and confidently started to walk across, hearing the rushing water far below in the ravine.

My courage failed me in the middle and I crawled the rest of the way to the other side.

Then, I explored the pagoda. It was marvelous. When I decided to return, the only way back was across the footbridge. I walked again halfway and crawled the rest. I find that when I get into the unknown in my own creative work, I still use that technique. It taught me that if you want something bad enough, crawling to get there is worth the embarrassment. Getting A’s is nice but it will never compare to that pagoda on a moonless night in an unknown land (an undiscovered country) in search of “wonder”.

This is from my adjunct certification course.

When I used to run an art museum as a director, a good friend who was an old hand at this business told me: “There are at least four ways to cope with a situation that is a disaster:
1) solve it the next time and fix it up this time,
2) give it to an assistant to take from the disaster stage to success (a feather in another’s hat),
3) work your butt off to transform the whole situation and if it remains a disaster
4) walk away and forget it ever happened (except that you make a report to yourself to file away in some obscure filing case, just if you are tempted to do it again).”

When I retired from the museum business in 2001 (have not retired from a 50-year career teaching), I walked away and forgot most of it (although I have extensive files). Therefore there are some courses I do not teach (although I have the credentials to teach them). I find that the system of teaching them and the academic system that supports the teaching of them is an anathma to my best teaching self. Even if superfacially they appear as successes, I know deep down that for me they are “disasters”. Those are the ones that I walk away from and forget. The files are for others who might pick up the work from where I left off.

I now teach one course (at least two sections) that I am more than good at, Art Appreciation, no more, no less. Could I teach others? Yes, but don’t! I totally understand Suzette’s walking away from one course that does not fit her idea of “exceptional teaching.” I love now being an “adjunct professor”; I was a “full” one for years. It is like Donna Brazile being an “adjunct” at Georgetown University while she is also involved in Democratic politics and a commentator for CNN. As an adjunct, you are free to choose.

I also do not stand on a railroad track when a “disaster” train is coming.

This is from the adjunct certification course and is one of Joe’s comments.

This last year I was introduced to entity and incremental theories of intelligence. In one, the student says, “I am good at this.” (Or bad at it.) In the other the student says, “I worked hard at this and I got it.” (Or didn’t work hard enough and didn’t get it.)

While it is true that some things a student may never get (I, for one, have never gotten geometry.), most things the student can get if they will keep trying.

According to research incremental theorists are more likely to succeed across diverse fields. Someone who is “good at math” may not use the same skills that make them good at math in English because they don’t realize those skills transfer.

The researcher I read said that process-oriented feedback from the teacher can help our students realize that they have incremental intelligence. “Good job! You are becoming a better writer. Keep up the good work.” Or “Study a little harder for the next test. Ask any questions you need to during our review.”

This difference made sense to me. I’ve decided to try it out. This is the first semester I have tried doing incremental encouragement, so I do not know how well it will work. But I think it would have helped me as a student.

Joe, an art teacher, answered:

This last year I was introduced to entity and incremental theories of intelligence. In one, the student says, “I am good at this.” (Or bad at it.) In the other the student says, “I worked hard at this and I got it.” (Or didn’t work hard enough and didn’t get it.)

While it is true that some things a student may never get (I, for one, have never gotten geometry.), most things the student can get if they will keep trying.

According to research incremental theorists are more likely to succeed across diverse fields. Someone who is “good at math” may not use the same skills that make them good at math in English because they don’t realize those skills transfer.

The researcher I read said that process-oriented feedback from the teacher can help our students realize that they have incremental intelligence. “Good job! You are becoming a better writer. Keep up the good work.” Or “Study a little harder for the next test. Ask any questions you need to during our review.”

This difference made sense to me. I’ve decided to try it out. This is the first semester I have tried doing incremental encouragement, so I do not know how well it will work. But I think it would have helped me as a student.

And Joel, a math teacher, chimed in:

I didn’t know I was practicing incremental intelligence theory. I had been applying the idea to my students as well as those I tutor. I don’t have any quantitative data that shows it works. But intuitively, I think it works.

This is another comment thread from a discussion post in the adjunct certification course.

This is a conversation from my adjunct certification online course. That was the tiltle of the discussion thread. I titled my comment “teaching innovations.” (A title was required.)

My comment:
I like teaching new things in new ways. Tweaking small changes is easy because it won’t necessarily make a lot of difference if it doesn’t work. Teaching a new course is fun because it is novel. But it can be hard to change at the intermediate level, to throw out a whole unit in order to try a new one that might not work.

Joe, who was on all the time, replied:
It is interesting. I agree with you totally about teaching something new, but at this stage of my career, the new happens in my own work of writing and painting outside the classroom. I share this with my students by giving them my websites and it is an aspect of what the material is that happens in class (as an added element to the core material) but still, it is outside, not part of the curriculum (at least, not directly). OK, given that: talking about working with or creating “something new” in the classroom (or my studio), I have always believed: “First you shoot the arrows and then paint the targets (told to me by a friend in graduate school and has become a mantra that I use when approaching the “unknown”). Also there is a Chinese saying, “A journey of a thousand miles start with the first step.” Lastly, another of my rules in my own painting is: “If I don’t know where I am going, any road will get me there.” It makes a work of art like opening a present at Christmas. Just some thoughts!

And then Joe replied to himself:
It is always curious to respond to yourself as well as someone else’s thoughts (yours, Suanna). So after working out at the Y, on the bike and the machines (I do some of my best thinking while my body is someplace else in exercise), I thought about my saying that I do not do many “new” things in my Art Appreciation course (my passion to teach because if I can turn the students on, it works for all the other professors that they will have after me). First, it is not true. I tweak little things all the time. Second, I should take a hard look at the section of the course where my passion is not as high: teaching linear art history from cave art to Surrealism (30,000 BCE to Picasso and Miro). I find that as “something that must be done and that the student definitely needs” therefore I do not bring the same enthusiasm to those four weeks. Oh, they get the material and thank me at the end for presenting it but it is not a section that I love to teach. I would not change the beginning or end of the course, just this middle. There has to be a way to inject what I believe about art history (it is not “back then” but “right now”) into how I teach it. That might be my project for this Adjunct Certification session that we are taking. It is, at least, a challenge. Thank you for nudging me out of my own routine. I have made small changes but not a major change here for several years.

My response to Joe’s comments:
You said

There has to be a way to inject what I believe about art history (it is not “back then” but “right now”) into how I teach it.

What if you teach art history and show how we are still doing it?
Cave paintings = graffiti or large wall murals

… I don’t know enough to keep going, but I am fairly sure that you could do an approach like that, thus giving them a linear view of art history while still having the work apply to what we are doing now.

Stuart got in on the conversation:
I have a question. Do you fnd that your teaching is drastically different from one class to another even when it is the same subject or course you are teaching?

I find many times, even by accident, that I tlad one class a anecdote or story that I did not tell my other classes.

I answered Stuart:
I do find that I tell different stories in classes. I think I respond to different questions with stories. So some students will hear one story while another class will hear a different one.

I worry about that sometimes. I wonder if one class is hearing the same story three times and one story not at all.

I also find that sometimes my explanations become streamlined as I see what helped the students and what didn’t. So the first class is an hour long, the second is 55 minutes, and the third gets out ten minutes early.

Most of the time, though, if I am teaching the same course the same semester I try very hard to do the same things with each class. (Unless something clearly didn’t work.)

Suzy has the same thing happen:
I’e had the same thing happen to me, Suanna! I sometimes call my second class a “Cliffs Notes” version of the first. It was worse when I taught four 1301 classes back to back. I lost track of what I said to which class. Luckily, I’ve changed my schedule, so it happens less frequently now.

Mike said:
I’ve read the string of messages initiated by your comments, but I return to your original message to reply. I often think back of my first classes taught at Kingwood (Fall 2006) and feel sorry for the Joe came up with one of his perfect quotes:
Several years ago, I found a quote from the Dalai Lama which has helped me in many ways (in the classroom and outside in my own creative work): “If you do not think that small things make a difference, spend a night in a room with a mosquito.”

Suzette had the last word:
Okay, I can’t help but laugh. I have spent a night or two fighting for hours with an elusive mosquito. But seriously, small things do make a difference. You may not see the results immediately, but eventually you do see it. Thanks for the quote. I’ve added it to my journal. : )

How do you work well?

• Do I perform well under stress?
• Do I work best in a big organization or in a small one?

I don’t like stress, but I do work well with deadlines.  I would prefer to work in a medium sized organization or a small organization within a big one.

Do not try to change yourself.  Work hard to take on work you can do well and avoid that which you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.

What are your values?

This does not mean ethics.  Ethics are the same for all of us.  Ethics require that you ask yourself, “What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror?”  Ethics is only part of a value system.

Work in companies which match your values.

A person’s strengths and the way they perform is the same.  But what you are good at may not match your value system.

Your value should be the ultimate test.

Where do you belong?

Mathematicians, musicians, and cooks usually know pretty early on where they belong.  Physicians usually decide in their teens.  But most people don’t.

The rest of the people have to be able to decide where they do not belong as they go along.

Knowing what your strengths are, knowing how you work, and knowing your values helps you 

• decide what you should do
• decide how you should do it

What do you want to contribute?

Knowledge workers have to ask, “What should my contribution be?”

What does sit require?

Given my strengths, what can I do?

What will I do?  Where and how can I achieve results within the next 18 mths?

A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months because otherwise it breaks down.

Choose a plan that stretches you, but isn’t impossible.

Results should be meaningful.

Results should be measurable.

Analyze how your relationships work.

If your boss is a reader, write.

If your boss is a listener, talk to them.

The same holds true for all your coworkers.  

The first secret of effectiveness is to understand the people you work with.

Take responsibility for communication.

People don’t know what different people are doing because they haven’t asked and therefore have not been told.  Failure to ask.  Historically there was no need to ask, because people all did the same things.  Today the great majority of people work with people who are different doing things.

Make sure your boss knows what you are doing.  Educate her.  (My bosses are both listeners.)

Knowledge workers should ask

• how do you work?
• what are you going to do?

Second Life

Knowledge workers are often bored.  They know all they know and need to know… That is why knowing yourself often moves you to a second career.

More people will move to second careers because they need challenge.

Many people who are successful in their first careers, they stay in that, but add a second career/job/work that they add for ten hours a week.

Social entrepeneurs continue doing what they have done, but they do less of it.  Then they build second non-profit businesses.

But if you look at a long life, you need to work on the second thing or else you will retire on the job.

If you don’t do volunteer work before 40, you won’t volunteer after 60.

At times of crisis, a second thing to do will allow you to be a success.  In a society in which success has become important, having options will be helpful.  In a knowledge society we expect everyone to be a success.

Wherever there is a success, there has to be a failure.  (Really?)

Second career, parallel career, social opportunity offer different places to be successful when the first job doesn’t work out at the pinnacle.

Knowledge workers outlive corporations.

Knowledge workers keep moving along.

from Peter Drucker’s Managing Yourself 

Basic considerations for a textbook:

•  Level of class  (developmental, on-level, honors)
•  Price (and this should not be too high, regardless of your neighborhood)
• Reading level (It can exceed their grasp, but it shouldn’t do that by much.)
• Complexity (Is it really going to be usable?)

Other considerations:

• Visual (pretty colors, pretty pictures)
• Graphical (pretty diagrams, graphs, tables)
• Age (modern)
• Holes in your enthusiasm (It should fill those.)
• Additions not readily available on the internet  (It should give the students something they can’t get for free.)

Things you do want:

• Accuracy  (No major errors in fact or theory.)
• Relevance (Ought to work well for your class and not have to be worked around.)
• Readability (Has to be at a level the students can get.)
• Accessibility  (Information should be chunked, for easier understanding.)

These points are coming from my online class.

Taste, touch, smell
“What if you brought artifacts or props that were related to your lecture to class? Appeal to the students’ senses.”

We are starting storytelling today and I am bringing in the smell of New York in the autumn. I am also bringing three narratives that make a point. They are children’s stories, but I don’t think they are childish.

I am also thinking that we may play one simple kid’s game in class. The folding story game. Just as a starting point to get people talking and thinking.

Is change scary?

“Risk is the central element of all teaching.” Joe Kagle

Final exam questions

After the grades are handed out, give this as a writing assignment.

What did you learn in this class that was useful in your life? What do you think you will take away from this course and use in twenty years? What would you suggest to improve the course?

I am not sure how I would assign this with my present syllabus, but I really like the idea.

Literature

One of the people in my class had Robert Frost as a mentor. He asked Frost about the meaning of “The Road Not Taken.” Robert Frost’s response was, “I don’t know. I place holes in my poems so that you can put yourself into them.”

How many conferences should I apply to?

It sounds like I am being stuck up, and I certainly don’t mean it that way. But I don’t want to apply to more conferences than I can reasonably attend.

I can write the papers easily. I have found that the more papers I write, the more I have to write. My brain just keeps flowing ideas, related tangentially to one another or to my own personal preferences.

That doesn’t mean I will get accepted at all of them, of course. I was disappointed in the lack of reception to the research agenda presented in my paper for 4Cs.

But how many conferences can I reasonably attend while teaching? Is there a limit to how I should decide to apply? (Obviously national is better than regional in prestige. But what if you can do both? Is that better or worse?)

Looking over tenure recommendations for big schools indicates that two to three national presentations a year are acceptable. I would assume that means that regional presentations must come in higher numbers. (Are there very many conferences in the summer?) Of course, I am not presently presenting sufficiently to apply for positions at large research universities.

Is that a goal? Doing sufficient research that someone in the large university would look at me?

I don’t know. I like presenting. I like writing. But I don’t know that I want to work at a research-driven university.

But if I haven’t been presenting for the past fifteen years and I need to be presenting a lot to show that I can, then perhaps I should continue to work up presentations.

How many research topics can I pursue at one time?

Really my question is: do my topics need to be in one field, so that I become the expert or can I distribute them across multiple interests?

Is it important to build up a reputation in a field? Or is it sufficient to build up a name across the field?

Right now my papers are on:
information literacy for low SES [accepted]
teaching controversial issues, religion and politics [accepted]
an analysis of bias in FoxNews.com political coverage [accepted]
job searches [pending]
the use of fairy tales to introduce literary analysis [pending]
the benefits of pen and computer [pending]
bridging the gap for low SES in digital rhetoric and culture [pending] (Not an example of double dipping, though it does have some facets similar to the accepted paper.)
the rhetorical creation of heroes at the national political conventions [writing]
the rhetorical creation of Americans at the national political conventions [writing] (A subset of the work above.)
Christianity as it is portrayed in the works of six popular speculative fiction authors [writing]
an analysis and comparison of bias in FoxNews.com and CNN.com political coverage [writing] (Again the work above is a subset of this.)

If you look at these topics, you would think I am interested in:
politics (and rhetoric)
class discrimination
computers

You’d be correct. But I am also interested in cross-genre romance, science fiction and fantasy, mysteries, genre-questionable literary works, teaching in general…

So, again, the question is, should I limit my topics? Or can I pursue a broad range of interests across multiple intersecting fields?

Does it matter how much my name (or my school name) gets out there?

Which school do I identify?

The low ses work was primarily done at CC2 where I do not teach at present. So I put CC1, where I have continued the work, down as my school affiliation.

On my other presentations, should I put down SLAC? It is where I hope to work full-time and do work part-time. Will it prejudice the readers against me if I am at CC1 or SLAC? Can I submit without my college affiliation listed?

I guess CC1 doesn’t care if I do research and SLAC does. So if it is not related to work done at CC1 (or 2), I should put down SLAC.

This Snowflake is so busy with their personal life that they do not have time to come to class or do the work. But when they don’t get the work done, they are full of excuses.

“I didn’t have time to do the work.”

“Why not?”

“It was my boyfriend’s birthday and I had to make him dinner.”

“Okay, that was yesterday, but this assignment was made last week.”

“Well, I couldn’t start it early!  No college student does that.”

… Sigh.

A student who never got his work done because he didn’t have time, and who told me frankly that he didn’t have enough money to buy insurance because he had received too many tickets, informed me that he would not be staying in class for the library work because he needed to go to the range and he couldn’t go later because he had to head to Louisiana to go gambling.  This was, he said, something he did every weekend.  My class meeting in the library instead of the room was just a bonus, as far as he was concerned.  (I did tell him that he would be counted absent, but he went anyway.)

Please leave your own stories of this particular kind of snowflake.  I’d love to know that I am not alone.