Hi Orangina, Don't worry about the pomposity factor. There is much to love about their writing and everybody says so, even/especially when mentioning pomposity--which is really just a matter of tone. And, from what I hear of that politics seminar, they love it. They say it's the most difficult thing they've ever done--20 pages or writing a week with no-holds-barred criticism to follow, blood, sweat, tears, raw passion, and brain power. (They come to my classes in packs, which tells me that it's a bonding experience.) I have to say though, that's much easier on undergraduates. Graduate students and junior faculty quickly learn to feel frightened and alone. You can't handle their egos the same way. The tenured ego is probably worth a couple hundred posts on this site.
As for the life lessons, I am referring to the abstract idea of evaluation and the fact that you can learn something about outside-world evaluations from classroom evaluations. I have a little system that lets them have a fake non-threatening experience grading a whole set of papers, so they can see how much everyone agrees on what constitutes a good paper. (This amazes them.) Then we use that for discussion (so they can feel out my idiosyncrasies). But my point is that you can't ask a potential date for his or her grading rubric, nor can you do that in every employment situation. I see this as part of a larger problem in which students think they need college to be a thing that generates predictable grades, and they want to trim all the noise away from that relationship. I, on the other hand, want it to be a thing that improves their lives. (Grades, are no doubt important for that, I agree, but I think you should be able to get something from a class you flunked.) If there's one mistake we're making in higher education, today, I think it is that we fall into the trap of believing that our job is to generate Cliff Notes for people who ought to be learning to do that for themselves. Oh. Rant. Sorry. Cheerio! I'm off to pretend that Gitmo is Nirvana.
Ignorance is bliss!.
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Posted by Mahogany to academicsecret at 8/26/2006 01:34:27 PM
