As if blogging hasn't been light enough

I'm off tomorrow for 8 days in Ireland with my mother. Given my mother, we will have many stops in cute little restaurants for appetizers and a glass of wine. Should be fun.

Following that, I'll be visiting the family (with TM, this time) for five or so days. In other words: I'll be off-blog for a grand total of two weeks.

Enjoy the start of summer!

Yes, I said rollerskates.

Over the weekend, TM and I catered to one of his whims and watched Xanadu on Watch Instantly. Neither of us had ever seen it before. I was skeptical.

Holy cow, that's some crazy business. The '70s and '80s collide in a horrifying rollerskating pile-up. Why was everyone on rollerskates? Why did Gene Kelly stoop so low?

Sometimes the movie seemed like little more than a flimsy showcase for bad fashion. I mean, you've got legwarmers, short shorts, orange jumpsuits (my favorite line: when Sonny Malone has a vision of a club with a "great rock band" which he describes as, "Six guys in electric orange suits!"), extraneous straps and zippers, off-the-shoulder peasant blouses--a panoply of ugly clothing, none of which seemed to have anything to do with any of the other ugly clothing. And, oh yes, rollerskates.

The plot, which lacked all narrative tension, goes something like this:

Sonny Malone is a whiny would-be artist. He's a commercial artist who believes that he is meant for Higher Things, but the Man (= his boss) tries to dissuade him by saying, literally: "I used to be into Art. But I gave up Art for Money. You should do the same thing." It's subtle!

Anyway, Sonny mopes, and somehow his moping causes a really bad painting of eight or so women to become animated, and the muses descend upon LA. Apparently, see, Zeus really wants a roller rink called Xanadu to be built, so he sends the muse Kira (the muse of disco?) to inspire him. He sees her and becomes obsessed, but his pursuit only lasts about three minutes, because then she turns up and they start hanging out. Meanwhile he meets Gene Kelly, who used to play the clarinet but doesn't any more. For some reason, they decide to open a disco/nightclub/roller rink (because, the movie tells us, They Need A Dream To Care About. Why be more specific than that?). Everything goes exactly according to plan!

However, Sonny then tells Kira that he loves her. For some reason. I mean, he knows seriously nothing about her--like, she won't even tell him her last name. But whatever. She says that she loves him, then immediately reveals that she's a muse and disappears. Sonny mopes some more--he almost refuses to go to Xanadu's opening!--but then, for some reason, he jumps headlong into the aforementioned bad painting and finds himself in a crazy electric Tron-like space. There, he rails ineffectually against Zeus and is then dumped back on earth. Kira sings an incredibly boring song, and Zeus and Hera decide that she can go back to earth.

The club opens. There is a bizarre and spectacular club-opening dance sequence. Kira serves Sonny a drink. All is well.

So the movie would, in fact, be pretty dull, but for all the fashion hilarity (which is totally worth it). It does, however, have this fucking insane sequence.

Watch it! Gene Kelly dancing with punk rock oompah loompahs, and Spiderman! Take a break from grading and watch it!

(In other news, I'm almost done with EVERYTHING. More bad movies in store, perhaps?)

Why do they do this to me?????

Here's what I hate more than anything in grading--more even than "since the dawn of time" intro-sentences:

When a student who has been doing really good work--like, earning an A despite being a non-major, participating in discussion every day, and coming to see me about papers and all that other solid stuff--plagiarizes some stupid sentence in practically the last assignment of the semester--an assignment for which, I might add, there were plenty of options, so zie didn't even need to pick this particular (and difficult) poem to write on.

Don't you haaaaate that?

According to my policy, I need to fail this student. For the course. A student I really like, a lot. I hate that!

Well, I mean, first I'll hear hir out, and perhaps there's some perverse misunderstanding of "ethical research" here, but...argh! WHY???? Dude, if you didn't understand the poem, you could've come to my office hours, and I swear I would've just explained it to you. ARGHHHHH.

Drunken Rampage

Internet be warned:

I have had some wine, and I am commenting on your posts. Ha ha!

(It's been a verrrry long couple-two-three weeks.)

Sans Snark

My last post was, I know, rather embittered. I'm not entirely embittered, however (although I do kind of hate teaching statements, much as I recognize their utility and would ask for them were I to chair a search). But the first half of the week was long. And we're approaching the end of the semester. So sarcasm is easier to pull off than sincerity (isn't it always?).

So: Here are some better thoughts. I'm not going to put together a philosophy statement because, well, that's too much work. Instead, I'll aim for bullets of teaching goodness:

• This first-year bio student in Brit Lit II. He's taking the class for a gen ed requirement, and first-years don't normally do very well in the class, but, despite not being a brilliant writer, he works really hard and it shows. It delights me to consider this biology student who will go out into the world able to say intelligent things about Jane Eyre, Virginia Woolf, and Wordsworth. That's what a liberal arts school is for.
• The student who remarked, on leaving class on Monday: "Dr. Mihi, you're awesome. Just FYI."
  
• A student challenged her grade on the first paper that she wrote for one of my courses--I'm one of a team of instructors for the course, so challenges have a particular procedure that brings in a third party. The third party upheld my grade decision. The student then approached me to ask if it would be all right if she met with me about future papers (why in the world wouldn't it be okay?); she started participating much more actively and doing better on quizzes; she showed me a draft of her next paper--and she just got an A- on said paper. It's clear that she fundamentally didn't get the expectations for the first one, and now she does--and her work is actually good! So pleasing.
• Those moments in class--especially in the surveys, which is funny because they're the courses I've taught the most--when I suddenly realize something completely new about the text that we're discussing. It makes me realize how much easier it can be to generate new thoughts through a conversation than stuck on one's own.
  
• The fact that I am now able to go completely off script in class on a regular basis. In fact, there are days when I don't use my prep outline at all. And teaching is so much more fun.
• And honestly, sometimes, I just really love my students. All of them, more or less. Not for anything that they've done, but because they're there, and they're trying (or not), and going through all their stuff, and I get to play a part in that.

See? I can be lovey, too.

Sisyphus's Teaching Philosophy Meme

OK, so there's this.

In the spirit of P, however, I've got to go for snark. It is April, after all, and I've got absolutely no patience left. At the moment, my real life teaching philosophy is DO YOUR GODDAMN HOMEWORK AND GET TO CLASS ON TIME, I AM TIRED OF YOUR BULLSHIT.

So here's my world-weary, when-will-this-semester-end version, born of actually serving on search committees that require teaching philosophy statements.

My teaching philosophy centers on students. I believe in a dynamic classroom where students learn actively. I eschew all forms of sage-on-the-stage, chalk-and-talk, rhymey-blimey-whatever teaching. Eschew it! My pedagogy requires students to talk, to discuss things, to actually participate in the learning process. In this, I am refreshingly newfangled.

In my student-centric classroom, we occasionally sit in circles. This radically disrupts the power structure of the classroom, enabling students to take an active role in their own educations. Sometimes we also do group work.

Further, I am committed to developing critical thinking in my students by getting beyond the notion that learning is all about memorizing facts and regurgitating them at the professor's will. I know that this is a new idea, but bear with me here--as it turns out, literary study is not just about plot summary! I ask challenging and innovative questions to connect the material to students' own lives. I also use PowerPoint sometimes, because today's students are digital natives who learn best through visual stimulus and are excellent multitaskers. These are all very exciting new ideas that I came up with myself while I was TA'ing that course that one time.

Hm. That might actually be too snarky even for me. And truthfully, I can't say that my real-life teaching philosophy was that much better (content-wise, anyway; I had very little teaching experience when I first went on the market). I've tried my hand at writing more original teaching statements, and they all sounded just a little crazy. But "student-centered" has GOT to be the tiredest classroom-descriptor in the book.

At one point in the last committee I served on, I started fantasizing about receiving a statement of teaching philosophy that embraced straight lecture; at least it would have been different.

If I'm in a better mood later this week, maybe I'll take Sis up on her challenge for real and write about what does bring me joy in teaching. Up until about a week ago, I had plenty to say. And, okay, honestly, my seminar students are rocking right now, so I'll leave you with that bit of positivity.

My Biggus Dickus moment

Last week was a looong week, which, because of an overnight field trip, didn't really end until Saturday night.

And Monday was a loong day.

We had two candidates on campus on Monday, for two different positions: one in my department, and another which is not in my department but on whose search committee I'm serving. So, long story short, on Monday I got to campus at 7:45 and went home at 4:15. During the eight and a half hours that I was on campus, I taught for one hour, went to one meeting, and spent five solid hours with the two different candidates.

Then I had my Chaucer seminar from 6-8:45.

So I was tired when I got to class. I had changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and taken out my contacts, declaring a one-woman casual day (not that anyone, in class or on faculty, would care), and taken a little nap, but I was far from refreshed. We were reading MT and RT,* though, so at least the subject matter promised to be interesting.

And it was interesting. I was engaged in class, becoming more energized as the discussion went on; of course, given what we were discussing, there was also a lot of humor and some degree of silliness accompanying our Very Serious Exploration of the Literature. The class, I should mention, has fifteen students in it, nearly all of them very bright, talkative, and fun. (I'm lucky.)

But I do think that the fatigue, the lingering stress of driving a vanful of students around all weekend, the exhausting small talk with job candidates, etc., was still there, underlying my enjoyment of the class. And that it was these factors that contributed to my completely losing it about halfway through.

We were talking about female sexuality. One student had posited the possibility that these fabliaux are in some way affirmative of female sexual pleasure. But it's hard to say that this is what's going on in RT, which contains what we could call rape. So I asked them, What image of female sexuality does this tale present us with?

One student raised his hand. Slowly, thoughtfully, he began to speak. It seems like...women have sexual desires, but they don't show them. [I'm paraphrasing, badly, but it'll do.] And then these opportunities--arise, and they seize them.

A flicker of a smile, a smirk even, passed over my face. I quelled it. Immature! Get a grip! I quashed the giggle that I could feel brewing. But I also caught a smothered smile on the face of a student to my right...and across from me...and to the left.... So I did what was probably the worst thing that I could do, then, and forcibly arranged my face into a very solemn expression. If he doesn't say "arise" again, I'll be fine.

He went on, becoming more impassioned as he spoke. It's like the text is saying that they don't normally express these desires, but then these unexpected circumstances just...arise!

The laugh was there. I could feel it actually in my mouth. For a moment, I contemplated running from the room--but I wouldn't have made it. I looked at him, tragically, and managed to say, "I'm sorry," before bursting into laughter, laughter wild and uncontrolled, tears running down my cheeks. I covered my mouth, I looked down at the table, it didn't matter.

The class erupted, as you'd imagine.

Oh, my God, it felt so good.

*I'm acronyming these titles in the EXTREMELY unlikely event of a student's googling them + some other key words and finding this. Sorry for the obscurity, non-medievalists.