"the hardest thing in this world is to live in it"
Classes taken while a student at the University of Washington, my alma mater.
Maybe Phillip’s way is right. Maybe it is better to keep everyone – at least everyone who has any contact with you as a student/teacher/power dynamic relationship – at serious arms length. At least then things wouldn’t blow up in your face when you weren’t expecting it.
Today reminds me that I get too close to my class at large, and people in specific. Trust only so far – trust any further, and you’ll just get hurt.
Ha! My focus group for winter quarter is now listed in the course catalogue! Scroll down to CHID 496.
…guess that means I need to finish my syllabus!
Science fiction offers a fertile ground for the exploration and study of ethical issues, but is often set in dystopian or utopian cultures very different from our own. This coure intends to utilize the near-present science fiction television series Stargate:SG1 to explore issues of applied ethics as they relate to our contemporary society. Set only a week or two ahead of our own time, this show offers an ideal framework to explore a broad variety of culturally relevent ethical issues.
A variety of applied ethical topics will be discussed, including (but not limited to) human torture, just war theory, bioethics, environmental ethics and population control. We will read from a variety of classical and contemporary sources, including Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham, Daniel Dennett, and Brian Massumi, and discuss the readings in relation to individual issues of the episode, which will be viewed at the beginning of class each week.
Students will be expected to write a final 3-5 page paper and participate in weekly class discussions in order to receive credit for this course. Knowledge of Stargate:SG1 is not required. Some philosophy or critical theory background is encouraged, but also not required.
A bad mood snuck up on me Monday afternoon. I shook it off as low blood sugar, got some food, and seemed to be okay. It crashed down on me again yesterday, right after lunch. Okay, not a blood sugar issue.
A person issue.
Great.
I’ve lost a bit of my zen calm, it appears, and have let someone’s constant challenging of authority get under my skin. And it’s not that I even see myself as an authority – not even when I’m standing up lecturing about something. If I did see myself in such a light, you can sure as hell bet I wouldn’t 1) go out drinking til who knows when with students in my classroom, 2) be willing to sit down and talk with any students at any point about anything or 3) make jokes and other comments on papers while grading them.
I have to keep reminding myself that the other person may have been having a bad week. Perhaps two sour moods just hit and mixed badly. Or hell, maybe they really do have an issue with me – whatever. I need to not take it personally…
…except that’s really the problem with the pedagogical (if you will) method that I inhabit. This is personal for me. I pour everything into what I do, and to have that rejected sucks. More than that, it hurts. I just want the best for the folks I happen to get into student/instructor relationship with. Hell, I tend to be possessive and watchful of them long beyond when I should be (failing of mine, I admit).
I just don’t want what feels like the constant battle, and feel like it’s really stupid for it to even be there. And so I indulge in petty fantasies of handing back a paper with little to no markings on it, of removing myself from conversational opportunities, and withdrawing and becoming distant. I have too much a sense of responsibility to do the first, but I suspect the latter two will indeed happen in outside-my-classroom spaces. If I don’t want to get engaged in that sort of thing, I need to remove myself from the potential.
And if you think you’re detecting a note of sour grapes, yes, you are. I don’t want to remove myself from conversation with a dynamic, interesting person. Of course, the other option would be the mature route – the one that sits down and says “what the fuck is up with you?” and goes from there. Maybe when I regain a bit of center and balance, I’ll even take it. Right now, it’s more fun to fantasize about being six.
I’m up early, working on my syllabus for Winter quarter. It was one of those things that seemed so daunting when I first set out, and now I’m actually enjoying myself. There’s something really satisfying about rummaging through saved course packs and printed articles and books – just the sheer knowledge at my fingertips – and piecing it together into a coherant whole. This is also the first time that coherant whole is me; sure, I’m stealing liberally from Phillip and a few other sources, but the end result is a hodgepodge all my own. Am I planting the seeds for “my” class – that one class I’ll teach a variation on for the majority of my teaching career? The idea is exciting!
Of course, someone just sent me a link to Piled Higher and Deeper, so now I’m laughing myself into a coughing fit and not actually focusing on the syllabus, but that’s okay, too.