A carefully cultivated, fully composted first crop
of green beans–so much better than canned.
That one tunnel with the bend
where you always panic briefly and want to stop
when you can’t see either end.
A subterranean pimple, perfectly round,
on the cusp of emerging, not quite ready to pop.
The good, the bad, the ugly, the suspense,
the tension, the heat of it, the standoff.
A phoenix dragging and puking and down
and not yet gloriously finding its lift.
Congrats for showing up today. I’m serious.
I’m really glad you’re here. We’ve got a lot to do–
class roster, introductions, syllabus–
I’m not sure how all this business comes across to you,
so I wanted to take a minute to let you know
I know for some of you it took a hell of a lot
to sit at that desk. You’re far away from home.
You fought and survived a war. A sexual assault.
Your mind is a genius of self-sabotage.
Your body somehow fights you every step.
You know how hard it was, so you be the judge
of just how much applause you ought to get.
Of course this is just the very first achievement
we’re aiming for. Good work on that assignment,
good midterm grades, a full semester wrapped
up neatly like a present for whatever holiday you happen
to celebrate at the end of December. Before all that,
let’s just enjoy a good beginning. Congrats.
Toot your own horn!
_____
I’m posting this in the spirit of a post I liked a lot recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education called “10 Things This Instructor Loves.” It was a response to a blog post about professors’ pet peeves (and there are numerous versions of that list floating around).
People post things on my wall sometimes that have snarky comments from professors, and I usually admit that I’ve thought things like that sometimes. But I try not to say them to students. I even try not to be passive aggressive in my verbal and written comments to students–this after a good friend cracked up laughing when I said I sometimes wrote “spell check should have caught that” in student papers. He called it for what it was, a passive aggressive comment (I hadn’t even realized that).
I do try to be direct and honest. I did tell a student once she was as baffling to me as if a giant mushroom had sprouted outside the classroom while we were inside. She was coming to class and being disruptive, but not turning in enough to come anywhere close to passing. It turned out that she had A LOT going on in her life that I had no clue about, and she kept coming to class because she didn’t want her friends to know she wasn’t passing. I’m glad I was honest and told her she baffled me. I can’t make up my mind how I feel about the giant mushroom comment.
I keep trying to remember that we’re all like a bunch of icebergs crunching around together in the classroom. We can only see the top bits of each other’s lives, but there’s a lot more going on under the surface.
A small white flower blooms somewhere,
in some ugly, neglected spot .
A paparazzo sets his camera down,
and a famous baby gets a private smile.
Every time you thank a teacher,
she finds the energy to do just one more thing
before she goes to sleep.
Every time you thank a teacher,
the darkness slides a little back.
A fussy child eats five carrot sticks
and barely even notices.
Every time you thank a teacher,
he makes another phone call,
for the student who has no one,
literally no one, else who cares.
Every time you thank a teacher,
an astronaut tightens a bolt,
a fledgeling just totally sticks it
landing on a flimsy limb,
a desperate person’s car starts one more time.
But every time you could have
thanked a teacher and didn’t,
and every time you thank a teacher
without even trying to do your part,
your small part (voting?), to deal with
the colossal amounts of garbage
teachers have to deal with all the time,
well, you’re the one to blame because
that pretty little flower’s dead.
That famous baby grows up weird,
and the teachers just can’t even, not tonight.
The darkness grows darker and more.
That fussy child grows up to be
a generally unpleasant person,
the space station is less secure,
and the fuzzy wuzzy fledgeling falls to its death.
Look–there’s that sad sack, late for work,
with a car that will not turn over
not this time, not at all, it’s just dead.
The car’s dead.
It’s all dead and
it’s all your fault.
Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Bloem or Pog, Teaching
Tagged poetry, Teaching, thank a teacher
Gearing up for spring semester begins late in fall semester for me. That’s a practical matter–if I waited until the fall semester was over to gear up for spring, I’d be behind schedule immediately. It’s more than a practical matter, though. There comes a time in every semester, the deepest, darkest time (which in fall corresponds with shorter days and longer nights) of a semester, when it’s easier to see what’s not working rather than what is working.
One of my ongoing goals as a teacher is to return student work faster. I struggle with it for a number of reasons:
I’m not saying these are GOOD reasons, but they’re reasons I’ve discovered. I just realized earlier this month that I’m always slower about returning student work in spring semester & one reason for that is probably because I tend to have more problems with anxiety and depression in the spring (ironic, because I love light and love when the days begin to grow longer). I discovered it because I keep track of when student work comes in and when I return it (I call it TIR for turned-in-returned rate) on a spreadsheet & I have numbers going back several years. The good news is that overall, I’m doing much better than I used to. The bad news is that my numbers have gotten ugly the last couple of spring semesters….
Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going to try something I’ve never tried in relation to solving this problem. (Other things I continue to do: keeping track, rewarding myself if I meet my goals at different points in the semester, reporting to someone on how I’m doing–which is what I was doing earlier this month when I discovered the WORSE IN SPRING PATTERN. I was putting my numbers in my yearly activity report.)
I’m problematizing the problem. I’m going to do research first, on feedback, and see what the research says. That’s where I am right now, and at least at the moment, my plan is to report on the research at different points in the semester.
I know it’s important–feedback is the thing that an instructor can do in a real class that an instructor can’t do in a MOOC, and however good AI gets, it still seems to me we’re a long way away from computers being able to give good feedback to writers on much beyond sentence complexity, vocabulary, spelling, and some grammar. Feedback is what makes instructors invaluable.
The first article I’m tackling is called “The Power of Feedback” and it’s by John Hattie and Helen Temperly at the University of Auckland.
One of the first quotes that struck me in the article was this one, “Feedback has no effect in a vacuum; to be powerful in its effect, there must be a learning context to which feedback is addressed.” That’s why they say “feedback is what happens second.” Instruction has to happen first. When I read this quote I thought immediately of my discomfort when a student in creative writing asks me for feedback on something they wrote before the class. I tell them it feels weird because I don’t know what they were trying for, whereas if they wrote in response to an assignment, I know what they were supposed to be trying to do.
I appreciate Hattie & Temperley’s article for their definitions & clarifications, among other things. Here’s one: “The claim is made that the main purpose of feedback is to reduce discrepancies between current understandings and performance and a goal. ” To me this emphasizes the importance of backward design–if my students and I don’t know what our goals are, I just don’t stand a chance of providing effective feedback.
These three questions seem so crucial: “Effective feedback must answer three major questions asked by a teacher and/or by a student: Where am I going? (What are the goals?), How am I going? (What progress is being made toward the goal?), and Where to next? (What activities need to be undertaken to make better progress?)”
I particularly appreciate the emphasis on the role students play in the feedback process. Here’s the good news: it’s not a passive role. Here are some things students can do. They can
So I dived into this article hoping for motivation for returning student work faster, and it does address that several pages in, and I’ll get to that as I post on the topic, but for now, it’s met a goal I didn’t even realize I had–get me pumped up about a new semester.
What can I do with this enthusiasm? Lots. “Teachers can also assist by clarifying goals, enhancing commitment or increased effort to reaching them through feedback….More generally, teachers can create a learning environment in which students develop self-regulation and error detection skills.”
I need to model self-assessment and self-regulation by setting goals, monitoring them, and then making adjustments (all processes discussed in the article, but also widely discussed any time metacognition comes up).
So my goal for returning student work in terms of promptness is this. By the end of Week 5, I want my overall average to be below 7 days, and the average for longer assignments to be below 10 days, but I want the standard deviation to be 2.0 or lower–this past fall my averages met those goals, but the standard deviation was too high (I was still keeping some longer assignments wayyyyyyy too long).
a little poem I wrote with big feelings
Beyond that, I’m setting some goals on the quality of feedback. I want to set the questions and good points from “The Power of Feedback” in front of myself as I start to communicate with students about their work, which I’m less than a week away from (classes start on Monday and the first assignments come in next Friday–sooner, since some students will want me to look at rough drafts, more than likely).
My plan is to report on my turned-in-returned rate after Week 5, or sooner, and I’ll also write more about this article & others I’ve found and will find.
Meanwhile–it’s back to finishing up syllabi & schedules for next week!
Posted in Anxiety/Depression/Yuck, Authenticity, Burnout, Feedback, Procrastination, Searching, Teaching
It’s hard to teach when Gollum’s in your class.
He’s not the ideal student by any stretch,
but he’ll blame you if he doesn’t pass.
He’s very disruptive, all that muttering “my precious”
and small group work with him is just a bitch.
It’s hard to teach when Gollum’s in your class
because even saying Sméagol when you take attendance,
even smiling when you really want to screech,
you can be sure that he’ll blame you if he doesn’t pass.
He misses class a lot. Just vanishes.
Then swears he was too there. It’s hard to teach
the earnest students when Gollum’s in your class,
but you owe it to the ones who are not treacherous,
the step by by step by steps, the clear approach.
That rat-like monkey will blame you if he doesn’t pass,
but don’t dumb things down. Just do your best.
Backwards design might save you in a hitch.
It’s hard to teach if Gollum’s in your class,
but don’t blame yourself if he shall not pass.
_____
If fish were learning outcomes, Gollum would get an A+.
_____
(photo by Larry and Linda on Flickr, Creative Commons)
(OH that last line–“He shall not pass” sounds so foreordained and the teacher in me keeps hoping, hoping that Gollum will pull it together and squeak out a decent grade. But how can I not play on “shall not pass?” Decisions, decisions…)
for Heather, and so, so many more
The gritty nasty easy complaints take root
even when we try to weed them out.
The problem isn’t teachers. It isn’t you,
not if you’re teaching, it’s sure not.
We know what it’s all about
when gritty nasty easy complaints take root
in public discourse. Money is the root,
the square root, when we hear how
the problem is teachers. It isn’t you,
no, not you, rich man, you tell the truth
about those lazy public employees. Shout
those gritty nasty easy complaints! The root
is poverty, and unearned self-esteem, and too,
too much testing and less learning, but
the problem isn’t teachers. It isn’t you
my friend, my hero, my diligent compatriot.
Teaching well is about telling the truth.
Gritty nasty easy complaints may take root,
but the problem isn’t teachers. It isn’t you.
If I’d made one bale every semester I taught….
Posted in Bloem or Pog, Daring Greatly, On Wisconsin, Poetry, Politics, Searching, Teaching, Uncategorized
Tagged Badass Teachers Association, Teaching
I’m working today on the manuscript of a chapbook of poems about teaching and working as a professor. The working title is Each Other’s Anodyne, in which case this is the title poem.
I posted it as a note on Facebook two years ago. During Wisconsin’s Arab(esque) Spring.
The ice on our streets and sidewalks, the way the snow is crunchy, the way slush turned to gray iron–it would be so treacherous if we were protesting in Madison today. So I’m glad we’re not.
In general, the political turmoil is overall lower, and I am relieved–I felt wiped out emotionally and spiritually by that spring, and the failed recall didn’t help revive me. Other things have helped. The passage of time has helped.
Finding this poem again for the manuscript brings it all back, though, and I have to ask:
How much has changed, really?
This poem still resonates with me. (And I still need to revise the second sonnet to focus more on Firefly.)
(It’s a crown of sonnets, if you’re into form at all.)
_____
EACH OTHER’S ANODYNE
The weary teacher lays his pen aside
And rubs his eyes, says to his wife, “All right,
I’ll come to bed.” They both know he will try
To grade some more in the morning. All through the night
Another teacher wakes up anxious, mad
At everyone. She yells at her husband and son,
But it’s not their fault. It’s not the teachers’ fault.
In a dark time, our hard work shines too bright.
We’re public target practice. We’re spittoons.
For a time, a shining time, we were solid
In the middle class, rewarded for working hard
To help synapses snap and shimmer in the light.
Tempus fugit, damn it, sad but true:
The best shows all get cancelled way too soon.
The best shows all get cancelled way too soon.
Post-modernly they hooked us and we swooned
At heroes rounding all the genres up
To drove them o’er the plains. Inspire us!
The hooker with the heart of brass blew up
The patriarchy, blam! The runt did chin-ups
Until he made the winning catch, two times.
The rocket rounded earth, accompanied by chimes
At midnight, and we, we got attached too fast
To what the larger corporate sponsor failed
To see a profit in. It couldn’t last,
But we had no idea the cruise ship had sailed.
We made a snack and snuggled, and watched the show.
The nights were longer then, with deeper snow.
The nights were longer then, and deeper snow
Made driving slower. Now darker days have come
Despite the later sunsets. We didn’t know
How sweet it was—our biggest worry was some
Stupid internet scam our students fell for—
An octopus living in trees. Like always, slow
In winter—we did our jobs, shoveled some more,
And then the Packers won the Super Bowl!
For Valentine’s, our governor went nuclear.
So far he’s systematic—everything
We care about, he wants to cut. Budget despair
Has set in hard. It will not ever be spring.
Thick fog, black scabs of snow, raw time, hard earth.
But up in the gray, three sand hill cranes, flying north.
Up in the gray, three sand hill cranes, flying north.
Inexorably, the seasons change. They do.
But broken-hearted, raw, beleaguered blue—
We cannot trust the calendar. It’s death
We see when we look around—dead trees, dead grass
Below the layered shale of sooty ice.
Just like “always winter and never Christmas,”
We long for a miraculous thaw or a looking glass.
Not knowing is the worst; at least we think
It is—we’ll think that until we learn the worst.
However far we’ve learned our hopes can sink,
they’ve sunk so far, and farther, and farthest.
We thought we had a thaw, but it froze again.
The ditches are full of ice. But it is thin.
The ditches are full of ice, but it’s too thin
For skating. It makes a satisfying crunch
When you stomp it. Let’s watch the two of them—
These women hiking, sharing a picnic lunch.
One’s tiny—she can almost walk across
The ice before it breaks. Almost. Not quite.
Crashing, they are each other’s anodyne.
One lover catches another and she laughs,
“You silly thing.” And just like that, the tears
come flying out, “I’m sorry I dragged you here.
I can’t even make you my wife. This stupid state
Is stupid. I hate it. Hate, hate, hate.”
“Please don’t hate on my account. Not ever.
We’ve made a home. Your students need you here.”
We’ve made a home where students need us. Here
In the trenches, in the cold and the muck of open admission,
We’re spinning plates for students, showing where
Centrifugal becomes centripetal
With just the right transitional phrase. They take
The plates away from us, they break the glass
Bell jars and ceilings, they celebrate the figures
That animate their dreams the night they made
The quadratic formula prove itself on threat
Of death, organismic, de dicto, real.
Whatever ivory tower there ever was,
It’s gone for good, and most of us are thrilled.
We may stay—we may move on—but we are sure—
If not Wisconsin, somewhere, someone will learn.
If not Wisconsin, somewhere, someone will learn
That when you titillate the lesser devils
Of our nature, when you go all Soviet
And wish my cow would die (you ate your own),
You’re just a toddler berserker tearing down
the walls, affronted when the ceiling lands.
America seemed like such a good idea.
I guess it’s possible it might again.
Uncertain of so much save that we stand,
The union of other and each, screaming
At the snow, we can keep each other warm.
We can be each other’s anodyne,
Inventing for each other a kind of summer
When weary teachers lay their pens aside.
_____
Heroes
This is what I remember from the protest. Unlike anti-war protests I’d been to in the past, so many of the protestors two years ago were older than me, middle class, looking for all the world like the mild-mannered sort of folk who’d never consider leaving home to protest. When I look at them now all I can think is “heroes.”
The good work goes on. Teachers are still teaching, and even though “Each Other’s Anodyne” is the title poem from my chapbook, it is not the end of the story. This is: “No One Can Stop Us.”
And even though we lost the recall, and the vast majority of the protesting is done, there are still voices out there that inspire me. Recently, Margaret Rozga accepted a Martin Luther King Jr. Award on behalf of her late husband, James Groppi. Her speech was terrific, and the video is inspiring to watch. Her poetry is terrific, and I’m so pleased for her at the attention it’s getting. But you know what else inspires me about Peggy? The years and years and years and years she taught.
_____
[Photo from flickr, Creative Commons. Taken by Richard Hurd on February 19, 2011.]
Posted in Bloem or Pog, Daring Greatly, Poetry, Politics, Teaching, Uncategorized, Work Life
Tagged Margaret Rozga, Teaching, Wisconsin Protest, Wisconsin Uprising
marniere 