I am one of those students, full of questions, yet asking only 2 out of 15. My professors are the type who walk in the classroom and start lecturing, without notes, with maps for props, and give me the history of the world from the seemingly infinite recesses of their minds. They remember small anecdotes pertaining to certain events, they make me laugh, and every day I walk out of their class smarter than when I walked in. You can ask them about books on a certain topic on a certain century and they fire back with a dozen titles, academic and historical and beneficial, while the only historical fiction I read would be, say, Asterix. They are on a pedestal, having achieved the type of glorious knowledge and scholarliness that seems forever out of my grasp. It is hard to believe they are human.Yet sometimes, when we happen to be walking outside together, when the wind blows their hair, when the all-imposing powerpoint is removed, when the notebook is shut and the discussion panders to weather and time constraints, it’s almost a jolt of realization. Hey, they’re human. They don’t move around campus asking philosophical questions, or wander in parks in Londonesque trench coats, lost in the Renaissance. And you know what? It frightens me. Because when we both are human, I am more aware of the vast amount of knowledge they possess that I don’t, that I sometimes fear I never will. Their ability to see the past, present, and future, all in one go, while I frantically memorize dates and events and hope that’s enough. When we both are human, I am keenly aware of the amount of time, work, and effort one needs to understand even an iota of the past. I am confronted with the fact that I am nothing in the grand scale of things, that despite my bravado and sense of accomplishment, I’m nowhere near done.
I prefer them on pedestals.
Wait until one cuts a loud, nasty fart in your vicinity, so close it cannot be ignored. When great minds appear to be thinking great thoughts, they're probably thinking of lunch.
ReplyDeleteNow, imagine that I remember being a student much like you, and now I'm more of an Indiana Jones than an Aristotle, albeit one who's at the age where he constantly grumbles he's getting too old for this shit, but trying not to let my students hear me say that. As no less than Joe Walsh observed, "Everybody's so different, I haven't changed."
"When we both are human, I am keenly aware of the amount of time, work, and effort one needs to understand even an iota of the past. I am confronted with the fact that I am nothing in the grand scale of things, that despite my bravado and sense of accomplishment, I’m nowhere near done"
ReplyDeleteSomeday, Morris, you too may be a proffie, and recognize an undergraduate's ability to understand that very thing as the sign that he is a true intellectual, perhaps even a truer one than you were at his age. The best of us know that we know very little -- we've just done 10, or 20, or 30 more years' worth of reading than you have. That means we do have something to teach you, for the moment, but that doesn't make us divine, or even particularly smart.
I totally agree: we have had more time to read and to teach (multiple times) the same classes. If a student got to take the same class over and over again willingly, he or she might have some ability to regurgitate facts and tidbits at will...
DeleteThere is a professor I had multiple times in school, that for a while I truly believed had a CD ROM installed in the back of his head. I am not of his caliber but strive one day to get there. Maybe after another 20 or 30 years I'll achieve it!
DeleteFor the money schools pay adjuncts, you can have one on a pedestal doing tricks.
ReplyDeleteYes, we are all smarter than you. Some of us are a lot smarter and know how to teach too. It's good that you can see that and appreciate it. Just don't go too far by assuming that all those brains correlate with the quality of the person.
Aw Shucks, Morris. Yer making me blush.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, we are human, and you're also right that we know a lot about our fields, and that we put a lot of work into developing that knowledge. Of course, you wouldn't want a professor who didn't know a lot about their subject, would you.
It does get easier as you move forward. I sometimes tell my students that mastering a subject is a bit like a jig-saw puzzle. When you don't have many pieces fitted, it's all a big jumble, but as more and more pieces get put into place, it becomes easier to see where each new piece fits. So if you want my (admittedly unsolicited) advice, try not to just "frantically memorize dates and events," but to look for the connections that explain them.
Building up that understanding is hard, because it requires you to be constantly questioning whether your understanding is correct, and then going on to look for the answer - why is this correct? if it isn't correct, what is a better explanation? It's a lot of work, but that's how we built our knowledge, and it's actually kind of fun once you get the hang of it.
That, and remember to stay upwind of us when it's chili day in the cafeteria.
I also know some pretty sad excuses for proffies. I'm glad you've encountered ones you can respect.
ReplyDeletehang in there. i'm guessing that you are the kind of student we are all hoping for.
ReplyDeleteAny teacher who is at least slightly above average is a fuckin' superstar, in my view. Why? Because teaching can be incredibly stressful, pays adjuncts complete shit, and is generally totally thankless. So yes, we're fucking SUPERSTARS.
ReplyDeleteLet me add that I adore my GOOD students, even the ones with poor grades but good attitudes. My students with the bad attitudes, on the other hand, can go FUCK THEMSELVES, as they make my job harder and every other teacher's job harder.
Just don't think that every teacher either loves all of his/her students or hates all of his/her students. No way. If they did, they'd be a shitty-ass teacher. We have definite favorites but try hard not to show it. Basically, if I think my student is a total no-hoper, an abject loser with no potential, I'll ignore him (or her). I'm not going to waste my life on losers, man.
The trick with that, of course, is not to decide too soon.
DeleteBut of course, with the way many students act, it's easy to decide.