Pretending I'm talking to Max Braverman is helping. I try very hard to be kind and compassionate to my students, even the sometimes difficult ones, and if pretending I'm talking to a fictional character helps with that, I'll go with that.
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01:17:48 PM,
Tuesday 19 March 2013
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Although I spent 1 year post-bacc and 9 years in grad school at traditional schools, I still see a vast canyon between my students and me because of the huge difference between our undergraduate experience. A colleague compares our students to baby birds, patiently (or not) waiting to be fed little bits of information that they can gobble up. Many of them are very good at gobbling and to some extent even analyzing and synthesizing what they have gobbled. Others struggle even with the baby bird approach, acting as though they are being force-fed with a fire hose rather than my intention that they are slowly ingesting little tasty nuggets. I don't even know how to relate this metaphor to St. John's--The mama bird hands the babies a big stack of food, some undigestible, and then forces them to digest it anyway and share the digested bits around the table?
I try to find ways to get around the baby bird metaphor and the role it puts me in, to get them to at least read the textbook and occasionally other things, to get them to not be afraid to search for and provide their own answers to questions I ask, to show them that it is okay, even great, when those answers are different from the one I expected, as long as they have a reason for giving that answer. And, for that matter, I try to get them to ask questions I don't know the answer to, not merely factual questions but questions that will launch us on a voyage of scientific discovery (or at least give us something to do in lab for a couple weeks) or a theoretical discussion about evolution.
And I always, as I hear their questions about "why do I have to take ecology?" or "why do you want me to be able to explain what the word 'protist' is and why it's a particularly useless word?", I can't help but remember my own questions and doubts about "why did I go to all that trouble to learn Ancient Greek?" and "Should I have tried harder to actually understand what Kant was saying?" and of course that great question of all "What on earth am I doing here supposedly 'professing' something when there are large portions of the enterprise about which I have grave doubts?"
In the end, this is what I try to tell them, and I actually believe it's a pretty good one: We are in the business of trying to understand the world and how it works. The way that we're doing that in our particular case is using the scientific method, but there are other ways. I think that what we're doing today, and this semester, and in these four years is a process that helps you better understand how the world works, but there are other processes. Not all of this one will be fun, and maybe not all of it will be rewarding, and maybe some of it will seem to take you further from the goal. When you have completed your degree, you will not understand the world and how it works. But you will understand some things, and you will have some tools to work with in your future understanding; some of those tools are facts you memorized, and some are theories, and some are skills. Along the way in your life, you or someone else will almost definitely show some of those facts to be untrue and some of those theories to be unsupportable, and you will replace some of those skills with better ones. And that's part of the process, too.
But a lot of them just want a job. And I can't really argue with that.
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(3)
01:46:00 PM,
Wednesday 27 February 2013
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V'z univat zl svefg erny grnpuvat punyyratr V guvax: N fghqrag jub vf fb ehqr V whfg qba'g xabj ubj gb unaqyr ure. V guvax gung vg vf ragveryl n ynpx bs fbpvny fxvyyf naq pbzcyrgr frys-nofbecgvba--fur vf pbzcyrgryl pyhryrff nf gb ubj fur vf pbzvat npebff orpnhfr fur ynpx nal fbeg bs frys-ersyrpgvba be pbafvqrengvba sbe nalbar ryfr. V qba'g xabj juvpu pbzrf svefg--qb jr orpbzr njner gung bgure crbcyr unir arrqf naq jnagf gung znl or va pbasyvpg jvgu bhe bja naq gung bhef znl abg nyjnlf or freirq svefg, be qb jr yrnea gb ybbx ng bhefryirf nf bguref frr hf? Va nal pnfr, fur unf arvgure bs gubfr. Fur jnf, bs pbhefr, ubzrfpubbyrq naq vf, bs pbhefr, fgvyy n zvabe. Lrf, orpnhfr V yvxr zl punyyratrf gb or nf punyyratvat nf cbffvoyr.
Ng guvf cbvag, V guvax V UNIR gb frg hc n zrrgvat jvgu ure gb gnyx nobhg ure orunivbe va pynff. Vg jvyy or ab orggre be ab jbefr guna gnyxvat gb ure va pynff, orpnhfr fur vf pbzcyrgryl vanccebcevngr jurgure jr ner gnyxvat bar ba bar be gurer ner 29 bgure fghqragf va gur ebbz.
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(6)
08:46:40 PM,
Thursday 21 February 2013
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Sticking this here for future use.
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(9)
10:10:07 AM,
Tuesday 15 January 2013
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Did the Republicans who orchestrate the Iraq war really just go after Susan Rice for supposedly lying on television on a single day? Was it really about a single embassy attack, when there were seven embassy attacks under George W. Bush, all equally horrible? Did they really succeed in disqualifying her from being secretary of state, when the orchestrators of that war have seen no consequences at all of their actions (including not being in prison)? And did they do it all just so John Kerry would get the nomination, in hopes that Scott Brown could win his seat? In other words, did they make all this fuss just to get another Senate seat?
And did the American press and the American media really just let this happen?
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(6)
08:44:29 AM,
Friday 14 December 2012
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My great-aunt Dot passed away on Monday. She has always been to me this larger than life figure, who came from the middle of nowhere Georgia and did all these amazing, glamorous things. She was an artist, a model, a radio personality, a figure in the Fire Island community, and even an actress in an Ed Wood movie. In a country that says "you can be whoever you want to be" but then prevents people from doing so, she somehow did it. A world without Tedi Thurman is a little less interesting.
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(4)
03:06:09 PM,
Wednesday 19 September 2012
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I think I've mentioned here that students frequently call me Ms. or Mrs. rather than Dr., and it kind of drives me crazy. Partially in the "I didn't go to Evil Medical School for 10 years to be called Mrs." way, and partially because it at times feels intentionally disrespectful. My suspicion is that it is a holdover from high school, and in high school most of their teachers were likely women, so I wondered/suspected/feared that there was a gender component. Well, today I walked through the lab while a male colleague was teaching. He is more or less the same age as me, but does <b>not</b> have his PhD yet. And they were <b>all</b> calling him Dr., even though he's not one. And he wasn't correcting them.
So, yes, I do think it's gendered, and yes, I am offended.
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(6)
11:20:21 AM,
Tuesday 11 September 2012
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Woke up this morning thinking I could actually do this. It's amazing how the past year has changed my perspective on research.
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(2)
10:56:51 AM,
Sunday 22 July 2012
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For future reference. If we owned our 90-year old house, I would totally be doing something similar right now.
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(2)
01:05:30 PM,
Tuesday 17 July 2012
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My office, looking very much the way it did 9 months ago. I did not really think I would be evicted quite this quickly. Still no word on where I might be sitting in the coming academic year, so I am carefully sorting books into "need now", "need before fall", "need fall", and "don't really want to disappear forever" piles. I do not have a "books I do not mind losing" pile, so I think that I will probably be moving myself and storing things at home until that time when/if I have a new office.
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(7)
01:56:14 PM,
Tuesday 22 May 2012
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We're having one of those perfect Atlanta summer afternoon thunderstorms. Since it only rained twice last summer, we haven't really gotten to experience those.
Also, public schools here get out the Friday before Memorial Day. They then start back again the first week of August. There is so much wrong with that.
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(7)
07:08:34 PM,
Sunday 20 May 2012
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Recycling container garden
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(1)
02:10:15 PM,
Tuesday 15 May 2012
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Tuxedo must have been so bored for 6 years in Durham without chipmunks. Especially baby chipmunks, which are even more fun. He's teaching them all how to run out the cat door after he brings them on the porch.
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09:43:51 AM,
Monday 14 May 2012
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How feminist blogs saved my life.
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01:41:23 PM,
Wednesday 9 May 2012
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North Carolina is better than this. My friend Cris was involved in the founding of the organization Protect All North Carolina Families and has made it her full time job for the past few months. Many, many of my friends, gay and straight, married and unmarried, have worked tirelessly on the campaign against Amendment 1. Because of their hard work, many more people understood the inplications of the amendment, how it was much stronger language than in other states that could, for instance, make it illegal for a town to offer domestic partnership benefits to unmarried couples regardless of gender, or make it illegal for police to treat a domestic abuse situation as a domestic abuse situation if the victim were not married to the attacker.
Because of their hard work, although I am embarassed by the outcome and ashamed of North Carolinians in general, I am proud of many, many North Carolinians who worked against this amendment and my many, many childhood friends who have gone from tepid embarassment to warm support of their gay friends and neighbors. That is progress. It is slow. It is painful. But love will win in the end.
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08:09:50 AM,
Wednesday 9 May 2012
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I met with the dean who will do my end of the year evaluation to discuss my portfolio, and she feels like I'm in good shape, particularly for a brand-spanking-new professor. That is all.
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(3)
01:52:23 PM,
Monday 7 May 2012
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One of my colleagues made me a sign for my office door. The picture is a Google Earth image of our campus.
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03:35:16 PM,
Wednesday 25 April 2012
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