Sunday, December 07, 2003
"Let's share our feelings."
It's that time again. If you're a perpetual academic, like I am, it's the end of the semester.
"What time is that, Will?"
Well it used to be test time. But here at the women's college . . . it's (I advise you to hold your breath . . .) assessment time. Just what are assessments? That might require some background.
Take my English class. Oh, the thought brings a flood of memories. Like the first day of class, in which we created posters which represented how we thought of ourselves as readers. That's right. I'm 26 years old, I go to a women's college, and we made posters. Laugh it up. Woo-hoo, look at Will, Will the clown, ha-ha-ha, he goes to women's college and makes posters.
It gets better.
The major project of this English class was to take a metaphorical digital picture of ourselves, which we later presented to the class. This presentation of our metaphor (which, again, was to represent ourselves as readers), was videotaped for the department to view. That's right. This isn't just one nutball prof. This is what an entire department of learned people have decided to label education.
This is also the class in which we started out by reading Jane Austen's Emma. During our last class on Thursday, I handed in my final draft of the paper we were to write on the book. Was I late? No, my paper was on time, all right. Did we do Emma the entire semester? Thank God, no. I argue that we never really did the book at all. I can remember two class periods in which we specifically discussed the book. What did we do the rest of the time? Well . . . there were no other novels, no short stories. There was a poetry unit. A drama unit lasted about 20 minutes. That's all. I seriously wonder where the time went.
During our last class, our assessment was to write a self-assessment on how we've changed metaphorically based on this class. As I've detected (thankfully) no change at all, this was a serious exercise in bullshit creation.
I still have one class left -- my education class. For that one -- get this -- I have four assessments left. (I say "left" because we don't really have exams, just constant assessments.) In this class, we taped ourselves teaching, so we could view our classroom dispositions. Fair enough. Then we were to trade tapes to view someone else's. Fair enough. Then, and this is the part that kills me: we have to write a self-assessment of our tape, one of our partner's tape, and then videotape the partner-meeting . . . and then self-assess that! What the hell am I gonna say on all this? "OK, there I am . . . teaching. Look pretty smart up there in front of the seventh graders, I do." "There's my partner's tape. She's OK. Not sure why she wore those skin-tight pants to middle school, though." "There's me and my partner talking. We get along OK. Whoop, there I go, blabbing on the tape. Not my fault, though, she wasn't speaking."
The final project for this class is to view, and then self-assess, another videotape of ourselves presenting a unit plan to our class. This just blows my mind. Why must I self-assess something I videotaped? It's right there. I can look at it whenever I want. I don't know what the hell I'm going to write for this. I'm tapped of bullshit. I'd like to write: "HERE'S YOUR FUCKING SELF-ASSESSMENT. I STOOD UP IN FRONT OF THE CLASS. YOU WERE THERE. THE OTHER PROFESSOR WAS THERE. YOU ALL SAW IT. YET HERE I AM WRITING ABOUT IT. SELF-ASSESSING. SHARING MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. HOW DO YOU LIKE THESE FEELINGS? DO THEY MAKE YOU HAPPY? GOOD. BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT MY FEELINGS. I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT FEELINGS. EDUCATION IS MORE THAN FEELINGS. FUCK YOUR FEELINGS. FUCK THEM. AND EVERYTHING I WROTE UP UNTIL NOW? IT'S ALL BEEN WINDOW-DRESSING. ANSWERS CRAFTED TO FIT YOUR QUESTIONS. HOW'S THAT FOR HONESTY? LOOK AT HOW MUCH YOU KNOW ABOUT EDUCATION, NOW. BET THE DRIVER NEVER HAD THE RIDER DEMAND HIS TICKET, DID HE?"
Or as Socrates put it: "What a way to behave, my friend, going off like this, and dashing the high hopes I held!"
"What time is that, Will?"
Well it used to be test time. But here at the women's college . . . it's (I advise you to hold your breath . . .) assessment time. Just what are assessments? That might require some background.
Take my English class. Oh, the thought brings a flood of memories. Like the first day of class, in which we created posters which represented how we thought of ourselves as readers. That's right. I'm 26 years old, I go to a women's college, and we made posters. Laugh it up. Woo-hoo, look at Will, Will the clown, ha-ha-ha, he goes to women's college and makes posters.
It gets better.
The major project of this English class was to take a metaphorical digital picture of ourselves, which we later presented to the class. This presentation of our metaphor (which, again, was to represent ourselves as readers), was videotaped for the department to view. That's right. This isn't just one nutball prof. This is what an entire department of learned people have decided to label education.
This is also the class in which we started out by reading Jane Austen's Emma. During our last class on Thursday, I handed in my final draft of the paper we were to write on the book. Was I late? No, my paper was on time, all right. Did we do Emma the entire semester? Thank God, no. I argue that we never really did the book at all. I can remember two class periods in which we specifically discussed the book. What did we do the rest of the time? Well . . . there were no other novels, no short stories. There was a poetry unit. A drama unit lasted about 20 minutes. That's all. I seriously wonder where the time went.
During our last class, our assessment was to write a self-assessment on how we've changed metaphorically based on this class. As I've detected (thankfully) no change at all, this was a serious exercise in bullshit creation.
I still have one class left -- my education class. For that one -- get this -- I have four assessments left. (I say "left" because we don't really have exams, just constant assessments.) In this class, we taped ourselves teaching, so we could view our classroom dispositions. Fair enough. Then we were to trade tapes to view someone else's. Fair enough. Then, and this is the part that kills me: we have to write a self-assessment of our tape, one of our partner's tape, and then videotape the partner-meeting . . . and then self-assess that! What the hell am I gonna say on all this? "OK, there I am . . . teaching. Look pretty smart up there in front of the seventh graders, I do." "There's my partner's tape. She's OK. Not sure why she wore those skin-tight pants to middle school, though." "There's me and my partner talking. We get along OK. Whoop, there I go, blabbing on the tape. Not my fault, though, she wasn't speaking."
The final project for this class is to view, and then self-assess, another videotape of ourselves presenting a unit plan to our class. This just blows my mind. Why must I self-assess something I videotaped? It's right there. I can look at it whenever I want. I don't know what the hell I'm going to write for this. I'm tapped of bullshit. I'd like to write: "HERE'S YOUR FUCKING SELF-ASSESSMENT. I STOOD UP IN FRONT OF THE CLASS. YOU WERE THERE. THE OTHER PROFESSOR WAS THERE. YOU ALL SAW IT. YET HERE I AM WRITING ABOUT IT. SELF-ASSESSING. SHARING MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. HOW DO YOU LIKE THESE FEELINGS? DO THEY MAKE YOU HAPPY? GOOD. BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT MY FEELINGS. I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT FEELINGS. EDUCATION IS MORE THAN FEELINGS. FUCK YOUR FEELINGS. FUCK THEM. AND EVERYTHING I WROTE UP UNTIL NOW? IT'S ALL BEEN WINDOW-DRESSING. ANSWERS CRAFTED TO FIT YOUR QUESTIONS. HOW'S THAT FOR HONESTY? LOOK AT HOW MUCH YOU KNOW ABOUT EDUCATION, NOW. BET THE DRIVER NEVER HAD THE RIDER DEMAND HIS TICKET, DID HE?"
Or as Socrates put it: "What a way to behave, my friend, going off like this, and dashing the high hopes I held!"
