life as a teacher

"As [Martin] Heidegger was praising the primordial wisdom and natural integrity of his Black Forest farmers, the provincial teacher saw his fellow adults only as cattle, maggots, or, at best, three-quarters human. [Ludwig] Wittgenstein loved the idea of the "simple people," but not the reality, just as he loved the idea of life as a teacher, but not the rapidly changing job of teaching in Austria under the educational reforms instituted by the Social Democrats. His revulsion at the teaching methods that were being introduced was clear[.]"

~~ from Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy by Wolfram Eilenberger

honest teacher

"An honest teacher would bring about the extinction of the entire teaching profession. An honest teacher would obliterate every illusion, practice, and malpractice that keeps this edifice of teaching in place, I thought."

~~ from The Sick List by Ansgar Allen

the most in over a year

Yesterday evening, I swam 36 lengths, or a half mile, slowly with breaks over 30 minutes. But this was the most swimming I'd done in at least a year, nearly tripling my largest lap number of the summer, and so it makes me certain I'll be swimming a slow mile again soon.

So forget any aforementioned failure. I'm a big success.

In other news, I've seen Mark Edmundson's name popping up in The Chronicle of Higher Education and The New York Times, and I wanted to mention that his memoir Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference was also a book I'd read that led me to write my own version of teaching although my setting, of course, would be the adjunct scene of urban higher education.

Like some of my all-time favorites, Edmundson's memoir was one I chanced upon while browsing in a brick-and-mortar bookstore, and I enjoyed his writing about a favorite twelfth-grade instructor, a passionate fellow who dared Mark and his classmates to resist conformity (but soon after that year ditched teaching for law school). It was a nice complement to Boston Public and the testimony of various friends and family members caught up in the K-to-12 teaching life as well as Felicity and my own teaching and tutoring schedule. With television and work, what else could I need?

Following up on the coincidence angle, it was of course Wes-MOOC President Michael S. Roth who wrote The New York Times review of Edmundson's book.

idealism

If you're looking for some long, lost idealism to add to your working week, here's a healthy dollop served up by Queensborough Community College Professor Charles Neuman. Because he teaches physics and astronomy it is indeed tempting to suggest that this young man has his head stuck in the clouds.

But it's good to know he can at least temper his positive vibrations with a little departmental conflict, or at least tension:

"I am starting to see that idealism is a threat. My colleagues’ simple expressions of idealism invoke disproportionate responses of vitriol. There’s something primal about this hatred. I posit that idealism represents youth, and those who feel they have lost it, or never had it, are so pained they can only respond with fury. It’s sad, really."

To continue Charles's thought, I've noticed that sometimes my collegues' simple expressions of vitriol invoke disproportionate responses of idealism. It's probably just all the headache and disagreement associated with any kind of faculty, and yet another reason to avoid extensive communication with teachers--they always have a minor quibble, ancillary thought, competing notion, neurotic twist, or other intriguing consideration that can make discourse among them positively exhausting. I've heard that lecturers can be the worst.

Educators of the World Disagree!

But may you stay forever young, Charles, Clark Hall, and teaching, that most noble and paradoxical of all the professions.

Charles and I shared an old building during our "frosh" year of college, and reading his words and being reminded of Clark Hall have successfully "youthened" my own working day.

And now, alas, it's back to grading.