catapult magazine

Well, for the first time (admittedly anyway) I’m out of ideas in my American Lit. class. I reached the Transcendentalists. I’ve always loved these guys (except Whitman). I loved teaching them in my past three years, but those were in a Christian school. Any good ideas on how to teach the simple beauty and wisdom of the transcendentalists (primarily Emerson and Thoreau) without falling into their traps and without blatantly explaining how Christians take the good and leave the bad?
You take ’em all and there you have the facts of life! the facts of life! Doot doo doo doo doo….

Norb, Man, get Brothers K ASAP. If you don’t, and then years later you stumble accross it in some old used bookstore and you read it, you’ll kick yourself so hard for not reading it sooner that it will likely knock you into a coma. I’m serious, man. Get that book and read it. Now. I’ll wait.

I want to thank you both for your helpful comments. And reassurances. Have no fear—I fully intend to keep a tight clutch on my idealism. I think your last comment, BBC, was especially practical and useful. Even though my greatest hope is to help these students make connections between their own worlds and the larger world, I know that again and again I neglect to be explicit.

Perhaps my previous post made it sound like the situation is worse than it is. The fact is that I like every single student in the class on a personal level, even the knuckleheads and “Slayer” who sits in the back corner (self-named). Maybe that is what makes it even more difficult for me—my genuine like for the students makes it even harder for me when they don’t do well, because I WANT them to. Oh, and the “I don’t like to think” comments weren’t meant as cool or funny jokes. Those were actually earnest statements that reflected their personal philosophies, which is where a lot of my frustration stems. I worked very hard to create community in my classroom and I think I am achieving it, but I’m beginning to realize that it requires more than that to really challenge them about thinking. And I know those thinking-students are sitting in my class, and I know exactly who they are. That is always comforting.

I know this is a cliche, but the professors here at UIC, especially in English, are elitist at best and just plain cold at worst. That’s not the cliche part; the cliche is that I want to make a difference. I don’t mean in life-changing ways, but I’d like to dispel the idea that thinking=elitism. Students have expressed shock when I ask them how they are and when I show an interest in them. This saddens me. If they really do see arrogance as the result of thinking, where’s their inspiration going to come from?

This is a great discussion, and I don’t mean to sidetrack it. But I do see a correlation here to a frustration that I and many people I know have had with people around us, and especially with other Christians. I recently had a discussion with my sister. In her Christian college’s freshman theology class, the professor started a debate on “intellectual faith” vs. “faith as mystery” (by mystery, he meant the attitude that “religious” things just can’t be understood—they’re a mystery, and it’s best not to think too deeply or too hard about them). My sister was quite surprised to hear the majority of the students express their distrust for academia and intellectual discussion, and saddened to hear many of her classmates express contentment with a simple, easy, basic understanding of faith.

On a personal level, I meet so very, very few people, Christian or not, who have a burning desire to think hard—whether it be about faith, or business decisions, or politics, or English class. To me, this philosophy of life (“I don’t like to think”) is especially frustrating in other Christians. In everyday life, I have the same question that SARAH has in the classroom: If so many Christians DO mistrust academia, where will they get their inspiration to think from? And what are the best ways of challenging people to stretch themselves (without coming off as a self-righteous elitist)? And is it even appropriate to try to challenge others’ thinking?

I think you make some very good points, kristinmarie, and those are things I’ve been struggling with for the last few years. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve bit my tongue when talking to someone who I feel has a very narrow-thinking view on important things in life. At times my keeping silent has definitely felt like some sort of inner betrayal to myself, and to the other person. But I just don’t always know what my place is…. and how presumptuous I can be when interacting with others.

Which is why it was exciting to get up in front of a class and have a higher position of authority, a place where I had a room full of students who listened to what I was saying. A space where I could develop a community that I wanted, and then use that space to introduce ideas and thinking.

Well, that lasted for a little while. I just went to workshop today where Susan Miller, who is apparently some guru writing composition education person at U of Utah, came to UIC to speak. The main message: we, as composition teachers, have no right to challenge our students to think. Our main job is to give them the tools to write how the academic community expects scholars to write. “The thesis statement ALWAYS goes at the end of the first paragraph, blah blah blah….” As far as instituting any sort of change, or introducing a new level of perception or thinking about things—well, that’s not our area. “How liberating!” one of the older composition teachers said.

“How confusing, and how disillusioning,” I mumbled as I left, giving a symbolic wave to all my idealism, I suppose.