Two Feet In | Writing and the Institution

Assigned by Tamara Fish for our first class on Friday: Who are you as a teacher? Or are you a teacher at all? I'm still a novice teacher, one who has the experience of management, but concerned about the efficacy of instruction and student-centered learning. Do you think of yourself as a teacher, or is this a new concept for you? I'm a teacher; have been for a while. Do you want to be a teacher? If so, what kind of teacher do you want to be? Why? If not, why not? I want not only to be a teacher, but to be an effective, great teacher, if only to strengthen the learner's experience. Where do your images of teachers come from? Plummer, Nibley, Packer, Connery in "Finding Forrester." What do you think of when you think "teacher?" Especially with adults, a sharer of knowledge, skills and strategies, a fellow traveler with previous experience. What teachers have influenced you, negatively or positively? Positively -- college Shakespeare instructor(s) -- ...

After getting home late last night because of a late Dynamo game, and after the power went off last night because of ... unknown, and after remembering this morning that I don't have enough athletic shoes because someone stole my left shoe , and after trudging through parent traffic surrounding two elementary schools -- parents who are either too protective to put their children on the bus on the first day or who insist on meeting the teacher on the first day and will never do so again, so they tie up traffic while taxpayers who wonder why school buses are not being used slowly wait for this orgy of emotionalism and unrealistic expectations of mediocre public schools to let them pass on their way to work -- today hasn't been so bad. I've been wrestling with LSC network passwords for days now; seems like every server needs a different password, and that I'm changing passwords every hour. As of this moment I cannot access my LSC mail and this morning I could not access ...

Been working on UH syllabus most of the afternoon, then remembered that I promised to write every day. Hmm. Didn't do that yesterday; did I write Friday? Perhaps. I used to be much more social -- the mission did that, no doubt. And I could remain social for years after. But I know my person/self has been injured, damaged, offended, [something] so I don't have the social confidence I once had. I have little confidence in fact, official or unofficial. I said as little as possible last week in the orientation meetings, and even at LSC meetings I did my best to avoid others. So what is the value of socialization? Why bother? Relationships -- all of them -- are fleeting and ephemeral [first time? I've used that word]. Still, like teeth-brushing, necessary, and so I go through the motions. Why do we plan so far in advance in classes? Can't we flow? Or is this an exercise in initiation? I recognize the value in planning, and in supervision/oversight. But so much work on th...

A week of orientations -- first a short one for new MA students at UH; then three days of meetings for new TA's at UH; then another orientation for adjuncts at LSC yesterday morning and evening. I probably put 300 miles on the truck, easily, and was exhausted by last night. Excited about being back at school at UH, though I'm intimidated by the other students -- I'm not the scholar nor writer that they are. Definitely intimidated by the UH teaching expectations -- very high-brow, theoretical, instead of of the pattern-focus of LSC. But will be a good learning experience for myself. Just lots of work. Not intimidated by the LSC workload, but already am hating the amount of grading I'll be doing. I've decided to reduce the papers to four instead of five, with more in-class writing activities. This may make the class less interesting because students tend to like discussion; so will have to offer more personal reading and on-line discussions, even required. Dr....