Review of Week

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I'm already behind on my readings for my courses. I was able to skim through Folklore, completely missed Bibliography's assignments, and rushed through four essays for College Teaching, but managed to hide my lack of preparation there because of the format of the assignment (group summary for class discussion). This weekend I've tried to catch up on readings for Bibliography and on schedule for CT, but Dr Rothman of Bibliography has assigned each student about 6-8 hours of proofreading for a text he's editing, and of course I haven't begun yet. The problem of falling behind isn't one of scheduling, but one of priorities ... I chose not to read my assignments instead of being overwhelmed by them.

My teaching sections are on course, essentially, though I'm constantly wondering if they're really learning anything, or are they simply go through some motion of writing, believing that they already know all they need to know and don't consider their learning objectives. I tried to engage students at LSC Friday morning regarding the hub-bub about Obama's address to school children, but the Montgomery County Republican mindset is strong and several students have bought the idea that the President is a Muslim socialist bend on indoctrinating youth to his nefarious ways (see letter to Representative Riddle). That one has bothered me all week. Perhaps I made a mistake in even bringing it up; some discussion in the CT class on Friday indicated that most believe that "controversial" topics should be left out of the classroom, whereas I feel that college students should at least be exposed to ideas. But I could be wrong ... perhaps it's best to let them lie comfortably in their beds with sugarplums dancing.

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