It's remarkably uplifting
to have students tell me that recitation is making a difference in
their understanding of the material. Though I tend to play the cynic
in conversation, I do try to inform my students in the course of our
recitations, especially since the course I'm teaching, The World
Since 1945, is a very broad survey and covers a very wide combination
of issues and events. Lecture is a hundred minutes a week, but to
cover (for instance) the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict from 1948 to the 2nd Intifada in 2000 in the
first lecture and the course of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in
the second lecture leaves the students completely lost. In a way,
it's amazing to me how little they know about the world. Further,
though, when one thinks about just how many discrete data one needs
to have a reasonable grasp of the major events of the last sixty
years, I suppose it's not unreasonable. In any case, all I think I
can really do is provide an interpretive framework that hangs on a
few key points, a way to think about the world that doesn't rely on
an in depth grasp of the details. Frequently I feel like it's a
hopeless task, but occasionally a student will come in to office
hours and tell me that the readings always make a lot more sense
after recitation than beforehand and that sounds like adding value to
me.
Beyond the vagaries of
the instructional schedule, life lurches along. Turkish and Polish
have more or less ceased to produce new material to learn and shifted
over to a review focus aimed at preparation for the final. Some
stress is missing in the process as I have no real idea what my grade
is and it doesn't really matter in any conceivable capacity, but I
nevertheless would like to do well and so it's back in some ways to
the mindset of high-stakes testing. Despite the low stakes. I somehow
managed to talk Jenya into joining me for ballroom, and so far we
have completed the American Tango rotation. As it turns out, a more
or less five year hiatus does no favors for one's competence, but it
did (largely) come back. In pursuance of true fidelity to my material
I moved to mutton chops for Halloween, and due to the extension of
the Halloween season I've only started growing back the chin this
last weekend. I guesstimate another week or so before normality in
facial hair is restored. Responses have varied from one friend who
physically recoiled in shock and disgust to several people who have
importuned me to turn it into my regular look.
The semester is, it
seems, lurching to an end. It's getting about time to start
organizing my 18 month review and planning for Thanksgiving and
Christmas. For which I am excited. After missing Christmas last year
I'm really looking forward to decorated trees and Christmas cookies
and pies and presents and snow and such. The desiderata of the
season.
Başlıyorum yaşamak.
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