I'm just finishing up Winter Quarter, 2004. I'd have to say this was the worst quarter I've ever had as a college teacher. At this point I'm not sure what the problem was, but I have a few thoughts.

First, it seems to me that the material was a little stale . . . at least for me. This is the third year I've taught this cycle of Humanities Core, and the fifth year in a row I've taught J. Lupton's Odyssey. So maybe I just wasn't able to get up enough energy for these topics again. However, I also felt like my students didn't bring a lot of energy to the sessions either. Of course, this is part of undergraduate teaching, especially in a public university, so that probably shouldn't make such a big difference, but I just felt the life being sucked out of me every time I walked into the classroom. Some of them looked like they wanted to murder me. I seriously thought I should wear a bullet-proof vest to class. Still, my motto is “if they’re not learning, I’m not teaching,” so I really don’t feel like I did enough to make the material exciting for the students, maybe because I was too busy and stressed out to feel much excitement for it myself. Teaching at UCI it’s essential for the teacher to just fill the room with energy, but I felt overwhelmed every time I stepped into that black hole and I could never get them really going.

I also think I was reluctant to really drive home what was most interesting to me about the material we’ve been covering. While I understand that many of the comparisons we make between current issues and historical events are both misleading and facile, I think I should have done more to make those connections obvious. For example, the fact that the French Revolution’s discourse on human rights failed to bring real equality for women or slaves seems worth reviewing. To what extent is our own “liberal discourse” blind to the inequalities its “discourse of equality” creates?

Furthermore, while I admit that Robespierre is not Barry Goldwater, doesn’t Robespierre’s rationalization of terror in the name of republican virtue serve as a cautionary tale to all the “true believers” out there, whether they be liberals or conservatives? Doesn’t the Patriot Act remind us of the way both the Directory and the National Socialists seized power? And doesn’t the latest indecency legislation working its way through Congress in the wake of the Janet Jackson affair smack of Nazi cultural restrictions? But I failed to really drive home these points, both because I worry about “preaching” to my already-jaded students, and I get the impression most of them are only concerned with what is going to be on the test.

And if they are only concerned with what is going to be on the test, should every discussion session be a “study session?” Should I be going beyond what is covered in lecture knowing that will just increase the amount of material that could potentially be on the test? If I only review what was discussed in lecture, then why would students still need to go to lecture? My philosophy of teaching is based on the assumption that knowledge is constructed and the primary purpose of the discussion is to aid students in the construction of knowledge, helping them pull together what they have read and heard in order to form their own coherent picture of the subject. But this quarter I didn’t see much knowledge under construction. Why was that?

Part of the problem is grades. I feel like I’m more a representative of the registrar’s office than a teacher. The tenuous nature of my appointment at UCI, especially in this era of budget cuts, means that students’ evaluations may make the difference between my family having health-care next year or not. Knowing this, I felt my self awfully burdened by student demands for higher grades. I would say that easily half of my students think they are “A” students, but, at least on the essays, only about ten percent are actually “A” students, and this quarter I felt like two of my clearly-“A” students did really try very hard and so they ended up with “B’s.” All of this added up to a lot of angry students.

But a friend of mine told me that there are usually three kinds of students: those who are gifted but not teachable, those who are teachable but not gifted, and those who are both gifted and teachable. I think I’ve spent too much time worrying about the vocal, cranky, whining, hateful minority who are gifted but unteachable. They didn’t want to talk about The Odyssey, or the French Revolution, or the rise of National Socialism, because they thought they already knew everything they needed to know. Because they are convinced that they are brilliant writers, they don’t want to work on their writing skills and are uninterested in real improvement. They assume if there are any problems with their writing, these problems are minor, and if I fail to give them an “A” it must be because I am vindictive, stupid, or unreasonably harsh.

So, in a few days I will start a new quarter resolved to ignore the cranky, bitter few who think they are brilliant, and perhaps they are, but who have no interest in really learning, and I will focus instead on the teachable. I’ve got a feeling that most of my students fall into that category, and they are the reason I am here.