Relating to Students

I have this notion that students enjoy younger professors because they tend to be more understanding, since they are not so far removed from being students themselves. I would certainly ascribe to this belief in my own practices: I tend to be more understanding if students need to buy a cheaper edition than the one I ordered for the class, or I am not offended when my class falls pretty low on their priority lists, below even the float contest or that evening's episode of Jersey Shore.

But it wasn't until I actually became a student again that I remembered what it was really like to be a student. There are some obvious differences between me and a "real" college student: I chose the class because I already understood its relevance to my professional career, I am not paying for the course, I will take the tests but they will not factor into my gpa or effect financial aid in any way. Nonetheless, I was a bit surprised by some of the feelings I've experienced in the last 3 weeks of attending class.

On the first day I was scurrying from the class I taught to the class I am a student in (this whole experience is made more interesting by the fact that I teach, then attend class, then teach again. that's some pretty serious role-switching). Half-way down the two flights of stairs I realized I wasn't sure I had a pencil with me. How embarrassing it would be to have to borrow a writing utensil on the first day of class! After digging in my bag long enough I confirmed that I did indeed have a writing utensil. Walking into the classroom, my eyes darted quickly around the room. Where should I sit? I slid to the far side of the room and sat in the middle of the row. Perhaps I am more aware than most college students of how much your chosen spot says about you as a student, but I knew I didn't want to be on the front and I didn't want to be in the very back.

Despite those anxieties, I felt a surge of hope and promise as we went over the syllabus. At this point in the course, anything was possible! Who could guess what the knowledge I learned in this hour would transform in my life? While I still feel that sense of anticipation three weeks later, I have already begun squeezing in the reading a few minutes before class and only half-way doing the homework. There are just so many other important things to do!

I am a bit shocked by my behavior, and I wonder how, if I, as an adult, who highly values the knowledge I'm gaining in this class, am doing so little to get by, do students ever do anything for my classes? I am also comforted by some of the habits of this teacher that I recognize in myself, habits that seem perfectly normal to me as a student, but felt so awkward when I was in front of the classroom. Like looking down at my notes to get my bearings and remind myself of what to say next. I actually enjoyed those moments as a student because it let me catch up in my note-taking and breath for a second. I'm also not sure that I feel totally "passive" during a lecture, the knowledge I'm taking in has my mind working whether I'm contributing or not.

I do find, however, that if we're still on the same topic 5 minutes later, my mind has wandered. Its not that I require a change of activity, just a shift in focus. I always assumed as a teacher that "short attention span" meant I had to drastically change the pace or the activity, but now I think just key shifts would work well enough to punctuate students' attention.

Its also really, really nice to be sitting among the "audience" and not performing in front of the class. As much as I love teaching, being up in front of people exhausts me. I'll be curious what the pressure of "test" day feels like, but for now showing up for class is a completely stress-free and relaxing addition to my day. I am also eager and excited to have the privilege to keep learning. It's been nearly 4 years since I've been a student (as in attending every class for an entire semester), and I dearly missed it. Perhaps this is what the saying "education is wasted on the youth" really means: its not until you've moved on from college that you realize what you had. As with most things, the value of something becomes apparent only when you've lost it. So what does one "have" while in college? What is this education "thing?" Well, that's a topic for another post...

Follow-up

Interesting article on idealized farming vs. the real thing, in light of my experience cutting up a dead chicken.

Breaking Bones

Yesterday was a first for me: I cut up an entire chicken. I've done this before on a cooked chicken, but this was an entirely different thing. For starters, I wasn't just cutting to get meat off the bird to eat, I was cutting to get specific cuts of meat. I was making my own thighs, drumsticks, wings, and breasts instead of buying them from the store. Secondly, in order to create those specific cuts, I had to deal with joints and bones, something I merely avoided when cutting off slices of cooked meat.

You may be wondering, as I myself did during this process, why in the world I would want to do this. Our town finally got a farmers market, and one of the best things about it right now is the availability of organic, free-range, local meat (which is not carried at the ONE chain of grocery stores). If you've ever bought local chicken, then you probably came across the same problem I did: local farmers are limited (FDA regulations and all that) on how they can get their meat processed, so most of them can only sell whole chickens. I call this a "problem" only because I had never cut up a whole chicken before.

After proudly toting home my 5 lb chicken, just killed and processed the day before, I looked up a youtube video by Alton Brown on how to cut up a chicken. Another thing I love about the farmers market - I can show my ignorance and find help. I asked the farmer from whom I bought the chicken how in the world to cut up and freeze different parts of it. His answer - this youtube video! (whoever said farmers aren't tech savvy?)

I watched the video 3 or 4 times first, and then pulled out the chicken. I pushed play, watched Alton make one cut, then paused it and tried it out myself (please do not ever tell Mac the vicinity of this prized laptop to my raw meat-cutting enterprise). If you've ever tried to carry out one of those home-instructional videos, then you know nothing ever goes just as they say it will.

The first problem I ran into was Alton's chicken had no neck and mine did. I tried finding the joint to no avail, I tried cutting around it, I tried making small, sharp, quick, slanted cuts; in short, I tried doing all of the things I saw him do for other parts of the chicken to no avail. As this was early in the process, I was immediately thrown into a fit of anger and despair and I did what all angry and despairing people do: I hacked away like mad at the chicken neck until it separated from the rest of the body in a gooey, sloppy, and wretched mess.

I nearly quit at this point. Not wanting to waste the $20 the bird cost me, however, I took a deep breath and hit "play" to watch Alton cut away the wings. Can I just say it took me about 10 minutes to figure out which way to lay the bird? What was breast side up? I was mortified at my own ignorance, and therefore all that much more determined to become a carving expert. Wiggling the wings in their sockets to find and then cut through the joint wasn't too bad, and before long I had my first cuts of meat: the wings!

For the second step I was supposed to grab the drumsticks and thighs and pull back until they nearly touched one another. This would "pop the sockets" or literally dislocate the joints. To me, I felt as though I was breaking bones.

I nearly quit at this point as well. If I ever was going to become a vegetarian this was the moment. Instead, I remembered Novella's attitude in Farm City when she had to slaughter her own turkey, and I took a moment to celebrate the life of the bird (which I could do because I knew it got to peck around the grass for bugs and feel the sunshine on its back), the good meals it would give me, and to give thanks for its life. Then I broke its legs.

The rest of the process vacillated between hacking despairingly away at bones and meat, and making steady, calm, cutting strokes that produced picture-perfect cuts. At the end of it I had, in some shape or another, the main cuts of a chicken and I had stowed them away in my refrigerator. When I pull these cuts out and cook them up for a recipe, I know memories of this endeavor will come flooding back, with some embarrassment and with some pride.

I can't exactly say in a measurable, scientific way how this experience will change my health or the dinner itself. But I can say that getting my hands dirty (literally) and the investment of time I put into handling the chicken has connected me to these particular pieces of meat in a way that buying some pre-packaged cuts, ripping open and throwing away the plastic, and plopping them into the pan, never could.

I think it is also worthwhile that I cringed through this whole process and felt a little uneasy. That discomfort, when it comes to the killing and eating of animals, is a good thing. It doesn't make me a vegetarian, but it does make me conscious of the sacrifice of the animal for my eating pleasure, and it encourages me to eat in a more conserving, sustainable way so that no part of the animal is wasted. I believe my pleasure in eating this chicken will, in fact, be deepened by the presence of pain because it marks an ethical consciousness about the bird who affords me the pleasures of roast chicken, or cajun chicken pasta, or chicken pot pie.

Now if only my cooking skills were up to the challenge :-)

Beginning Again

Perhaps my favorite thing about this New Year was that as I was scrambling around to get everything ready for the semester (which starts absurdly early on Jan. 9th!) I actually knew where to scramble. I knew where to pick up the copies of my syllabus I ordered, where to take books for ereserves, what policies needed to go on my syllabus. Come to think of it, I even knew things like where my mailbox is, and I even have pens in my office now, my very own pens. I'm wondering now how in the world I survived teaching last semester in a new place!

Perhaps my least favorite thing about this New Year was spending so much time having to justify my existence as a professor, which is what putting the tenure notebook together (completed today!) felt like. This amount of introspection and accounting did not put me in the mood for doing News Years resolutions. Nevertheless, its hard not to take stock of what you want to do better in a fresh semester. It is one of the things, in fact, that I love most about my job - I get to begin again every 16 weeks or so. Sometimes this means doing the same thing over again, but seeing how you can tweak it or improve it. Sometimes this means doing something completely different, which is both refreshing and challenging.

So without formally creating a resolution list, I did ponder what I felt I learned from my first semester that might carry over into some changes this semester. This list goes in wildly different directions, but I think the most important idea I focused on was quality of life. I didn't want to just focus on work goals because I don't want my life to just be work.

The resolution I'm deciding to focus on (because who can handle more than one resolution, really?) is to improve my ability to plan my time, which begins with taking time to plan. Doing a weekly plan sunday did not work too well for me, I too often did not do it. So now I'm going to try monday mornings, which means I will need to either take away a precious hour of writing time or get up an hour earlier. I'm leaving that open for now.

I will also need to start assessing my week every friday to see how I'm doing with sticking to the plan, and also so I get better at determining how much time to allot to certain tasks. My hope is that by focusing so much "resolution effort" on this one action (creating a work plan), it will actually improve my quality of life, by making me a more effective teacher, efficient scholar, and content person who can actually relax without feeling guilty.

What are your resolutions? Like I said before, I sort of hate the feeling of being coerced into reflecting and making goals, but I do strongly believe that our society never slows down long enough to be reflective. I believe the rewards of taking time to be still, however immeasurable, are well worth it. Try it out and let me know what you think.