A la Recherche du Temps Perdu

I remember everything. Not good.

The Berserker

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Weren't beserkers Norse warriors who cultivated a fine madness when they went into battle?

Yesterday lightning strikes at the Tampa airport delayed my US Air flight into Phoenix, where I missed my Oakland connection by ten minutes. I did get a good five hours sleep at the airport Crown Plaza so I can't pretend I slept on a hard bench in the airport to save money.

Arrived at Oakland at 9:30 a.m., home by a little after 10, time to dab the armpits, put on the crisp shirt and fight bridge traffic -- which the new wiggle detour near Yerba Buena island has certainly slowed down -- and made it to class with a full five minutes to spare.

But my brain was roasted, and I fear I was rather random in my remarks *and you could see the fear in the faces of the lambs.* But a good night's sleep and I probably won't remember at thing.

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And So to Bed, Feeling Better

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I have my goods piled by the door so I won't forget tomorrow's lecture notes. I have vowed to shave even if that spoils my Clint Eastwood moment at the beginning of class when I squint for a while before I start to speak.

I have even printed the names of my students in the grade book in full confidence I will not frighten any of them away first day, which has been known to happen.

Pens? Yes, I have pens.

A Good Day's Work Learning About U.S. Census Data

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Because a smart teacher knows he must remain a moving target, this semester I'm going to assign the residential enclave between the University of San Francisco's upper and lower campuses as the "beat" for my reporting class. We're going to learn more about it: who lives there, why they live there, what they care about, how proximity to USF determines what they care about.

I have no idea how well this will work and what stories we will stumble upon, but I've already learned that in 2000 USF was located in census tract 157 and the little neighborhood between two campuses -- which USF students use as a thoroughfare and parking lot, among other things (which would get on my nerves) -- consists of census blocks 3013, 3012, 3011, 4000, 4001, 4002 and 4003. (Here's a map.)

The population in 2000? Here's the link. But I wonder what time of year the census was taken? That might make a difference about how many student renters were caught up in the survey. Every answer produces two questions -- if you're lucky.

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Existence Before Essence: A Teacher's Motto

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There is no such thing as a bad semester -- I mean, if no one slashes your tires or eggs your house and especially if you don't get a certified letter from the dean or arrive to find the locks changed on your office door.

No, of course, a semester could go wrong in some operatic way suitable for description in recitative. But I've never had one go bad in any of those ways. USF students are many things and one of them is: nice.

I'm talking about a very pleasant place to teach. Here at USF, typically, you come to the conclusion you've done a decent job. You have your notion -- your inner checklist -- of what good work is, and most semesters enough of the kids do enough right for you to conclude there's no disconnect between your goals and your methods.

Also, you've had enough satisfied classes, as measured by the multiple-choice tests the university mandates at semester's end (and pretty much ignores once you're tenured and promoted) to recognize the superficial signs of satisfaction that predict a good score on the "money" question: Overall, do you consider this instructor a good teacher? (rate 1-5)

But here's the good part. Sometimes, you conclude that the kids didn't learn what you wanted them to learn and/or, moreover, they understood what they didn't understand and resented you for their failure. Either or both. Either they and you are dissatisfied, or just you. And that's okay -- as long as it doesn't happen semester after semester. Your *baseline* must be success, most of the time.

If a class goes bad, in a weird way it can be exhilarating because perpetual success is boring and stultifying. (And possibly delusional. I know I may sound somewhat boastful and self-serving here. A former student reads this and replies: What? It's a wonder I didn't kill you with my bare hands, old man.)

I've had some long and interesting conversations this semester with Nick the Student, who would really like to see tenure abolished because he says too many of his teachers are in a kind of comfort zone because their lives are devoid of pressure.

I tell him good teachers create their own discomfort zone. Sometimes you conclude you tried something new, or perhaps hung onto something stale too long. And it just didn't work. Suddenly your next semester becomes much more dramatic, your next class an arena in which you have something to prove. You become the hero of your own epic, reading new books, planning new activities, doing that most daring of all pedagogical acts: drastically revising your syllabus.

It never gets boring. When I first came here nearly 20 years ago, I taught the media management class. I did the classic thing. I found two pretty good books on the topic and assigned the lesser and taught from the better. One of the suggested exercises to illustrate how one should manage was to give a student a waste basket and a bunch of paper wads and tell the student her/his task was to make a game of tossing the wads into the waste basket.

The idea was that the student would begin either by dropping the wads into the basket or by going to the other side of the room and playing long toss, but that finally she/he would settle on a midpoint where she/he was successful most of the time but not all of the time.

And when I did the exercise in class, that's how it played out. Constant success was boring. Too much failure was distressing. That's how to design tasks for subordinates, the text said.

I think that's why I enjoy teaching. It's how I choose to frame the task. Call me Dr. Goldilocks. The porridge is neither too hot nor too cold. It's just right.

Tomorrow the Teacher is the Student in Arts Reviewing/Reporting

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I have a hole in my claims to be a Rockin' Renaissance man; that is, I don't rock. Not even a little.

I won't call myself a Musical Illiterate, since my impression is that many fans of popular music aren't that well informed about the specifics of the craft and/or art of what they enjoy.... Okay, of course, I *am* a musical illiterate. It's just that I am also -- in comparison to everyone else, it seems -- a Musical Indifferent. I mean, I like music. I'm not tone deaf. I don't turn away in disgust. I tap my foot and bob my head. I have quite a few classical CDs and quite a few jazz CDs, though we don't listen to them that much. Actually, I haven't put on a music CD since Christmas when we listen to all the wonderful holiday dreck.

I don't have any music on my IPod. Though we have symphony seats on and off and though occasionally we go to a jazz club, music remains something I *intend* to get into.

I really like "Lament for Beowulf." It's literary, and it's loud. My wife says my tastes in classical are vulgar, 19th Century, Russian for Chrissake.

As for rock/pop/rap whatever. Pretty much indifferent. In the car, I roam the dial, find a song to listen to, enjoy it very much -- and when it's over keep looking for NPR.

So now deep in the semester finally we will do a music review. I told the students: Tomorrow, you bring a favorite music review of some music you really like. (We've done that before with films, TV, drama, the visual arts.) But when class starts I'm just going to sit there. You go up to the front of the room -- one? ensemble? -- and explain to me what it's all about. Because I really don't know. And there's no point in my being ashamed.

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Ancient Mariner Sinks

Today a class I made a Geritol joke and then said something like,"You're too young to know what I'm talking about."

On his blog, one of my students wrote: "Jeritol What is this word? Robertson used it in class and I can't figure out the spelling nor what it means. I'm puzzled."

So it wasn't a throwaway, contextually clear enough not to divert. This is not good. Too many of these "stuff you don't know that I do because I'm old" comments might really be alienating rather than .... Rather than what? There's actually no value at all of any kind in reminding kids of what we both know, that I've been there, done that, forgotten I did it and then did it again except damn I dropped it.

It's a *wake up call* -- either that or ringing in my ears.

Nerves. Virtue.

Today I got up at 5:30 -- in the morning in the dark -- because it was my first teaching day, and my first day is always anxious, even though I taught my first college class 41 years ago as a graduate assistant in the English Department at Duke.

Teaching is something you never quite figure out, which is one reason I think I can work happily until I'm 70 or -- and at this point the Dean's blood runs cold and she leans against the wall for support -- even longer. Some days you try things, pedagogical things, and they fall so flat. But that can be invigorating in an odd way. Redemption is only a class away.

(On the earth the broken arcs; in heaven a perfect round. Robert Browning anyone?)

I was up so very early because I scheduled myself an 8:30 class this semester, adjusting my times to the convenience of others, a possibly forgettable fact, so I will remind certain colleagues of it regularly. But isn't the air perfumed with virtue when you rise before the sun.

I got to the university about 8 and bumped into H., who was striding past the parking lot, as if downhill. I stretched my legs and matched his stride so I could brag a little about how early I had got up.

Well, I get up at 4 every day, he said. Every day. Can't stay in bed. I made some weak comment about how he must get a lot done in the morning, and he said well he did walk to work and then home again every day, and that used up a couple hours.

Perhaps, there's the lesson about doing good. It just rubs you up against people who do better.

By the Way, It's an Ugly Room. All Things Considered When It Comes to Your Artful Nonfiction, Ugly Works

Here's my exercise for today in feature writing. I warn the kids against pathetic fallacy, that literary technique in which inanimate objects display emotion, especially when that emotion reflects the emotional states of fictional characters. But it is certainly reasonable to make note of objects in the real settings in which nonfiction characters present themselves that resonate with -- or possibly contradict -- the writer's judgment of who these characters are. It's a nice way to foreshadow or imply, a kind of artful editorializing.

Or so I argue. Like everything else in this whole business of literary journalism, a little more than a little is by much too much. Try it, I tell them. If I don't like it, I'll trim but give me something to work with, please.

Describing the room: An exercise for feature writing

You have arranged an interview in this room with the person named below. You arrive 30 minutes early. Since you will be writing on deadline, you decide to do a brief sketch of the room before your subject arrives, thinking you might be able to use it as part of your story.

You are interviewing a 60-year-old architect who has been hired to remodel all the classrooms on this campus.

A 35-year-old nun who is leaving holy orders to get married.

A 40-year-old USF employee whose job is cleaning this building.

A 70-year-old priest who is about to retire from USF.

The 40-year-old widow of a USF professor who died of a heart attack in this room last year.

A 20-year-old student who has just been expelled from USF for drinking.

A 10-year-old child prodigy who has just started college at USF.

A 50-year-old prison inmate who has a day pass to take classes at USF.

A 16-year-old high school dropout who is part of a campus tour run by an organization devoted to getting kids back in school.