I can't imagine being bored...
May it's the collegiate world. Maybe it's mid-Michigan. Maybe it's just me. But I wonder how anyone in this world could be bored. I challenge my students when they say this about themselves and their lives. Last semester, I collected (or attempted to at least) a quarter from each student who used the word in my presence.
This semester, it's worse. I am challenging them to define the word - what it means in their world. According to a dictionary, it means "to tire with dullness or repetition." One thing a college campus is not is dull or repetitive. So, where does this enter funk in their lives?
Between you and me, I fear these folks are essentially bored with themselves. So many of them live in a world that is me first, I want. It is only when they expand their view, see others around them, get involved with someone or something "meaningful," journey outside themselves, that the word "bored" leaves their daily vocabulary.
Don't get me wrong. So many of my students work on and off campus, participate in sports, clubs, home life, etc. These are the folks that do not whine about the dullness of days. That's why we offer alternative Spring Breaks here, and service learning requirements. Once a young person's eyes are opened and their thoughts are elsewhere, they tend to perk up. It's wonderful to watch. It is like a bud opening, a hatchling springing forth, a birth of person-hood. That is anything but boring.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Everything old...
It's a red-letter day on the New York Stock Exchange. After 214 of good old yelling, running, jostling, jotting down trades on paper, the digital age has arrived. Now, traders have the choice of accessing stock electronically vs. using real people to deliver the goods.
Pictures of the scene were confusing at first. Gone were the red coats, mobs of vocal traders, mounds of paper. Instead, one photo showed floor workers sitting, just sitting....Is this what technology wrought? Edison wondered it decades ago. Now it is our turn. Gone are so many things: fresh milk and newspapers on the doorstep, rotary phones (ringing phones, really) typewriters, Morse Code, records (LPs, not those goofy 45s), Johnny Carson, pay phones, and all of the "people" jobs that went along with them...What is man/woman to do, now that technology can do it faster, better, 24-7?
Maybe it will be Utopia on Earth - leisure time, time to relax, read, enjoy the season, enjoy people, travel, think, volunteer, bake, make our own clothes, build our own homes...Yes, back to the good old days, the Little House days...wait a minute, weren't those the days we were leaving behind?
Pictures of the scene were confusing at first. Gone were the red coats, mobs of vocal traders, mounds of paper. Instead, one photo showed floor workers sitting, just sitting....Is this what technology wrought? Edison wondered it decades ago. Now it is our turn. Gone are so many things: fresh milk and newspapers on the doorstep, rotary phones (ringing phones, really) typewriters, Morse Code, records (LPs, not those goofy 45s), Johnny Carson, pay phones, and all of the "people" jobs that went along with them...What is man/woman to do, now that technology can do it faster, better, 24-7?
Maybe it will be Utopia on Earth - leisure time, time to relax, read, enjoy the season, enjoy people, travel, think, volunteer, bake, make our own clothes, build our own homes...Yes, back to the good old days, the Little House days...wait a minute, weren't those the days we were leaving behind?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Communication!?!
Communication - I teach it every day, and yet, at times, it becomes less accessible to me and my students, not more.
For example, there is nothing like repeating a concept we've gone over for two weeks to a sea of blank, helpless faces. Hey, it's 9:45 a.m., they shouldn't be sleepy, right? So, what gives?
Yes, I asked. I do teach communication. The answers mostly revealed, "We're listening, we're just not showing it." No kidding.
Later, while relating my frustrations to my colleagues, I jot this down on a lunch napkin: "If we don't care if they understand, why should they care to understand."
This is a breakthrough for me, especially as a fairly new college professor, and a person who cares far too much about getting it just right. My sole purpose (and soul, too) is to relate knowledge and stimulate learning and understanding. I take it very seriously. I hope my students feel the same way. But, I don't, EVERY day, and I guess, neither should they.
It goes back to remembering what it was like to be an 18-19-20-year-old, with obligations and frets and commitments and never enough time, money, energy.... It comes down to realizing we're all searching, hoping, dreaming, being, day-dreaming at any one given time.
They'll get it sooner or later, and so will I.
For example, there is nothing like repeating a concept we've gone over for two weeks to a sea of blank, helpless faces. Hey, it's 9:45 a.m., they shouldn't be sleepy, right? So, what gives?
Yes, I asked. I do teach communication. The answers mostly revealed, "We're listening, we're just not showing it." No kidding.
Later, while relating my frustrations to my colleagues, I jot this down on a lunch napkin: "If we don't care if they understand, why should they care to understand."
This is a breakthrough for me, especially as a fairly new college professor, and a person who cares far too much about getting it just right. My sole purpose (and soul, too) is to relate knowledge and stimulate learning and understanding. I take it very seriously. I hope my students feel the same way. But, I don't, EVERY day, and I guess, neither should they.
It goes back to remembering what it was like to be an 18-19-20-year-old, with obligations and frets and commitments and never enough time, money, energy.... It comes down to realizing we're all searching, hoping, dreaming, being, day-dreaming at any one given time.
They'll get it sooner or later, and so will I.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Premiere! And MLK Day
Okay, I've done it, I've actually completed a New Year's Resolution: join the techno world and start a blog. After all, I'm in the business, sort of. I teach journalism/mass communication, including freshman writing at a private Mid-West college.
So, what do people talk about here, and why would anyone read this? It's a journal, right, but one with no locks, no codes, no secrets. It's open, exposed to the world, the air.
Today is MLK Day - We had a guest speaker on campus talking about social justice, specifically migrant workers and immigration rights/wrongs. Approximately 60 students and staff attended, and were silent throughout. I was one of only two questions during the Q&A and I really don't like speaking up or out - I see our gatherings as student-centered, so students should be engaged and engaging and profs should zip it. But today, there was a distinct air of dis-interest. It could have been the cold, wet and ice outside. It could have been the cold room we had to suffer with. It might have been a weariness of another unimaginative way to celebrate this day. It worried me a bit. There are so few remembrance days that we truly "celebrate."
This day above all cries for action, reaction, shouts of pride, outrage, defiance. Where are they? And where are they if not on our college campuses? Yep, I witnessed the 70s - I was actually a year or two later - the anti-war and continuing civil rights riots and marches. Where have they gone? Is it just Wii, not me or you today? Who is speaking up and out? Folks such as our 60-year-old speaker. They won't be here forever. Then what, or who?
So, what do people talk about here, and why would anyone read this? It's a journal, right, but one with no locks, no codes, no secrets. It's open, exposed to the world, the air.
Today is MLK Day - We had a guest speaker on campus talking about social justice, specifically migrant workers and immigration rights/wrongs. Approximately 60 students and staff attended, and were silent throughout. I was one of only two questions during the Q&A and I really don't like speaking up or out - I see our gatherings as student-centered, so students should be engaged and engaging and profs should zip it. But today, there was a distinct air of dis-interest. It could have been the cold, wet and ice outside. It could have been the cold room we had to suffer with. It might have been a weariness of another unimaginative way to celebrate this day. It worried me a bit. There are so few remembrance days that we truly "celebrate."
This day above all cries for action, reaction, shouts of pride, outrage, defiance. Where are they? And where are they if not on our college campuses? Yep, I witnessed the 70s - I was actually a year or two later - the anti-war and continuing civil rights riots and marches. Where have they gone? Is it just Wii, not me or you today? Who is speaking up and out? Folks such as our 60-year-old speaker. They won't be here forever. Then what, or who?
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