The Pissed Off Professor

Welcome to my contribution to Blog Action Day!

What’s it about?

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

In honor of the day, I decided to look into some things I could do around my home to make myself and my family more environmentally friendly.

I visited The Union of Concerned Scientist’s Green Tips Page to see what I could do, and here—in no particular order—are the five most doable and/or interesting things I found:

1. Dry Cleaning Clothing is Really Bad for the Environment

In about 85 percent of dry cleaning shops [the] solvent [used in cleaning] is perchloroethylene (or “perc”), a chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers both a health and environmental hazard.

While I don’t do a ton of dry cleaning, I do some, and several articles of clothing I own are marked Dry Clean Only.

It’s not rational to throw these items away, and it seems I don’t have to:

Dry cleaning is not always necessary; clothing makers often place the “dry clean only” label on tags because they can list no more than one cleaning method and can be held liable if an item is damaged when the owner follows the listed procedure. [M]any of these items can be safely washed at home, either by hand or using a washing machine’s delicate cycle.

2. Appliances account for about 20 percent of a household’s annual electricity use.

Reading up on household appliances, I learned a lot about my refrigerator/freezer.

Refrigerators have to work harder to stay cool if they are located near heat sources such as dishwashers, ovens, heating vents, and direct sunlight.

I can’t do much about this, but I will certainly keep it in mind if I ever move and/or redesign my kitchen.

There are actually recommended temperatures for both the refrigerator and the freezer: between 37 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit (ºF) for refrigerators and 5ºF for freezers.

Check your settings!

Keeping the refrigerator and freezer full will help in cold retention, so if either is sparsely filled take up the extra space with water-filled containers.

Very cool! (Pardon the pun.)

3. Many dishwashers have internal heaters.

This means the machine heats the water so one’s water heater doesn’t have to. Often, water heaters are set to 140ºF to accommodate the heating needs of dishwashing. For those of us who have dishwashers with internal heaters, we can turn our water heaters down to 120°F.

4. What about Washers and Dryers?

While there are times one needs to use hot water to wash—and these times are rare—there is no reason to RINSE with hot water.

Drying multiple loads of laundry consecutively will allow each load after the first to make use of the residual heat that remains from the previous load. The last load can likely be dried using the cool-down cycle as the remaining heat will do the trick.

5. What Impact Am I Making on the Environment?

I visited The Nature Conservancy’s Web site to see just what kind of damage my family was doing.

The good news is that we are below the national average. The bad news is we are well above the world-wide average. The worst news is there is very little we can realistically do to reduce our numbers in the near future.

Afterward

I certainly learned a few new tricks, and I’ve already begun implementing them; however, my overall feeling in all of this is how difficult it is for change to occur at the consumer level.

I had little control over the design of my kitchen, but the contractor did: why not mandate designs that take into consideration appliance location for the most environmentally friendly results?

In fact, why is it that every single home now being built isn’t environmentally friendly, energy efficient, and solar powered? (Each time I read about alternatives, the ideas began with “the initial cost is higher.”)

Why isn’t every vehicle now being manufactured a hybrid? (Can you say the power of the oil companies?) I can’t just get rid of the vehicles I have, but down the road, there is no doubt our replacement vehicles will be hybrids.

My frustration stems from the fact that we have the technology and know-how to make obsolete many of the products most harmful to our world, but because of politics and profit, not enough is being done to ensure responsible consumers can afford to be green.

Until that time comes, I’m keeping up with my good habits, and adding a few new ones to my arsenal.

Hail to the Earth!

Grading essays is such an odd task: it combines evaluation with instruction, but each message is often lost on its audience. Marking papers is a time consuming and exhausting process, and not getting paid to do it only becomes more frustrating when I consider the effort is probably going to be ignored by the student who wrote the crappy paper to begin with. (After all, had the student paid any attention in class, the paper wouldn’t be bleeding.)

There are all kinds of theories floating around regarding how best to grade/mark papers including how much to say; how to say it; and whether or not using red ink will somehow destroy the psyche of students.

I find discussions in this area rather comical because no one ever discusses how many red marks a math teacher ought to put on a paper. I’ve seen plenty of math exams with big, fat zeroes on the top of them, yet no one looks at the math teacher and shakes a head over the damage done to that student’s self-worth.

After all, math is an exact discipline, but English is subjective.

That’s a load of crap. Picking up a novel is subject to likes and dislikes, but grading an essay is absolutely not. How can I be so sure? Who in her right mind would actually choose to read a 10-page research paper written by a first-year college student? There is so little chance any student of mine is going to fill page after page with enlightening information that if I were operating on a subjective level, I’d toss all the pages away and be done.

I’m not saying I don’t get chills over well-written papers: I do. I’m not even saying I don’t get the occasional new idea: I get those, too. What I am saying is there are only so many ways a particular rhetorical assignment can be written given the level of challenge I can attempt in a first-year, GE course.

A math teacher doesn’t just ask her students to fill a sheet of blank paper with every formula, equation, and theorem known to them any more than an English teacher turns students loose to write anything and everything.

There are areas of focus whether in a math class or an English class, and those are concrete, easily weighed, exact things.

But grading essays is still an enormous undertaking, and the more I can refine the process, the better.

I’ve tried many things, but I may have hit on something this time: samples.

For the first paper, I asked students to focus on framework; specifically, a solid thesis with logical, analytical support. Not surprisingly, some students succeeded and others failed.

Because we had thoroughly discussed and practiced these things prior to the paper’s due date, marking all the stuff students didn’t do—after being taught/told to—seemed wasteful and redundant. So I didn’t do the same level of marking I usually do.

I chose five of the best and five of the worst papers, took the thesis sentences and the major point of support from each, and placed them in pairs on a handout. (The writer’s remained anonymous.) I placed “The Good” on one side of the page and “The Not So Good” on the other. (Look: I coddled!)

I prepped the class for the handout by telling them what was coming and explaining anonymity would be retained as long as no one revealed himself/herself.

I noticed an immediate straightening up in seats. I also noticed several students who were on “The Not So Good” side of the handout turn a bit green.

We went over each pair of “The Not So Good” work first. I allowed the class to discuss the problems in each example, and I forced them to work with the language from the handout I provide regarding thesis sentences. I also had them refer to the grading rubric to reinforce how significant a thesis is to an academic piece.

From there, we moved to “The Good” and followed the same pattern. I saw lots of nodding and plenty of note taking.

Once we’d completed this exercise, I passed out papers, and for the first time in many, many years, I got no complaints, no under-the-breath grumbles, no snide remarks. Instead, I was asked relevant, specific, logical questions by the very students who needed to ask.

Of course, the degree of effectiveness of this exercise remains to be seen: if the essays due Monday show improvement, I may have just learned something.

Last month, Gregory tagged me, and I’ve spent much of the time between then and now debating how I might respond.

First, thanks Gregory: even if you admitted to struggling with the names of blogs to mention, I think it’s cool that of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, [you] walked into mine.

Second, here are the rules of tagging and being tagged:

• Post eight random facts/habits about yourself.
• Tag eight people who should then write their own blog entry about their eight things and post these rules.
• Leave a comment alerting the chosen bloggers they’ve been tagged.

Now, on with the show!

Here are eight (8) random facts about me:

1. While between careers, I seriously considered going to school to become a mortician.
2. As a pre-teen, I was a member of the Sacramento Unicycle Club, and I rode a 6-foot tall unicycle in parades—often I juggled as I rode.
3. I cry whenever I hear Peter, Paul, and Mary sing Puff the Magic Dragon.
4. When I was eighteen, I competed in the Ms. California Golden Bear contest at the California State Fair—it was a women’s body building contest, not a beauty pageant.
5. If I won the lottery, I’d quit teaching to write fulltime and play poker on the side.
6. When I was in my late twenties, I walked on coals.
7. My first grade teacher and I remain friends; in fact, we have the same birthday. For the past 15+ years, we’ve met up on our day and celebrated together. This year, I’ll turn 43, and she’ll turn 79.
8. I have said the perfect thing once in my life: about ten years ago, just before my first Cirque du Soleil experience (Mystère), I was wandering the floor of the Treasure Island Casino when I (literally) bumped into Alex Trebek. With no hesitation, I looked him in the eye and said, “What is, excuse me?” (Fortunately he laughed because his circle of body guards was not in the least amused by my having run into their charge.)

Here are eight (8) blogs I’m tagging; however, I’ve placed them into categories for reasons I think will be clear.

Blogs whose britches are too big to pay attention to a little gnat of a tagger like me:

Wil Wheaton: Yes, he played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but the guy found his real calling when he became a writer.

dooce: Among the other really great (and often edgy) things you’ll find here, Heather Armstrong writes a monthly newsletter to her daughter—they are some of the most touching reads around.

Blogs for which the rules of tagging simply won’t fit:

Indexed: little cards—big thoughts, and when Jessica Hagy is on, she is really on.

TwitterLit: Twice each day, Debra posts the first sentence of a book. (Yes, she’s an Amazon affiliate, but how does that diminish such a cool idea?)

Blogs I love that have already been tagged:

red Ravine: This site reminds me of the sub-title of Anne Lamott’s wonderful book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Their tag post is here.

The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing: Sharon Lippincott shares tips, tricks, advice, and experience geared towards discovering who you are and how you got there via lifestory-telling.

Blogs I lurk at and thus cannot really announce “I’ve tagged you”:

Paperback Writer: Beyond having the best name on the Web, this site is filled with great reading—the blog kind and the book kind, and it’s just plain fun to hang around there.

I, Who Can’t, . .Teach: Another teacher telling it like it is, but this one deals with kids—makes it clear to me where some of mine come from.

And there you have it!

From this morning’s AP wire:

California’s budget is again overdue, and education is at the heart of the delay. While one side refuses to allow more cuts in the area of education, the other is demanding more cuts be made. The result: the members of the state legislature are embroiled in a tug-of-war that appeared to have no end nor hope of compromise in sight—until yesterday.

In what will undoubtedly be hailed as the state’s most important decision in education thus far, the California Education Consortium offered to act as non-partisan mediators to the state legislators. Having reviewed the issues presented by each side of the debate, the CEC has awarded control of California’s higher education to RateMyProfessors.com.

Beginning immediately, all aspects of course curriculum, instructional practices, and hiring/firing will be based on the evaluations left online. The CEC has determined the changes in educational quality will be profound and immediate, and it believes the first wave of change will be seen with the upcoming fall semester. Additionally, by relocating administration, peer evaluation, standards-maintenance, and course-overview to the virtual world, the anticipated monetary savings have been described as substantial.

When I read this, I found myself overcome with joy, and for the first time in my life, I had to review my status: after all, I was going to get the chance to go back to high school—where popularity (not substance) ruled!

Here’s a snap shot of what I found on the index page of the site:

I was pleasantly surprised to see that as I read from top to bottom and left to right, the first listings were the hottest professors—as we all know, it’s absolutely essential to education that a student be attracted to his or her instructor.  Fortunately, right next to the hotties were the instructors with the most smiley faces. (I wonder, are those smiles a result of the students being turned on?)

Sadly, I am neither hot by my students’ standards, nor am I overrun by smiley faces.

Here’s what I found about me:

It seems reports of my evil-doings are exaggerated by some readers of this blog. It also seems no one from my summer classes has rung in—sheesh! Last semester, it appears four students had something to say: two bad and two good.

Here are the rest of the pages:

So, of the twenty-two (22) entries, fourteen (14) are “Good Quality” ratings, four (4) are “Average Quality” ratings, and four (4) are “Poor Quality” ratings.

Let’s see if I can manage to do a bit of math: 64% of the reporting students think I’m good; 18% of the reporting students think I’m average; and 18% of the reporting students think I’m poor.

It’s too bad I don’t put any stock in this site given the majority of reports on me are above average—well, except no one reporting thinks I’m hot.

Summer Session Countdown: T-Minus 4 Days

I think I have the most of what I’m going to need for my first week of school squared away. The job has been made a bit easier by the recent, bad weather: there’s been no temptation to wile away my time in the sun while gazing at the passing wildlife.

Today, though, the sun is out, and the birds are singing. As I completed my morning rounds of watering and filling feeders and baths, I realized that beginning Monday, I’m going to miss out on the best part of the year for relaxation in the wilderness.

Summer session only lasts six weeks, but once it’s over, the cooler weather will have given way to the warmer stuff, and the mornings just won’t be the same.

Soon the pregnant does will wander off to have their fawns, and I may miss that first new baby of the season while away teaching. The new babies only keep their spots for a short time, and they quickly lose their wobbly legs—I don’t really want to miss either event.

The birds are just beginning to bring their young to feed, so I’ll miss out on some of the flying lessons that take place in the early morning hours, and on a scale of cute, beginning flying lessons are near the top.

Then, there is the mating season for squirrels, and that is something that really must be seen to be believed, and that, too, I shall likely miss.

How can an English class possibly compete with any of this regardless of my level of preparedness and enthusiasm? And this is coming from the teacher.

Summer Session Enrollment Watch:

ENGWR 100 (College Writing): 30/28 (Change = +1)
ENGWR 301 (College Composition and Literature): 32/25 (Change = -1)

It appears my worries regarding whether or not my summer classes were going to fill are over. With more than two weeks remaining before the session begins, both of the courses I’m teaching are full, and each has a waiting list.

This means I have to get down to the business of really planning things, and it’s a job I both love and hate.

I love it because there is such a feeling of newness, and there is always an opportunity to do something different, but I hate it because I generally get that so-much-to-do-and-so-little-time-in-which-to-do-it feeling which has got to be the educational equivalent of a panic attack.

This feeling is magnified, say, tenfold when summer session is at issue—and that’s exactly the issue here.

The first few meetings are important: they set a tone for the entire semester, and finding the proper ground between maniacal bitch and oh well is always a challenge. (Given my natural lean toward maniacal bitch, I really have to work at this.)

The 100 course is roughly one-third grammar / punctuation and two-thirds writing. The challenge is easing students into the grammar and punctuation because going at it too hard too early freaks people out. The problem with this in a six-week session is there is very little time to ease into anything. Additionally, because the course requires building blocks and their application, putting off the grammar and punctuation is a delicate matter.

M.C. Escher’s image of a hand drawing a hand is exactly what I mean.

The 301 course is reading heavy, so picking the correct initial reads is crucial to getting the course off to a bang. I have read and reread the texts for the 301 class, and I’m nearing a point where I think I know which selections I want to assign first, but it’s still a roll of the dice. I know two things: I can’t start with Black Maria because it’s poetry, and like grammar and punctuation, poetry freaks most people out. I also don’t want to start with the graphic novel (i.e. comic book) because I think it might send the wrong message.

It’s got to be story that’s shorter than long, not too gory, but absolutely engrossing.

This, my friends, is the nitty gritty of teaching.

Summer Session Enrollment Watch:

ENGWR 100 (College Writing): 29/28 (Change = +10)
ENGWR 301 (College Composition and Literature): 33/25 (Change = +3)

Summer school is an odd beast. It’s a period during which an eighteen-week semester is crammed into six-weeks’ time. That means each day in summer session is equivalent to about three-days’ of class, or each week of summer school is equivalent to about three weeks’ of school.

It is not for the faint of heart, the overly-busy, or the average student.

The same holds true for teachers: the pace is such that even the most productive and disciplined among us are frazzled most of the time.

Unfortunately, many of the students I see in summer session classes are attending to get a particular class over with. They are not generally students who are strong in their English skills, and often, they are students whose ability to transfer rests on passing my class. (Translation for that last part: if they don’t pass, I have ruined their lives and/or destroyed their scholarship opportunities.)

Intellectually, I am opposed to summer school as even the good students (and teachers) must cut certain corners and make certain concessions to make it through the class in the allotted time. (The less advanced the course, the more detrimental this fast-paced, corner-cutting becomes.)

Far too many students have been told (or presume) summer session is shorter; therefore, summer session is easier. I try to set my students straight on the very first day by asking them whether they want a whole grade or merely one-third of a grade. (It’s an excellent test of which students are strong thinkers: the strong students make the connection, but the weak students do not.)

I do break it down for those who can’t do it for themselves by assuring everyone that while shorter in time, my class isn’t shorter in terms of assignments or expectations. I emphasize that to earn a full grade, one must complete the full amount of work.

That’s what I say, but this is what many of them hear: “blah-blah-blah.”

I’ve tried to approach this truth in a number of ways—none of them very successful—because many students are merely stuck in the rut of getting their classes done so they can get on with their lives.

Fair enough: I was once there myself.

This summer, I’m going to try something new: since the majority of students hear “blah-blah-blah” when I talk about the pace of summer session, I’m going to skip that speech.

I’m going to save my breath, pretend I don’t need to insult anyone’s intelligence, and move along to other things. I’m certain it will save me a good deal of frustration in the end.

After all, these are adults I’m dealing with, and the real world doesn’t come with a syllabus: it only comes with an assignment sheet.

Summer Session Enrollment Watch:

ENGWR 100 (College Writing): 24/28 (Change = +8)
ENGWR 301 (College Composition and Literature): 31/25 (Change = +12)

Summer session begins three weeks from today, and already I have a waiting list in my literature class. I don’t want to jinx things, but this is very good news.

In other good news, a box of books I ordered arrived today, and inside were several much-anticipated tomes. Among them was Kevin Young’s Black Maria which I read about in the latest issue of Mystery Scene.

This is a book unlike any I have ever experienced: it is a hardboiled / noir tale told through a series of poems. (Perhaps it is more accurately described as a book of poetry that tells a hardboiled / noir tale.)

It just so happens that the theme of my summer literature class is Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem, and Young’s book is going to round out my book list nicely.

I think we can have some real fun with this book: reading aloud in class, guessing what comes next, and applying what is in Young’s work to the graphic novel and the more traditional short stories I have planned for the course.

Ah, the smell of a new semester with just a hint of fresh book: what could be better?

I have been carefully monitoring my summer session enrollment numbers in hopes that I am:

A. Going to be working;
B. Going to be teaching a literature class;
C. All of the above.

The good news is that summer-session registration is still in its early stages.

The better news is that as of today, I have 13 students (of 28 needed) in my composition course and 12 students (of 25 needed) in my literature course.

The best news is that two of my strongest (current) students are signed up for my summer literature course.

Not only are they patting me on the back by taking another of my courses, but also they are going to make the class a whole lot more fun.

Yeah!

I posted my e-mail response to one of my students yesterday, and today, I learned from another of my students what the real scoop was with Ms. Numerous Deaths and Tragedies Girl. She is up for a promotion at a local (low-end) electronics store.

If things go well for her, she’ll soon be an assistant manager. (And to think we just got finished reading John Updike’s “A & P.”) In order for her to have a shot at this coveted position, she’s had to work some odd shifts and overtime to prove herself.

This has resulted in her missing class and deadlines and lying to me about it. She was earning an “A,” but she’s tanked her grade into the “F” category.

I am certainly in no position to judge the choices my students make; however, I can’t help but feel as if a really talented student has blown a shot at something good in exchange for an opportunity that is not going to be long-term.

Shortly after learning the truth about this student, I returned to my office where my officemate was conferencing with one of her students.

This student is an extremely gifted writer: she has recently turned twenty-two, and is apparently as good a student in the rest of her classes as she is in English. She loves writing—she’s even had a few things published, but she wants to be a doctor.

It turns out she is also a musician—a drummer in fact, and she must be pretty good because she decided to audition for Beyonce’s upcoming tour. She was extended a job offer to be the drummer for Beyonce’s all-girl touring band.

She confessed to my officemate that while excited, she was going to turn the offer down so as not to get behind in school

I was shocked (and frustrated and saddened) to learn my officemate hadn’t tried to convince her to go be a drummer for two years.

Again, this is a twenty-two year old who has an opportunity to travel the world with a reputable performer while exploring what must be considerable musical talent.

I am relatively certain school and the rest of her life will be here waiting for her were she to choose to go be a drummer; however, I fear what the repercussions might be if she stays here, continues with school, and looks back at some point wondering “what if?”

So, in one afternoon, I dealt with a student who tossed a good grade away to pursue an assistant manager’s position at an electronics store and another student who isn’t going to see the world as a drummer so as not to “get behind.”

Honestly, these two choices have left me (theoretically) speechless.