And the question I keep running into is why? What is it about me that seems to put me in this position where people trust me as some kind of authority? It's more than just in the Parasites class, but other aspects of my life and academia.
I suppose there's a level that I don't quite trust myself, but in that I view this as a barrier to accomplishing anything, I've learned to just kind of push past these kinds of doubts. But in doing so, I find I'm performing. I'm so conscious of the performance though that I trick myself into outperforming the performance itself. I'm performing for the performance to prove that I'm not performing. Am I making sense?
In all this performing then, I find that it's a game. Or to use the kind of language I've found so fascinating in The Invisibles, it's a movie. And we almost have to ask, when is it over? When do the credits roll or when does the timer run out? To put it yet another way, when are we finished with a book?
But that's just the thing, we're never finished. Not if it's worth it, not if it had an effect on us. We come back to it, we sample it, we quote it, sometimes we reread it, sometimes we just have it around as a reminder. Still though, it is with us, it doesn't go away.
It doesn't end. It never ends.
"In the end?" Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing Ever ends.
-Dr. Manhattan The Watchmen
And I still don't know why.
The following video was posted to plurk by Daltrain.
2 comments:
I liked this format a lot. And the question you raised at the end of your vlog was very interesting about teachers and students, it reminded me of the relationship between author and audience. It seemed very personal, and it worked. No more hiding this stuff!
Oh... and woot woot, I got quoted. xD
Pedagogy! No, obviously there is no one (satisfactory) answer to your many questions, but here’s what I see. I see a veteran student playing a larger, more self-guided role in the class dynamic; it is analogous to the role graduate students tend to play as teaching assistants for undergraduate classes and so you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re initially viewed this way. As a “graduate” of the ideas encountered in Prichard’s classes you have had much more time and experience analyzing and developing them; while each new class will be approaching them for the first time you are already building on top of what they will eventually conclude with and in a much more specific and directed way. This direction and second (or third? Fourth?) layer of complexity identifies you as a cognitive authority whether you want to be or not; and expertise is, after all, the point of a graduate-level education.
A personal analogy that may illuminate my convoluted point. When you were (are?) in your Anthropology class you mentioned that the discussion groups were fun to participate in; you were more comfortable and willing to express your opinions and concerns and challenge your peers than in, say, a postmodern lit class. There you were the big fish in a small pond; here you may be as well. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and may mean, among other things, that you should seriously consider teaching as a profession. I think that distinction between student and teacher may be more of a continuum of stages of learning; Tony Prichard was, after all, a student himself once. Consider how well developed and extensive your ideas would (hopefully will) be given the same amount of time and further education; how then would undergraduate students think of you?
So let’s talk about teaching for a moment, stripping away all the other nasty bits that hinder learning like letter grades, standardized tests, student-teacher power relations, etc. The problem with big fish in small ponds is sometimes they will (intentionally or not) eat the little fish before they have a chance to grow. Here is where pedagogy comes in. As you well know, presenting your ideas to others always causes some anxiety. A little bit of anxiety, of course, is good; it encourages one to reflect a little and take some care in formulating their thoughts. Too much, however, stifles the conversation and results in it turning into quiet, innocuous little statements made with a minimum of investment in the dialogue and quickly disowned. As more experienced students commenting on the work of new students, we are at constant risk of raising the anxiety level too much when, lacking the pedagogical training to do so (and/or, in my case, the context of the in-class discussions that lead to these conversations in the first place), we don’t frame our responses in useful ways. Here we might return to that discussion of responsibility and consider whether or not we have when we play this role, but that is another topic.
There really isn’t a good way to end this verbose comment, so I want to ask some of your questions right back at you. What are your tentative goals in returning to these classes, texts and ideas? Do you feel there is something you missed the first time around or is this a substitute for the “Advanced Nanotexts/Parasites/etc.” class that doesn’t exist but would fill a hole you’ve recognized in your education? What role do you want to play?
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