Judge not . . .
The end of the semester finally looming, all University of Akron professors have begun their cycle of evaluations. Today was the last I was asked to complete and the first negative evaluation I have written. Yes, even PMB received high marks as in the end I was forced to admit it was my distaste for philosophy and her accent that drove me to annoyance, both beyond control. On the other side of the scale, it was stupid of Chad to hand back the last exam and then hand out evaluations. Honest, but stupid.
It really was not a personal issue that made me shade "2" and "1" bubbles on Chad's evaluation, but rather it was his overwhelming apathy towards the subject he was instructing. Disinterest is contagious and I am highly susceptible to said disease. As he stood before the class every morning and read aloud the bullets on Child Development from the PowerPoint beside him, I swiftly lost interest. I know that it is as much my fault as his, but the fact that I will now have to work for a 'B' in the course serves as my evaluation. Sorry to say it Chad, but as a member of academia, you fail. This is a university, not a business, regardless of what the administration might have you believe. There is no call to be dry, detached, and devoid of passion. Here's a revolutionary suggestion: do not dictate, do not simply teach; profess.
Perish the Thought
There are countless reasons I should not major in English, but today showcased my number one.
On my first day in Lit and Lang of Women Writers, the professor asked how many of us were English majors. Every other person in the room raised his or her hand; I was the lone dissenter. I was thrilled; here I was in an upper-level English course with all my fellow students being quite passionate about the subject. Unlike them, I didn't have to worry about offending and thereby making an enemy of my peers or a fairly influential professor in the department. It was the ideal situation. However, this semester has been a perpetual disappointment. From the first day, I have been on a different page from the rest of the class, my observations have been ignored or greeted with a, "Hmm, okay, next?" I really hesitate to put this as I'm reading the literature correctly and they're not, or that I'm reading substantially and they are reading superficially, yet again and again it seems that there is great hesitation to reach to the level I am tryng to discuss. Anytime I try and suggest we look at a potential layer of the work, someone is eager to drag it back down to the surface.
We were working on Bone Black today and the question of the book's title arose. Now bell hooks explains her title in part, telling us that bone black is a carbon residue obtained from burning bone that was used in many cave paintings. bell hooks fantasizes in the chapter about painting with bone black and smears of red, colors she loves but is forbidden to wear as black is a grown woman's color and red is the vestment of whores.
So after twelve rounds of "The title is about how she's black. Like, to the bone. She's inescapably black," I had to interject. I said that the entire concept of Bone Black is her inability to fit into the preassigned role of the black girl and how it earns her a reputation of being chaotic, misbehaved, and at the end she's almost embracing that; she's expressing a desire to return to the primal, unfettered roots of her people. There's a sense of returning to the cradle of life and creating her art with raw passion, to be allowed to be a woman and a sexual being. And I received a, "Okaaay. Next?" Which was followed by a, "Well, she's black. But she doesn't understand race as a kid." Furious, I whirled in my seat and scanned the room, desperately certain my eyes would meet KD's and he could back me up. It was bad enough last year when I had a habit of doing such in POD even though KD wasn't in my class, but I had always depended on him to explain and justify my political opinion. Likewise, it was sad when I would catch myself doing it in G&P last semester. But in an English course, the one subject in which I used to hold my own, to be pathetically searching for someone who isn't there, who will never be there . . . it makes me question my own competence, whether I've ever had anything worth saying or forever simply echoes of the stronger.
I think I shall go read Soltan's blog for a while. No wonder the KD is enamored; it's a euphoric relief to find solidarity, and to find an educator remembering the university is a place of learning, not commerce, and reminding us all that teh interweb is no replacement for respected educators fostering literacy -- it's a rush.
Refuge
I'm hiding from my blog. My readers. In all truth, I will probably direct them here in time, but I needed a moment of escape, safely hidden under my real name (minus two letters; aren't I sneaky?). Once you have become so deeply entrenched in the internet's false bastions, the only escape seems to be more blatant exposure.
