class
i don't really want to write this, i want to say it, to someone in particular. but i also want to remember it so i am going to write it anyway.
i think i need either full-on, all-out discussion (full-time seminar, like at st. john's) or absolutely no room for discussion, pure lecture and worksheet-solving, nothing else. but it is just too damn hard for me, too frustrating and uncomfortable, even painful, to try to do anything in between.
when i'm a sort of guided discussion, something that (temporarily) takes the form of seminar (open conversation) but is nevertheless being targeted towards something specific--not in the sense of consistently referencing a specific question, but in the sense of needing to end up at a particular answer--i really, really, really want to know the target/answer. it's not just that i'm impatient, that i just want the answer revealed to me and don't want to work for it. it's that i really want, emotionally, to be able to see ahead (implied: of everybody else) to where the teacher is headed, to be able to hear in his/her pointed questions the answer s/he is looking for, and to supply it, to fill the rhetorical gap s/he needs filled so s/he can move on to the next point s/he wants to make, the next question s/he wants to ask, the next movement in thought. i want to be that person that sees the shape of the thing, its lines and turns, and pushes the class toward its goal, that moves the thing forward. and when i can't do that, when i really can't see where it's going, where we're headed, but i can tell that it is trying to go somewhere, i just can't stand it. i feel so stupid and useless, so angry at the teacher, for giving me a goal, for continually implying that i am expected to meet it, but not giving me enough to get there, to even see what the goal is. it feels like a waste of time--my time, the teacher's time, of everybody's time. and that anger makes it harder to follow the lines, to see the lines, even that there are lines, which makes me angrier, which makes it harder, which makes me angrier... until i can't think of anything but how stupid i am and/or how cruel the teacher is being and i've lost all interest in what we're supposed to be thinking about. i just want it to be over, so i can go away, and hope that nobody notices that i failed, that i didn't get there, that i don't have anything to contribute, that i didn't even belong in the class in the first place. and/or so i can write long fuming lj rants about how teachers suck and school should be so so vastly different from how it is now.
and i know all this is a personal problem, and it's not just limited to the classroom. but it's a serious problem, and it's one i've had all my life but never been able to put into words until now.
i don't know what implications this has for my thinking on education, or my numerous neuroses, or anything else. and right now i don't want to know. i don't want to solve it, resolve it; i just want to be here, in this anger, to stay with it and let it soak through me, until i know i'm not falsifying it, turning away from it, absolving myself of it. until i know that it is mine and i felt it, that i gave it what it called for, that i did it justice. and maybe then i can start thinking something meaningful about it, something worthy of its power and its urgency.
i think i need either full-on, all-out discussion (full-time seminar, like at st. john's) or absolutely no room for discussion, pure lecture and worksheet-solving, nothing else. but it is just too damn hard for me, too frustrating and uncomfortable, even painful, to try to do anything in between.
when i'm a sort of guided discussion, something that (temporarily) takes the form of seminar (open conversation) but is nevertheless being targeted towards something specific--not in the sense of consistently referencing a specific question, but in the sense of needing to end up at a particular answer--i really, really, really want to know the target/answer. it's not just that i'm impatient, that i just want the answer revealed to me and don't want to work for it. it's that i really want, emotionally, to be able to see ahead (implied: of everybody else) to where the teacher is headed, to be able to hear in his/her pointed questions the answer s/he is looking for, and to supply it, to fill the rhetorical gap s/he needs filled so s/he can move on to the next point s/he wants to make, the next question s/he wants to ask, the next movement in thought. i want to be that person that sees the shape of the thing, its lines and turns, and pushes the class toward its goal, that moves the thing forward. and when i can't do that, when i really can't see where it's going, where we're headed, but i can tell that it is trying to go somewhere, i just can't stand it. i feel so stupid and useless, so angry at the teacher, for giving me a goal, for continually implying that i am expected to meet it, but not giving me enough to get there, to even see what the goal is. it feels like a waste of time--my time, the teacher's time, of everybody's time. and that anger makes it harder to follow the lines, to see the lines, even that there are lines, which makes me angrier, which makes it harder, which makes me angrier... until i can't think of anything but how stupid i am and/or how cruel the teacher is being and i've lost all interest in what we're supposed to be thinking about. i just want it to be over, so i can go away, and hope that nobody notices that i failed, that i didn't get there, that i don't have anything to contribute, that i didn't even belong in the class in the first place. and/or so i can write long fuming lj rants about how teachers suck and school should be so so vastly different from how it is now.
and i know all this is a personal problem, and it's not just limited to the classroom. but it's a serious problem, and it's one i've had all my life but never been able to put into words until now.
i don't know what implications this has for my thinking on education, or my numerous neuroses, or anything else. and right now i don't want to know. i don't want to solve it, resolve it; i just want to be here, in this anger, to stay with it and let it soak through me, until i know i'm not falsifying it, turning away from it, absolving myself of it. until i know that it is mine and i felt it, that i gave it what it called for, that i did it justice. and maybe then i can start thinking something meaningful about it, something worthy of its power and its urgency.