Things I have learned so far in grad school:
1. When you are speaking, no one is listening to you.
2. In any grad seminar someone will repeat exactly what you just said five minutes ago and act as if it was entirely their own idea in the first place.
3. All undergrads assume that grads students a) live on campus and b) have unlimited free time and nothing to do except answer their questions.
4. Political theory grad students are very awkward creatures.
5. Awkwardness is a state of mind.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
a flood of weber.
I'm sure you all doubt my ridiculous talk of cosmic academic coincidences. But please, seriously, someone needs to explain to me how it's possible that, having never been assigned to read Max Weber before, I have read him already four times this semester, and in four different classes. Twenty-four years of Weber-less existence, and now, he is everywhere. Is this not a very strange coincidence? Is it not academically cosmic!? Come on!
(Those of you who took sosc at Chicago will object to my never having read Weber before, but unlike the rest of you my third quarter of sosc was taught by the world's most ridiculous professor (Gopal, I am still angry with you, FYI) and we spent so much time reading Marx we never got to Weber. I kid you not: We spent at least three classes discussing On The Jewish Question.)
I hope this flood of Weber ends better than my year of reading Nietzsche, which was not at all pleasant. So far it's going better, but in general it seems to me that an overdose of any kind of depressed German can't be healthy in the long run. But as long as I don't end up with a tattoo that reads "fundamental doubt is the father of knowledge," I think everything will be ok.
(Those of you who took sosc at Chicago will object to my never having read Weber before, but unlike the rest of you my third quarter of sosc was taught by the world's most ridiculous professor (Gopal, I am still angry with you, FYI) and we spent so much time reading Marx we never got to Weber. I kid you not: We spent at least three classes discussing On The Jewish Question.)
I hope this flood of Weber ends better than my year of reading Nietzsche, which was not at all pleasant. So far it's going better, but in general it seems to me that an overdose of any kind of depressed German can't be healthy in the long run. But as long as I don't end up with a tattoo that reads "fundamental doubt is the father of knowledge," I think everything will be ok.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
the position of total neurosis.
I have never wanted to be a teacher. Not even in a moment of vocational weakness have ever thought, "well, there's always teaching." This is fairly unusual, especially for someone who has always loved school. Teaching always seemed really difficult, though, and it involves the one thing I hate most: performing for a crowd. In light of this, you may reasonably ask, why would I ever think that it was a good idea to get a PhD in a subject that has teaching as its inevitable end? An excellent question, and one that I have no satisfactory answer for, so please, don't ask me.
In any case, I am now in the position where I not only have to assistant teach, but I'm leading discussion sections for a class which is on a topic I'm not particularly well-versed in. The subject of the class is politics, of course, but it's not really my kind of politics, which is to say that there are occasionally numbers and charts involved. I admit, I have yet to fully appreciate the science part of political science.
It's not clear to me, however, that I would be more comfortable teaching a subject that I do know a lot about. If I knew more about what I'm teaching I might very well realize even more clearly that I have no idea what I'm saying. This would only make matters worse. I spoke to Gremlin about this, and she suggests that there are three possible ways to teach something:
1. Total ignorance: you read something once and then pretend you know something coherent about it and the subject it's on.
2. Partial ignorance: you read something once or twice, but have read some other related things and have a half-formed grasp on the subject in general.
3. Relative Non-ignorance: You've read something a bunch of times, have read lots of other related things, have written on the subject and basically know a whole lot about it.
Gremlin and I agree that there would be nothing worse than teaching from position #2. In Partial Ignorance, you know enough to know there are many different points of view, but you don't know enough to really understand your own point of view, which invariably results in a half-assed presentation of confusion. In position #1, you don't know enough about the topic to appreciate the vagaries of it, and so have the ability to seem confident even when, in reality, you have no idea what's happening. Position #3 is, of course, the best position to teach from, but apparently one only reaches this point at the end of grad school. Which is why, I assume, most schools don't let grad students teach until their third or fourth year in the program, and even then only in their area of specialty. I should be so lucky.
Despite all of this insanity and anxiety about teaching, objectively I know that I can do nothing except shut up and deal with it, which is pretty much what everyone I've talked to about my predicament has suggested I do. I can't get fired, after all; I can only look stupid. Worse things have happened.
I've also realized that, consciously or unconsciously, I set myself up for this kind of grief. I volunteered to go to grad school, didn't I? It's my own damn fault. And this isn't the first time I've set myself up like this, either. In college, for example, I volunteered to write a BA thesis, which meant that I had to participate in a BA thesis seminar, which ensured that I would have to conquer a pathological fear I had had since grade school: letting other people, people who were not my teachers, read my writing. I can't explain it, but this was a long-standing problem for me; not even my mother had ever been allowed to read my papers. And yet, I volunteered to write a BA. Even worse, I ended up kind of enjoying my BA seminar.
And here I am, yet again, volunteering to do things I profess to dislike. There is something very wrong with me.
In any case, I am now in the position where I not only have to assistant teach, but I'm leading discussion sections for a class which is on a topic I'm not particularly well-versed in. The subject of the class is politics, of course, but it's not really my kind of politics, which is to say that there are occasionally numbers and charts involved. I admit, I have yet to fully appreciate the science part of political science.
It's not clear to me, however, that I would be more comfortable teaching a subject that I do know a lot about. If I knew more about what I'm teaching I might very well realize even more clearly that I have no idea what I'm saying. This would only make matters worse. I spoke to Gremlin about this, and she suggests that there are three possible ways to teach something:
1. Total ignorance: you read something once and then pretend you know something coherent about it and the subject it's on.
2. Partial ignorance: you read something once or twice, but have read some other related things and have a half-formed grasp on the subject in general.
3. Relative Non-ignorance: You've read something a bunch of times, have read lots of other related things, have written on the subject and basically know a whole lot about it.
Gremlin and I agree that there would be nothing worse than teaching from position #2. In Partial Ignorance, you know enough to know there are many different points of view, but you don't know enough to really understand your own point of view, which invariably results in a half-assed presentation of confusion. In position #1, you don't know enough about the topic to appreciate the vagaries of it, and so have the ability to seem confident even when, in reality, you have no idea what's happening. Position #3 is, of course, the best position to teach from, but apparently one only reaches this point at the end of grad school. Which is why, I assume, most schools don't let grad students teach until their third or fourth year in the program, and even then only in their area of specialty. I should be so lucky.
Despite all of this insanity and anxiety about teaching, objectively I know that I can do nothing except shut up and deal with it, which is pretty much what everyone I've talked to about my predicament has suggested I do. I can't get fired, after all; I can only look stupid. Worse things have happened.
I've also realized that, consciously or unconsciously, I set myself up for this kind of grief. I volunteered to go to grad school, didn't I? It's my own damn fault. And this isn't the first time I've set myself up like this, either. In college, for example, I volunteered to write a BA thesis, which meant that I had to participate in a BA thesis seminar, which ensured that I would have to conquer a pathological fear I had had since grade school: letting other people, people who were not my teachers, read my writing. I can't explain it, but this was a long-standing problem for me; not even my mother had ever been allowed to read my papers. And yet, I volunteered to write a BA. Even worse, I ended up kind of enjoying my BA seminar.
And here I am, yet again, volunteering to do things I profess to dislike. There is something very wrong with me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)