JUST FOR FUN

Well, it has been an interesting semester.  As I look back over the various entries in my teaching journal, I see that many of my concerns about the classroom are attributable to my inexperience.  This has been a transitional time, when I have had to work to discover my niche.  I now think that I'm in a little better spot than I was back in August.  I feel more comfortable, and I think that this has been a good prescription for healing some of what ailed my teaching.  To continue this medicinal metaphor to the extreme, I could say that I have not found a panacea for all my pedagogical ills, but I have come up with a few useful treatments.  So here is a top ten list of this semester's classroom afflictions:

1.         Greenteacheritis--Occurs in academic environments.  Unseasoned instructors with wavering confidence contract this disease.

            Symptoms:  Dry mouth, sweating, nausea, tremors in the extremities, accelerated speech, feelings of inadequacy.

            Treatment:  Keep on teaching, even when you feel unqualified to teach.  Try to remain calm, show no fear, and remember that you are an experience writer who is there to guide the first-year student.  Take a chill pill and persevere to the end of the semester.  Only time and experience can alleviate this condition.

2.         Silent Student Disorder--Contracted by first-year composition students when asked to participate in a discussion. (Also observable in other disciplines at various levels.)

            Symptoms:  Averted eyes, gaping mouths, tapping feet, pencil drumming, uncomfortable laughter.

            Treatment:  This condition is common and potentially fatal.  While it cannot be prevented, teachers can administer treatments that may alleviate the most serious cases.  Pre-writing exercises and thought-provoking queries may bolster immunity.  An instructor can provide an environment that discourages rampant growth of apathy and laziness, the greatest contributors to classroom contamination. .  However, there is no inoculation that can stop infection.

3.         Profitless Peer Group Disease--Results when inane banter or shallow praise dominate small group discussion of drafts.

            Symptoms:  Nail filing, gum chewing, rehashing the details from last night's kegger, use of phrases such as "Yeah, it was good" and "I like it."

            Treatment:  Modeling and monitoring.  Construct a model of the ideal peer group discussion, one that concentrates on positive feedback and critical reading.  "Teach" students how to respond to the needs of the author and the text.  Monitor groups in order to minimize the BCF (Banal Chat Factor), but try not to squelch the burgeoning peer relationships that promote a healthy group dynamic.

4.         Composition Strangulation--Condition caused by rigid assignments that allow too little creativity and freedom in student writing.

            Symptoms:  Too few choices, topics that produce high fever and projectile vomiting in students.

            Treatment:  Loosen up.  Present students with a variety of subjects on which to write.  Promote expression, not repression, in order to foster confidence in authorial choices.

            Warning:  Too many selections can cause complications.  Five choices may be beneficial,

            but five thousand options can lead to FYSO or First Year Student Overload.  Try to

            strike a balance between constriction and boundlessness.

5.         Staple Separation Anxiety--Commonly found among first-year students who are not accustomed to turning in word-processed papers.

            Symptoms: Folded-over corners of 8 1/2 by 11 white paper, no staples.

            Treatment: In extreme cases (such as fifteen weeks of symptom exhibition): Euthanasia.  For more minor occurrences, continual reminders about classroom protocol.  And as first aid, bring a stapler.

6.         Multisyllabaphobia--Acute anxiety brought about by words that contain more than two syllables.  Common in English 101.

            Symptoms:  Furrowed brows, grunting, groaning, use of expressions such as, “Man, that was hard," and, "Why does this guy have to use such big words?"

            Treatment:  Encourage growth as a reader.  Let students know that worthwhile things

            often require effort.  Provide assignments that direct student readings.  Also advocate dictionary use.  Promote the idea that good things sometimes come in big packages too.

7.         Pagelengthaphobia--Acute anxiety brought about by a reading assignment of more than two pages.  Common in English 101.

            Symptoms:  Huffing, puffing, use of utterances like, "Why couldn't this chick just write a paragraph and be done?" and, "I would have liked it better if it was shorter."

            Treatment:  See Multisyllabaphobia.

8.         Stuck-in-a-rut-itis--Occurs somewhere around the seven-week point in the semester.  Students and instructor would rather chew their legs off than continue doing the same things day in and day out.

            Symptoms:  Narcolepsy; students begin to make puppets out of their argyle socks in order to amuse themselves; teacher begins to sound like all the adults in a Peanuts cartoon. 

            Treatment: Variety is the spice of life, so add a dash of change.  Do not insist on rigidly sticking to the lesson plan.  Students may stage a mutiny if there is nothing to keep them interested.  Show films, do interpretive dance, go on a field trip to Paris.  Just do something interesting and different.

9.         Assessmentitis--Chronic disease of the instructor who does not want to evaluate student performance and assign grades.

            Symptoms:  Nail biting, pencil chewing, second-guessing, cursing University regulations that require grading at all.

            Treatment:  Unknown.  Some remedies are still in the testing phase.  Approval by DPM

            (Dee Anna Phares-Matthews) is still pending, awaiting inspection of the final portfolios.

10.       False Expectation Disorder--Commonly found in first-time teachers who create an image of what the classroom should and will look like.

            Symptoms:  Apprehension, disappointment, excitement (symptoms vary from person to person).

            Treatment:  Try to stop the problem before it starts.  It is best not to have a pre-conceived notion of what the classroom will be like.  Or perhaps, expect the best but prepare for the worst.  No matter what confronts you, be it heavenly or hellish, try to make the best out of the situation.  Do not over-think or over-stress; these only lead to related disorders-­migraine, ulcers, and various forms of gastrointestinal distress.  Try to relax and say over and over: a semester only lasts for sixteen weeks.

So there you have it, my tongue-in-cheek look back at my first semester as a composition instructor.  Although this is meant to be entertaining, the concerns that I have addressed are real.  I struggled with many of these things, even the sillier ones.  I found that most of my problems worked themselves out over the fifteen weeks, but some will continue to roll around inside my cranium, searching for the ultimate answer.  I guess that is all I have to say for now, except maybe this: Being a good teacher is a hard job, maybe even the hardest job under the sun.  The problems are often difficult to diagnose and there are rarely easy remedies.  I hope that I have become a more skilled instructor and that over time I will be able to discover the cures to the common composition class quandary, but maybe that requires not only a teacher but a miracle worker.

 

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