Despite my best efforts, here we are barely a week before the semester starts, and I'm going to be teaching first semester calculus. First semester calculus! Babysitting a room full of idiots who are practically surgically connected to their phones. Those sad, vacant stares alternating between confusion and fear.
It was Sherman who threw me under the bus. All of us in the department who know The Path shared in the responsibility, but they let the blame fall on my shoulders. He told me we all would have to participate in active recruitment at the lowest levels to make up for the losses this last year. The others took things like discrete structures, linear algebra. All classes that, while beneath us, at least would have a decent number of math majors, increasing the chances of having a student with an affinity for The Path. He said someone had to cover one of the calculus sections, "to cast a wide net." Hah! You don't cast a wider net in a sewer hoping to catch a dolphin.
No, I know it will be a lecture hall full of people who struggle to tie their shoelaces in the morning. And I railed against Sherman all summer trying to convince him that he was wasting my time with this. He finally told me to drop it or he'd find a way to make my other class remedial algebra. I shudder to think what that would be like.
But then I came around. Maybe I was approaching this the wrong way. Why should I be frustrated that I couldn't teach snakes to tap dance? If I was going to have to face a room full of soulless, dead-eyed husks, perhaps I could coax a bit of life out of them. Not by teaching them. Ha! No, that's not possible. The best way to get them to perk up, pay attention, and have some light in their eyes is to give them the spark of fear. Fear that their college careers will be over before its barely begin. Fear that if they wanted to survive this class, they'd have to dedicate their lives to it, and even then they may not succeed.
And when they saw that all the other sections of this class were quite full, and there was no hope at all, I would be there when their dreams were crushed.
And what if I'm wrong? What if there is someone in there that is worthy of learning The Path? I will know. I will see their shining beacon stand up tall as the others fall. And when he stands over the bodies of his fallen classmates, I will show him the doorway to the answers to mysteries he never could have imagined.
Maybe it will be a good semester after all.
The torture must be slow and arduous for the students! Clearly, you can't be obvious so paper cuts and jalapeno juice are out. However, starting the first day with a lecture on countable vs. uncountable infinity or some other higher level of thinking lecture should knock out some of the weak.
ReplyDeleteWhile I admire your enthusiasm, I think it's best to start with a light touch. The best scares should be kept for after the drop date, so that they have nowhere to run.
DeleteHowever, once one of my colleagues made the mistake of asking me to substitute for their discrete structures class. I began the class by informing them that anything I lectured on that day would be communicated to their normal professor and used on their upcoming test. Then I proceeded to give a detailed lecture on the algorithmic complexity of various matrix operations. I know how the students in those classes love big oh notation.
I understand. I have much to learn in the art of torture. Subtlety is best. I look forward to more of your direction in the fine art.
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