Writing is an art, a difficult one. It's not easy to have a strong voice at any stage of one's life, nor is it easy to have a strong sense of where one is going in college. Few college students can immediately or adequately answer the question, "What do you want to do with your life?" As a result, the following two questions will likely be the hardest questions that you will ask yourselves throughout your lifetime:
"Who am I?"
"Where am I headed?"
Notice, however, where each of these questions are coming from—they are both derived from an inherent sense of self. To know who you are, you need to know your identity and your beliefs; to know where you are going, you need to have a good sense of the first question.
Therefore, my teaching philosophy is rooted in your individual ethos. When you write an essay for English class, it is still a reflection of your character, your beliefs, your sense of pride. In other words, what you produce is ultimately a reflection of yourself—if the work is not crafted well, it means that you ought to try your best to polish it, improve it, make it the best possible product that you can. Life is too short to do sloppy work and to get rewarded for it.
I firmly believe that when we do work with all of our ethos and pride behind it, the questions, "Who am I" and "Where am I headed" may not necessarily become clearer, but they begin to point us in better directions, because those directions are delineated by our sense of pride and accomplishment rather than by sloth or our ability to cut corners (learning to work the system).
Eventually, I hope that you will discover that the pursuit of the majority of your goals in life—career, relationships, family—are all inherently bound up in the pursuit of a character-based ethos that has the willingness to improve and endure in the spirit of the Latin quote, increscunt animi; virescit volnere virtus—My spirit grows; strength is created from my sacrifice and my vigor.
Ordinary people like you and I struggle on a daily basis. Ordinary people like you and I wonder if all of the things we sacrifice in the short term, all of the effort we expend now, will pay off in the end. Ordinary people like you and I think that we are incapable of great, lifelong heroism. Many of us are fixated on short term, often materialistic pursuits. In the 21st century, being a hero in work, school, home, and life is increasingly more difficult.
As Miep Gies, the Dutch woman whose family sheltered Anne Frank, indicated, however, "Oh, no. No, no, no, . . . . I am not a hero. No. I did what I had to do, because it was the right thing to do. That is all. You are the heroes. You are heroes every day. But even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room (qtd in Gruenwell 121).
Going to school and bettering yourself, bettering your sense of who you are and where you are headed—those are the right things to do. You are the heroes. You are heroes everyday, but you have to think and speak and write and behave and work really hard to realize that fact.
It is only natural that you may view college and college instructors apprehensively, especially if you are attending college for the first time, or, if you have returned to an academic setting after a long hiatus. One fact that students often forget, however, is that their teachers were once students, too. Please try not to forget that thought throughout this course.
Initially, going to college was a very spooky prospect for me, full of academic pressure and the pressure to "fit in" with other equally nervous students. Heck, there was also the pressure of deciding what to do with the rest of my life to consider.
Yet if you had seen dorky ol' me in college with my drinking buddies and friends during my senior year versus when I was a nerdy freshperson arriving on campus for the first time, you would have noticed an evolution of sorts, albeit a slow and inebriated one (nah nah nah), one that speaks highly of what I believe the true "collegiate" experience to be.
College should be a place where you enjoy learning for its own sake and when you find out new things about yourself. It should be a time to explore the questions, "Where am I headed?" and even more importantly, "Who am I?" on a deeply personal level. College should be about learning as much as you possibly can so that you at least HAVE more options in terms what to do with the rest of your life.
I don't know about you, but one of the reasons I disliked high school so much was because instead of dealing with the two important questions above, I was too busy dealing with only one petty concern: "Based on a number of seemingly insignificant factors, such as the types of clothes that I wear, will people, especially those people in my clique, like me?"
As your slovenly dressed teacher who loves shopping at thrift stores and garage sales, I think a lot more about the former questions these days. In any case, since several of you selected me randomly as your English teacher and thus do not have an adequate feel for who I am or where I'm taking you in this class, I feel that it is only fair to express my teaching philosophy in regards to "learning" as follows:
1. I believe in committed, sincere learning (living), not half-ass scraping by.
As human beings, we are constantly learning new things. I think it inappropriate for people--students and teachers alike--to feel that there is nothing more that they need to accomplish in regards to their own education. True "education" never really starts nor ends in college. When people start thinking that they have nothing more to improve on, EVER, complacency sets in and mistakes GET MADE. As such, I am critical of the "apathetic" mentality that seemingly pervades our society on various levels. People just love cutting corners and sacrificing quality in favor of expediency, don't you think? I feel that good writing, even good living, requires a willingness to improve one's paper or life to a point where a person does not say, "Oh, this is enough to ensure that I don't flunk or get fired," but rather question, "Am I satisfied with my work; have I done it to the best of my abilities?" Far too many people skip that second question and favor the half-ass approach in every facet of their lives instead, with often negative consequences.
2. Learning can be fun (and funny).
At the same token, I don't think education should be all drudgery and seriousness. I want you to feel comfortable in my class and be able to laugh with me. I have a weird, sardonic, Stewie Griffin / Napoleon Dynamite-like sense of humor and outlook on life; hopefully, so do you. Be willing to let your guard down a bit; I try. Smiling helps.
3. If you don't speak up, I can't hear you; how can we learn if we aren't communicating?
It is common, especially early in the semester, for students to feel a sense of "distance" from their teachers, who are seemingly SO DIFFERENT and FAR REMOVED from what it is to be a student. On the one hand, students do not want to mark themselves as the stereotypical "teacher's pet." Yet, because I don't play favorites, or don't get a kick out of doing so one bit, you seriously LOSE OUT if you have no willingness to approach me if and when you need help. I get paid a salary to help and advise you, so you need to make it known if and when you are having trouble keeping up with class, or understanding an assignment. This is not Miss Cleo's Psychic Friends English 100.
4. Grades, for grades' sake, are meaningless.
I'm sure none of you want to hear this. You want good grades. You want an "A+++" / "You are a literary GENIUS!"written on every assignment's cover page, even the half-assed ones done two hours before class. Well, so did I. I was furious if I didn't get an A; yes, initially, I was angry at the teacher for being such a tough grader, but later, I became angry at myself, especially if I KNEW I was a lazy, Cheetos-eating beer fart on some of my assignments. (Moral: don't procrastinate)
Our educational culture has become so fixated on grade PERFORMANCE instead of LEARNING. Students have become so obsessed with their grades, that they think a mere letter is akin to their complete worth as an individual. STOP IT! Self improvement and growth should be your primary goals, not a letter of the alphabet. Sure, Grade Point Averages and all of that are important to some folks, but LEARNING is far more important--to me, it is the ultimate goal of our existence.
5. There is no deadline on learning, but I have deadlines on assignments.
"Learning" never stops, until your brain ceases to function. Assignments, being temporal and necessary, on the other hand, have strict deadlines. I impose letter grade reductions for late assignments in my class because I think it's unfair to give certain people breaks for turning in something extremely late when nobody else got an extension. Certainly, if there are extenuating circumstances involved, I can be a bit more forgiving. Yet, if you just felt lazy and didn't start the assignment till the evening before it was due because of a massive two-week hangover begun in Acapulco and ending in Vegas, that's another story.
6. I want you to learn and do your best; in your doing so, I learn and do my best.
Many teachers will not admit this fact to you, but in all honesty, we thrive off of your 'inner spark' or 'inner fire.' To us, it is our real payment, since our salaries do not even approach what we could make if we were literary geniuses who wrote the next Harry Potter or the next CEO of a multinational corporation. When we read a tremendous sentence that took a long time to construct, or when we see your true passion on a paper, passion that shows that you did the assignment because you REALLY wanted to and not just because you HAD to, we feel that our job has deep and powerful impact.
7. I became a teacher to assist people; I did not become one to have a semester-long power trip
I chose this job because I like to learn from my students. "Learn from his students," you question. "How does that work?" Everyday, I learn about the lives of twenty or so people who have walked into my life. I learn what makes them happy, sad, and angry. Sometimes, I read about how people are just struggling to survive through the daily drama of their lives. Sometimes, in their essays, I see another person's perspective or another connection to my own life. In essence, I became a teacher because I like to learn more about myself by learning about you and your lives.
I did not become a teacher for the seven-figure salary and the complimentary yacht the job promised (ha ha ha) or the supposed power it gives me to write a big fat "0" down in a silly academic ledger on a day you skipped class.
Ultimately, I refuse to call up your Mom and Dad or uncle Rufus at home or beg you down on my knees to do your work by the assigned date, or attend class regularly or on time. As tuition paying adults, you should inherently be doing these things from the start date to the finish date of this class. I may keep you up to date periodically via email, but only on a rare basis. I know that a lot of you have lots of Spam to read--why should I add to your bulk mail folder?
To conclude, I took this job to listen, learn, and advise, and most of all--to help--not patrol, control, or chastise. I'll leave the latter stuff to authority figures far more capable than myself in that department. Besides, in the words of the poet Taylor Mali, "It is not enough these days to / QUESTION AUTHORITY. You have to speak (write) with it, too."