Learning is Messy

I had a student that had missed the first several days of class and it was only my busy schedule that had not landed them on the drop list. They showed up to class and I decided to leave out chatting with that particular student until after class.
Lecture for that days was dramatic structure, which is a big and sprawling subject. Ironically it does not have a beginning, middle, or an end but in the midst it has several complicated and abstract tangents, ambling about until the whiteboard looks like the planning room at the pentagon with charts and graphs and an entire section devoted to Dora the Explorer [not kidding].

Somewhere in the midst of explaining the very complex and often confusing relationship between “plot” and “story” I noticed that my late-arriving student had gone from nodding off and texting to rapt attention. Now, it could have been the layman’s explanation of the story of Oedipus the King or it could have been contrasting it with The Color Purple and Spiderman. My point, however, is that somewhere, at some point, he found something that he could grab onto and I, in turn, could use that to pull him into the content. Kind of like fishing right?
Look, learning is messy. Teaching is hard. It’s scary to go with your instincts. You’ve got a whole crowd of people who usually don’t want to be there. Doing what you have always done is a safe option. Lots of professors think that making class “fun” means removing the meat from your content and playing charades all day. But there is a subtle difference between “fun” and “engaging”. The world has changed, and changed hard. Our students’ lives have gone interactive. You cannot expect them to walk into a classroom and downshift into info receiver mode without consequences.
It’s amazing how much a class climate changes when you give students a little bit of agency. When you change their expectations. Students are passionate and alive and excited about all kinds of things. Your classes can be one of those things. It’s just a matter of finding the bait. An engaged mind is a learning mind. A student who cares, invests in the content, in you, and ultimately in themselves.

This is just the beginning of about four other things that I need to write about, but it’s a good introduction. I’m going to leave you with my favorite example of student investment, ever, for all time.
Teaching Absurdism to non-theatre folk is hard. It’s hard to even find the words to start. Generally it’s best to give them a brief outline (there are rules, but no rules, nothing is what it seems, time is an illusion, good luck!) and then show them some. This particular day the class spent their time watching the first half of Waiting for Godot. As they left the classroom one of my most aloof and disengaged students stopped at my seat and as soon as I made eye contact she said in an angry, hissy voice. “If Godot doesn’t show up at the end of this play, I’m dropping this class!” That’s learning . . . and no, she didn’t.

Tags: edblog, lecture, Oedipus, theatre