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[44/366] seminars
Feb. 13th, 2020 03:57 pmI'm kind of frustrated with my seminars this semester.
The one for Language & Mediality reminded me yesterday of an old Mark Steel joke about his school days, where teachers would do things like ask "What did the Vikings come in?" and a kid would say "Longboats?" and the teacher would say "No!" and a kid would say "uh, some other kind of boats then?" or whatever and the teacher would say "No! They came in hordes! The Vikings came in hordes!" You just had to get the words exactly right.
She got a bit nasty with it: "Have you done the reading?!" and actually this was the second time I'd been assigned that reading -- I think Viktor really likes it, and it's fair enough because I really like it too (I meant to write a blog post about it the first time I read it because it makes a point that really impressed me and has a lot of relevance for the layperson; I didn't get around to it but maybe I will some day!). So I've read it repeatedly, I feel like I've understood it, I've already been in one class discussion of it a few months ago and a lecture about it the other day, and yet I had no fucking idea what answer she was fishing for. Another time, the phrase she wanted was "language variation and change" which is practically a trite cliche in linguistics, but she acted like it was precious knowledge we had to really dig for.
It's hard because there's a lot of "The answer I want is in the second paragraph on page 16..." which for one makes me feel like I'm back in high school but for another is not very accessible to me: not only can I not listen to my screenreader very easily in class, I also can't really skim-read with one. And the pages numbers are almost always wrong or missing. So then I look like I'm not engaging, which I know a lot of other people are also not doing (or not looking like they're doing anyway) and it just feels uncomfortable and frustrating.
Today's one wasn't so bad; the seminar is taught by the lecturers but this is our first time with this one (two are sharing the class) and I again felt bad that she wasn't getting much response to her questions. They were better questions, but my class is still pretty unprepared or unwilling to offer up critical thought in the last semester of our undergrad! Some of it was tricky; this class involves stuff like discourse analysis that at least some of us (including me) haven't actually studied so when we're asked if we agree with conclusions drawn from its application, that is legitimately not something most of us are well-equipped to say anything about. But even when she asked us stuff like "Did you like reading a case study like this rather than a more general overview? Did you understand it?" people didn't answer. I actually thought it was very easy to read,I could follow the arguments (even if I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether I agree with them, really!) so I don't think everyone had a negative answer they were deferentially unwilling to give. Who knows though.
I end up kind of stressed about it because I try to balance talking too much myself with the long awkward pauses where no one talks at all where I feel bad for the lecturer. I don't know which is worse: no engagement or too much from one person.
The one for Language & Mediality reminded me yesterday of an old Mark Steel joke about his school days, where teachers would do things like ask "What did the Vikings come in?" and a kid would say "Longboats?" and the teacher would say "No!" and a kid would say "uh, some other kind of boats then?" or whatever and the teacher would say "No! They came in hordes! The Vikings came in hordes!" You just had to get the words exactly right.
She got a bit nasty with it: "Have you done the reading?!" and actually this was the second time I'd been assigned that reading -- I think Viktor really likes it, and it's fair enough because I really like it too (I meant to write a blog post about it the first time I read it because it makes a point that really impressed me and has a lot of relevance for the layperson; I didn't get around to it but maybe I will some day!). So I've read it repeatedly, I feel like I've understood it, I've already been in one class discussion of it a few months ago and a lecture about it the other day, and yet I had no fucking idea what answer she was fishing for. Another time, the phrase she wanted was "language variation and change" which is practically a trite cliche in linguistics, but she acted like it was precious knowledge we had to really dig for.
It's hard because there's a lot of "The answer I want is in the second paragraph on page 16..." which for one makes me feel like I'm back in high school but for another is not very accessible to me: not only can I not listen to my screenreader very easily in class, I also can't really skim-read with one. And the pages numbers are almost always wrong or missing. So then I look like I'm not engaging, which I know a lot of other people are also not doing (or not looking like they're doing anyway) and it just feels uncomfortable and frustrating.
Today's one wasn't so bad; the seminar is taught by the lecturers but this is our first time with this one (two are sharing the class) and I again felt bad that she wasn't getting much response to her questions. They were better questions, but my class is still pretty unprepared or unwilling to offer up critical thought in the last semester of our undergrad! Some of it was tricky; this class involves stuff like discourse analysis that at least some of us (including me) haven't actually studied so when we're asked if we agree with conclusions drawn from its application, that is legitimately not something most of us are well-equipped to say anything about. But even when she asked us stuff like "Did you like reading a case study like this rather than a more general overview? Did you understand it?" people didn't answer. I actually thought it was very easy to read,I could follow the arguments (even if I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether I agree with them, really!) so I don't think everyone had a negative answer they were deferentially unwilling to give. Who knows though.
I end up kind of stressed about it because I try to balance talking too much myself with the long awkward pauses where no one talks at all where I feel bad for the lecturer. I don't know which is worse: no engagement or too much from one person.