U.N.T. Coursework in Education
Me with Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces
My Higher Education Portfolio
My Final Journal Entry in my most recent course on Issues in Higher Education:
Hello. I come before you today as a man who has read some books, had some lively discussion, and many times over used the tools of the teacher as pretend-time props in a charade of academic make-believe: played the part of a teacher for himself, from within the safe padded walls of a room with no students in it, no employers peeking in from the barred window in the door.
I have looked longingly from the receiving end: I have observed, and admired (or criticized), and imitated. I have been allowed a few moments to taste the authority and attention lavished upon these stalwarts who boldly face the monolithic hugeness of our nation’s mental mass and ceaselessly tug at their single thread of influence.
I have dressed myself for the part, my tweeds suffused with the rich smells of pipe tobacco and espresso, my fledgling ponytail nestled atop a confident turtleneck; daily I sharpen my gaze to inflict upon colleagues who question me, even those asking me who I am or which floor I am going to.
But my mind is that of a small child dropped unwittingly into war. Every second the stakes are higher, the chances of failure greater, because it is the hazy race of Reality and there are some things a book just cannot teach–like Karate. Trust me, I know.
I am so grateful to this class for the portfolio I have begun. Mine is not so good, but what would you expect from a trainee? It will be an uphill battle until the day I graduate, but this class has been a milestone for me. I am beginning to accrue and materialize how I feel and what I want to do for the people I, one day, want to help. It feels beautiful.
Professor Bower, and the mysterious Ron Newsom, have arranged this class well, and in the syllabus I have viewed time and time again there has grown an amusing meta-narrative running deep into this class: "We were taught a college course about teaching a college course." I am guaranteed one soft chuckle per Christmas party this fine year.
Not a single reading left me with kernels of doubt, or dread, or discomfort. The authors were lively, honest, admirable people. I want to bet that Hativa was the least popular among us–there was an inherent density to the writing that made us distracted by the winking and nodding, yet never before seen faces of Brookfield and McKeachie that danced in our minds and seduced us away.
The handouts were as concise and relevant as a knife when one is eating a steak. Whatever topic was at hand, these were there, paint-by-number, to make things immediately clear and take away any reason for me to sit there fogged over by a lazy reluctance to carry on with my work. They were to this course what smelling salts are to a fainted person. Perhaps that comment reveals my lack of up-to-date medical knowledge.
My least favorite aspect of the course was Anthony Grasha’s Teaching with Style book, for the simple reason that almost every assignment was designed for those already in the profession. For the rest of us: “Well... imagine you are a teacher.” At the end of every exercise, even when I truly imagined–I mean, really put myself there–the tang of feigned experience left my results feeling not all the way genuine, thus crippling whatever sense of aptitude I could get from the questions. Truly I started dreading them.
So, in brief, I am very glad I took the course for the look at higher education which I needed to clarify my teaching goals. I am on the way there with a cute little proto-portfolio, a greater sense of professionalism and priority, and good words from people and a professor which I now consider allies in my coup d’tat from the learner’s side to the coveted command post.
I hope I will receive further remarks on my portfolio and shape it up even stronger, because I want to put it up on my little Portable Self website which I list on my resume as a place employers can go to look at my academic pursuits, read first-hand about my previous job experiences, and see who I am as a real person through photos and blog updates. Of course I know that is the polished, edited and slightly censored Me, and only a digital representation of such, but that seems to be an accredited form of getting to know someone these days.
My Final Journal Entry in my most recent course on Issues in Higher Education:
Hello. I come before you today as a man who has read some books, had some lively discussion, and many times over used the tools of the teacher as pretend-time props in a charade of academic make-believe: played the part of a teacher for himself, from within the safe padded walls of a room with no students in it, no employers peeking in from the barred window in the door.
I have looked longingly from the receiving end: I have observed, and admired (or criticized), and imitated. I have been allowed a few moments to taste the authority and attention lavished upon these stalwarts who boldly face the monolithic hugeness of our nation’s mental mass and ceaselessly tug at their single thread of influence.
I have dressed myself for the part, my tweeds suffused with the rich smells of pipe tobacco and espresso, my fledgling ponytail nestled atop a confident turtleneck; daily I sharpen my gaze to inflict upon colleagues who question me, even those asking me who I am or which floor I am going to.
But my mind is that of a small child dropped unwittingly into war. Every second the stakes are higher, the chances of failure greater, because it is the hazy race of Reality and there are some things a book just cannot teach–like Karate. Trust me, I know.
I am so grateful to this class for the portfolio I have begun. Mine is not so good, but what would you expect from a trainee? It will be an uphill battle until the day I graduate, but this class has been a milestone for me. I am beginning to accrue and materialize how I feel and what I want to do for the people I, one day, want to help. It feels beautiful.
Professor Bower, and the mysterious Ron Newsom, have arranged this class well, and in the syllabus I have viewed time and time again there has grown an amusing meta-narrative running deep into this class: "We were taught a college course about teaching a college course." I am guaranteed one soft chuckle per Christmas party this fine year.
Not a single reading left me with kernels of doubt, or dread, or discomfort. The authors were lively, honest, admirable people. I want to bet that Hativa was the least popular among us–there was an inherent density to the writing that made us distracted by the winking and nodding, yet never before seen faces of Brookfield and McKeachie that danced in our minds and seduced us away.
The handouts were as concise and relevant as a knife when one is eating a steak. Whatever topic was at hand, these were there, paint-by-number, to make things immediately clear and take away any reason for me to sit there fogged over by a lazy reluctance to carry on with my work. They were to this course what smelling salts are to a fainted person. Perhaps that comment reveals my lack of up-to-date medical knowledge.
My least favorite aspect of the course was Anthony Grasha’s Teaching with Style book, for the simple reason that almost every assignment was designed for those already in the profession. For the rest of us: “Well... imagine you are a teacher.” At the end of every exercise, even when I truly imagined–I mean, really put myself there–the tang of feigned experience left my results feeling not all the way genuine, thus crippling whatever sense of aptitude I could get from the questions. Truly I started dreading them.
So, in brief, I am very glad I took the course for the look at higher education which I needed to clarify my teaching goals. I am on the way there with a cute little proto-portfolio, a greater sense of professionalism and priority, and good words from people and a professor which I now consider allies in my coup d’tat from the learner’s side to the coveted command post.
I hope I will receive further remarks on my portfolio and shape it up even stronger, because I want to put it up on my little Portable Self website which I list on my resume as a place employers can go to look at my academic pursuits, read first-hand about my previous job experiences, and see who I am as a real person through photos and blog updates. Of course I know that is the polished, edited and slightly censored Me, and only a digital representation of such, but that seems to be an accredited form of getting to know someone these days.