20 Years Later

November 9, 1989: I’m seven. I’m in my room — I don’t recall what exactly I was doing, but chances are good it involved the Babysitters’ Club books or stuffed animals — when Tony Russo drags me out telling me I need to watch something on television. “This is important,” he says to me, plunking me down in front of footage of the Berlin Wall falling.

What's Left of the Wall Today (well, in March 2009, anyway...)

I understand, however vaguely, that somewhere far away, the world is changing. The people dancing on the wall look fascinating: teenagers in jeans who look crazily ecstatic as the pick up hammers and shout and bust into the cement and wire. Whatever had been going on before this moment, I know, must have been bad.

November 9, 2009: At 27, I’m recently back from life in a post-Communist country. Before leaving, Hungary and all of its cohort, were that gray and dreary place the wall-busting kids seemed to be so happy to leave. As I sat on the last leg of my flight last August, I remember a sudden, gripping fear: what the hell was I doing?

But Hungary turned out to be much different than those of us 80s-children Americans, raised on pictures of breadlines and sad women in babushkas, could ever expect. It was thriving and lively, and those events of 1989 — to a newcomer ex-pat — seemed so far away.

Of course, that’s both true and untrue. The legacy of 40+ years of the Cold War were not smashed in a single hammer blow, or even in the 20 years since one wall in one city in one country fell.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days

I knew Thursday was going to turn into a day only Alexander could relate to when I got up after just 5 hours of sleep and snapped a necklace putting it on. Too late to even pick up the beads, I stepped over them and out the door with my big teacher bag.

I wasn’t looking forward to my first class. These had been my “good” kids — so I had allowed myself to be “regular” me in front of them. I was joke-y, laid-back and self-deprecating in my humor. I hate playing disciplinarian, and I suck at it, so I prefer to avoid it.  But the class is 95% “traditional” college freshmen (a.k.a 18 year olds) and slowly, they took “laid back young female professor” to mean “walk all over her.”  Particularly, the young male students seemed to think they could keep pushing the limits — texting during class, talking when we are trying to do peer review, arguing back about every assignment. They still seemed to think it was all a good joke. I didn’t. The breaking point came Monday when several decided it was time to throw pen caps at each other.

This was during the middle of an important class exercise. On the day one of my mentors was observing me for my official review.

An even draw?

This week:

Three students have cried on me — nothing I did, thankfully. It is just “life” problems. All students have them, but at a community college, where you do have students that come back as adults, that  have some outside-of-school issues a bit bigger than roommate fights or boyfriend dramas.  I understand, but I’d still rather have a tear-free week.

Three students, however, have asked me for my schedule for next term because they want to take my courses again.

An even draw?

Ciao, Professore.

I’m grading papers all day today to the sound of opera — not simply because of the fact that I developed a habit after Fulbright-ing with a lovely counter-tenor, but also in honor of a great professor, whose operatic baritone was second only  to his wonderful teaching.

Professor Bruno Wanrooij, a renown  scholar, died last Wednesday.  I studied Italian Government with Professor Wanrooij during a particularly beautiful autumn: the autumn I spent at Georgetown’s Villa in Florence. Wanrooij was a true Renaissance man. He spoke ten languages, his scholarship spanned from fascism to feminism (yes, a real, true, male feminist),  and a walk through any city we visited with him always guaranteed the most fascinating details (what I wouldn’t have known about Naples without his asides…).

Bruno e studenti, autunno 2002

And, now that I’m a teacher myself, I’m appreciating so much more the good professors I had. Bruno had a very dry, sarcastic humor, but he was tough. As I struggle with classroom management myself — it’s hard to balance my natural non-strict tendencies with the need to keep 25 not-exactly-model-student 18-year olds  — I find myself looking more and more to such teachers from my past for models.  We don’t learn as much from the “sofities”; it’s the ones who push us, who can command respect, that matter. My thesis advisor was this way — I enjoyed her classes very much, but she was no pushover. She wouldn’t hesitate to hand back a chapter if it wasn’t at her standard. Bruno was the same. With a single raised eyebrow, he could silence a class.  He quite literally wrote the book on so many pressing issues in Italian political and social life,  and his intellect was so impressive, that everyone who studied with him strove for a higher standard. Turning in anything less than the best seemed simply wrong.

He was a model — as a scholar who pushed his boundaries and a teacher who pushed his students.

Ciao professore. Mille grazie, e non ti dimenticare mai. Sarai vivo sempre nel nostri cuori.

Academic Triple Play

Because another frustrating Super Long Monday (why did I think “Gee, teaching for 6 and a half hours straight will be fine! ” when I made my schedule last year???) where I had two students suddenly re-appear after month-long absences (nope, not exaggerating: they missed class for a MONTH, with no e-mail, no phone call, no explanation whatsoever) and seem flummoxed that it might be impossible for them to pass a writing class, seeing as we are at midterm and they have turned in no writing) I feel the need to accentuate the positive in academic life right now.

And, frustrations aside, there is plenty positive going on. Yes, I have a couple… O.K., a decently sized handful … of students I want to throw out the window right now, but I’m also still really love getting up in the morning and going to my job: my colleagues are still offering me the support and great new ideas (including LEGOs to teach writing… it worked wonderfully!) and my students, overall, still inspire me to be better every day.  And, in the last week, we also had:

1. Last Friday, I met my awesome-beyond-awesome former thesis advisor for drinks with my good friend Jenny (who also studied under the same prof when we were grad students at Georgetown). As usual, she provided great encouragement as I discussed my always-nagging concerns about teaching, and we had a wonderful talk about all things class studies (which is one of her main research areas, and the area my thesis focused on). Then, she brought out her new book. While Jenny and I ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the cover blurbs and paged through it, she said “Check out the acknowledgements.”

And there we were. Named, along with a third Georgetown grad student who also focused on class issues, right there inside a real-life academic book, for our enthusiasm for the work. Now, this is a woman who is one of the best teachers I have ever had. Indeed, she was my first English teacher at Georgetown, years ago, as an overwhelmed and out-of-place blue-collar-y kid in that poshest of posh D.C. spots. In many ways, her course — which included readings and discussions which assured me I was not crazy for feeling as I did — is the reason I didn’t transfer back to Pittsburgh freshmen year.

The Book

And she thanked me? “Humbled”, “touched,” “overwhelmed” — all those words don’t even begin to describe it.

2. One of my favorite Hungarian students won a college-wide essay prize with an essay on Toni Morrison that she completed in my Contemporary American Women Writers class last year. This student is, of course, wonderfully smart and motivated. The university where I taught — like many universities, both here in the U.S. and abroad — still focused the bulk of its English classes on an older idea of the “canon” (i.e. Dead White Guys) — so my class was certainly “out there” for many students. But many, like my essay contest winner, really latched on to the modern and diverse writers I brought into the course. It was thrilling to feel I could offer some “new” to a class — and more thrilling still to see one go on to such success with her study.

3. Kay Ryan, the Poet Laureate of the United States, is launching a new initiative celebrating poetry and the work of community colleges called “Poetry for the Mind’s Joy,” tomorrow at the Library of Congress. And I’m going, with some NOVA kids!) Love poetry, and love poets who love the work of community colleges. In the invitation letter we received, Ryan said:

“I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly–and with very little financial encouragement–saving lives and minds.”

Now, that’s a class act if I’ve ever seen one.

“Could we use a more academic word …”: Kids Say the Darnedest Things, #3

As mentioned in the last post, I’ve given my English 112 (second-semester freshmen — i.e. the higher level) class a rather difficult assignment: I’m asking them to do an analysis of any “text” (song, films and art included) that they think says something about what it means to be an American today. My colleagues were a bit skeptical– and I’m still skeptical — of the wide scope of the assignment. Wouldn’t it be easier to just assign one standard text to analyze? Shouldn’t we stick to just straight argument?

Yes, and yes. But I know a lot of these kids are 4-year-college bound. And in most 4-year college classes in the humanities, you have to look at some object (a novel, a play, a historical document) and write about its meaning. I wanted them to have this chance to try it. And I also decided to experiment in giving them so much freedom to choose. If it blows up in my face (as things can do for the first-year teacher), I’ll go back to assigning Gatsby or whatever text I like first.

But as I went through my first round of one-on-one essay conferences with students yesterday, I saw some really cool writing taking place. They are actually challenging themselves more, I think, by looking at texts they like. One girl came in with a really clever look at the cycle of prejudice and violence faced by Arab-American characters in Paul Haggis’s Crash (which she told me she became interested in because she did discriminate against people of Arab descent following 9/11, but has since taken a more critical look at her own stance. Music to my ears!) Several students are analyzing Green Day’s American Idiot album — and each thinks it means something different, so we’ve actually got a real conversation going on (and I’m also happy because I listened to Green Day growing up — so if my students also listen to them, it means I am not old!)

One of the most interesting starts to an essay, however, came from a student looking at Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He came into the conference with all manner of sketchy notes, and a rather weak, unclear thesis. But once he started explaining the notes he made, I saw he was really engaging in the work of analysis: he was looking at little bits of the film, and had clever ideas for what they represent. He began discussing a line where a character refers to the way dope fiends are obsessed with their fix, and how he thinks this might represent American attitudes towards control during the 1970s. I start to get excited … and then, as he begins talking about the role of drug culture in the film, he adds:

Student: And it works, because I’m into that culture — I’m not going to lie, I really like marijuana.

Me: Um, maybe leave that out of your analysis.

One day, I need to write a handbook: Things NOT to Say To Your Professor. #1 would be asking your professor out for dinner (but that’s a whole other story…). “I like pot” might be a close #2.  Still,

Kids Say the Darnedest Things, Round #2

A Ph.D. -seeking friend once claimed the real reason that I decided to teach at the community college level is the stories I come away with (this was after discovering one of my students is a semi-professional cage fighter. Yup. Cage fighter. How do you tell him he needs to work on comma splices?)  While there is certainly a lot of other great reasons to take the 2-year track as a professor, I can’t say I entirely disagree.

Just like I claim that my less-than 2 years at The Beav provided me with more than a lifetime’s worth of amusing stories (the car that breaks down in a police chase; a man dropping his crack stash in front of a cop and claiming it must have fallen from the sky; the infamous Freedom Area High school 2006 tractor-parade debacle, etc…), my relatively short time at community colleges — both now, as a full-timer, and earlier, as an adjunct — is quickly filling up my story coffers again.

And yesterday, I got another goodie. My English 112 students were complaining about the difficulty of the analytical essay I had assigned. I knew it was difficult, but this is a smart group, and I know they can do well if they’re pushed. But I was still willing to listen to their concerns, of course, and I offered some suggestions for re-arranging my schedule to give them all more time. Of course, this led to several wily types just suggesting I drop the essay  (my response: not on your life) … and the following conversation

Me: Come on, guys, I do know this is difficult, but it is the type of writing you need to do if you want to move on to a four-year school. In fact, it’s what I did at Georgetown. Hey! Look at it that way — you get a Georgetown education at a NOVA price! It’s a recession — hooray for discounts!

Student: Oh man! I thought if I paid the discount price, I was going to get the discount education!

Damn those wise guys.

At least he was kidding. I think…

(re)Discovering My City #3: Georgetown in Fall

Having gone to the lovely Georgetown University — twice — it seems like this most fancy of fancy-pants neighborhoods shouldn’t be one I need to rediscover.  After all, I could walk the blocks around M Street and the 30s with my eyes closed (after all, during senior year, when my frequenting of The Tombs was, well, frequent, my walks home were rather blurry).

Sarah & Judit & Key Bridge

But that’s precisely why I forget about it. It’s so familiar that it’s gone become forgotten. In the same way certain blights of one’s hometown fade into the background because they are so often seen, so too can the beauty of a postcard-perfect set of streets.  Since Judit, my Hungarian astronomer friend, and Sarah, my genius art historian friend from the Fulbright days were in town, however, we ended up spending a beautiful, sunny Saturday walking the tiny side streets and basking in the warmth while inhaling Viennese yummies at my personal favorite Gtown bistro, Leopold’s Kafe. It was the best type of October day: blue sky making even the sludgy Potomac seem sparking, warm enough to pass as summer, and not one “to-do” or deadline (at least until Monday) Judit said she had wanted to visit the neighborhood ever since she read about it in a tour book –  and it seemed her expectations were favorable met. From the Gothic spires of Healy Hall on campus to the rows of pastel houses lining N and Q street, Judit kept repeating one phrase: “How lucky you were to get to live here!”

It was an important reminder. When I stepped onto Georgetown’s campus for the first time as a 17-year-old, I felt this glow of luck — of privilege — immediately. (My mom said she already had resigned herself…and her checking account … to my becoming a Georgetown girl) The college itself, the neighborhood around it, the people strolling the streets all seemed imbued with such  pulled-together loveliness — a real classiness – (and I use that word with all its social meanings) that I wanted.   For the first few months, I walked in a happy daze of oh-my-god-I-can’t-believe-this-is-MY-life giddiness; I was sure for years there would turn me into one of those sleek, chic creatures who truly belonged in one of those gorgeous townhouses.

It didn’t, of course.

Yes, show us the money

Randy Cohen, The New York Times “ethicist”, argues in a blog post today that people should not give to Harvard (or, at least, if they do feel compelled to give money to such places, then they should give money to community colleges as well). In Cohen’s viewpoint, Harvard is already so rich (with an endowment bigger than Estonia’s GDP) it doesn’t make much moral sense to offer them more money, especially when once considers how very, very few people they educate. As Cohen writes:

And the well endowed serve a smaller constituency: nearly half of all college students attend community colleges, institutions that help keep alive the American promise of economic opportunity… Indeed, for many young people, community college is what stands between them and a life spent working a minimum-wage job or something not much better. Acknowledging the value of such schools, President Obama has proposed a community-college initiative. Support them, and you change people’s lives.

Of course, Cohen immediately was met with enough angry protests from people squealing about how he wants to redistribute the wealth and squash personal choice (no one actually said it, but of course, each bluster had an echo of that commie pinko! imbedded in it.)

I’m biased, but I can’t help but be happy to see the elite paper arguing against using your money to make elite more elite. And after watching a student balance (literally) four children while working with me on thesis statements today — she is very determined to succeed in English class — there is no question in my mind how important it is to teach the “limited”  (in the words of one Angry Cohen Poster) curriculum that we can at community colleges. But the financial news in our state, as in many is grim. It would be nice to see a few of those Harvard bucks drop our way.

And maybe that does make me a commie pinko. Or just someone who has her eyes open on campus.

(re)Discovering my City: #2, Baltimore Daytrips

Yes, I do recognize that Baltimore is indeed its own city, not some offshoot of D.C. But with the help of Amy (my new GPS system) and a clear Saturday, the drive is just over an hour (you know — about the same as going three miles during rush hour…or rush three-to-four hours, to be more accurate … on the infamous 66),

No, no idea why these men are dressed like old-time sailors...

so I’d classify it as close enough to be another happy addition to the greater DC region: tired of the neighborhoods here? Find some there! Also, one of my favorite Hungarians, Judit, who is a brilliant astronomer, won a 9-month fellowship to do research at a Johns Hopkins University institute. Having arrived in the U.S. just two weeks ago — and stranded, carless, in a neighborhood which is lovely, but not exactly hooked into good public transportation networks — she was a bit lonely.

Having just graded 45 essays Friday night, I was a lot bit ready to get out of the house. Having spent 30 hours finished the new version of The Washington Post Magazine, The Roomie was ready for anything that was not the inside of WP offices. We turned Amy on, and away we went.