Goals for the Fall. Again.

They arrive today. I won't see them until tomorrow, since I don't teaches classes on Mondays. But the students are here.  Yesterday, Target was full of Freshmen dragging their parents around, getting stuff to furnish their dorm rooms.  Parents wanted to buy reliable desk lamps, for better studying.  Students, oddly, were focused on finding the largest mini-fridge available.  Today, those students are moseying around campus, from classroom to classroom.  Freshmen are scared and excited.  Seniors are bored and jaded.

During the first week of school, I make several vows to myself.  I'm really hoping to keep them this time around.  These are only a few of my personal goals:

1) I am going to be a good teacher this semester. I shall be on the side of Good, and not be drawn to the Cranky Side of the Force.  No matter what complaints or excuses I hear from Them.

2) I am going to be super cool teacher guy this time around!  But not, you know, trying-too-hard cool. I am going to accomplish this by not spazzing out in class when I get excited about something. If a student say something intelligent, or insightful, or something that proves he or she read the assignment I gave the class before, I will not jump up and down, and point and say "THAT RIGHT THERE IS A BRILLIANT INSIGHT!  KUDOS TO YOU, SIR. AND KUDOS AGAIN!" Because that's not a teacher being supportive or cool. That's just weird. Apparently.

3) When a student inevitably breaks my All Cell Phones Off rule and her Lady Gaga ringtone disrupts class, I will not stop everything and go all Jekyll/Hyde crazy to scare the shit out of them, despite the fact that my policy is really really really really clear.  Righteous Outrage has no impact on their behavior in the long term, and it's not my job to educate them on how cell phones are ruining the etiquette, interactive skills, and intellectual focus of an entire generation. That was their parents' job.

4) I will not exploit my first-year students' Home Separation Anxiety by being extra tough on them and making them cry when they miss a deadline. And if I do, I will not proudly refer to the practice as "Breaking them down to build them back up again."  Anymore.

5) I will not let them get complacent by asking them only Yes or No questions during discussions. Yes/No is always the easy way out. I am going to remember to challenge them, in the good way, by letting "Why" questions become the backbone of the semester.

6) I will wait out silences in class, rather than start to sweat at the front of the room after asking a question and hearing crickets. If I wait and count to ten, a student will always speak up.

7) I will remember to give them credit when they write well.

8) I will remember to give them credit when they they think critically.

9) I will remember to give them credit when they show that they're taking full ownership of their role in class. Because in each of my 32-student classrooms, at least 4 of them will absolutely do so this semester.

10) But I will remember to teach to the other 28 students in the room too.  Those 4 rockstar students are great, but they're not the ones I need to focus on.

And away we go.

From a Student, to the Rest of the Students

Classes rumble back to life next week at Big State University.  I was going to write some sort of open "Welcome Freshmen" letter, but anythingI would write to students would probably start off all nice and positive, and then... you know.  Meander into a much darker place.  A couple paragraphs in, I'd start to get pissy, and then I'd start writing about the shit I don't want new Freshmen to try and pull this year in my class, and next thing you know, I'm standing on my front porch in boxers, dress socks and sandals, waving a fist and telling those damn kids to get off my lawn.

Why go down that road this early?

This week, a former student of mine who's now a senior and the Editor-in-Chief of our Big State University Daily newspaper, wrote and published a letter of her own to new students.  Her name is Ruthie, and she took two of my classes a few years ago when she herself was a Freshmen.  She's the only student I've kept in touch with over the years, the only former student of mine who's also a Facebook friend.  She's bright, she's hardworking, sarcastic-but-learning-how-to-wield-it-wisely, and I'm pretty sure she's going to take over the world one day.  I'll never say it to her face (that would go against all of my rules), but I'm very proud of her.

The following is Ruthie's letter to new students, which appeared in the registration issue of our college paper this week.  I like her perspective on what people should get out of college (although we may differ on how important actual classes are to the experience).

*

August 2010

I've been at --------------- for much too long, by most people's reckoning. This fall is the beginning of my sixth year here, even though I've attended summer session more than once and usually carry 18 units per semester. The campus has been the focus of my enthusiasm for so long that my answers to seemingly obscure questions seem either psychic or psychotic — I'll describe the exact way to navigate the university website that answers your question; I'll map the precise locations of free parking on or near campus; I'll predict what floor of the library has the book or journal you're looking for; I'll actually read all the graduation requirements and major requirements in the General Catalog and explain the evolution of certain majors' standards by catalog year.

And yet, despite all this knowledge that should lead me down the most efficient path to graduation, I'm still here.

My reasons for my extended stay are personal ones, and I'm not arguing you should follow in my meandering footsteps. But the longer I am here, the more I realize just how many students are merely going through the motions, hoping or assuming that their perpetual, plodding progress will get them a degree, which guarantees them a job, at which they will be enthusiastically promoted for fulfilling the duties listed on their job description, until they earn six figures before they are 25 years old. They'll buy a huge house and a Maserati, double their money on unspecified investments, retire early and travel around Europe.

Business and finance majors, I'm looking at you.

It's not going to happen. It's certainly not going to happen here, at -----------. No matter what rumors you may have heard about this being a public university and therefore "easy," I guarantee they're wrong. College, done right, isn't easy for anyone, even the most brilliant and enthusiastic students.

Your class material, professors and peers will challenge you.

Your girlfriend or boyfriend will shatter your heart, and you will make bad choices trying to cope with how much you miss that manipulative, shockingly attractive sociopath.

You'll miss a credit card payment because you spent the money on sushi and beer and fixing the breaks on your car, which is older than you are, before you kill somebody, because you're responsible, and now they charged you a $30 late fee that put you over the limit, resulting in another $30 over the limit fee.

You'll get in a car accident that was not your fault because the other person didn't signal before changing lanes and be late to class and fail to turn that essay in on time because your laptop crashed at the last minute and your dog ate your printer as it ran out of ink.

You'll get a $40 ticket from Parking Services even though you were only in your dorm for 10 minutes to grab a box and for the love of everything, it was only a loading zone and there was no one else parked in it, which will become an $80 ticket after you forget to pay it for 3 weeks.

You'll do the math and realize that the credit card fees and ticket will take you 22 hours of delivering pizza at minimum wage, which is $6.40 after taxes, much of which goes into Social Security which you will never see.

Because college isn't just about the classes, or even mostly about the classes. The most important skills you learn and experiences you have almost all happen on your own time, and they're all ones you have to seek out for yourself. You find a job that relates to your field, you get involved in a group on campus, you join an honor society, you get a minor in a subject you didn't know about but took for General Ed and liked. You learn skills that are actually useful: time-management, how to react to unusual and challenging situations as if you're not confused and terrified, how to navigate a complex bureaucracy that doesn't care about what a special snowflake you are, how to interact with people so completely different from you that you can barely comprehend their thought-processes.

College isn't about doing the bare minimum amount of work acceptable, which in any case won't result in achieving overwhelming success. It isn't even a guarantee of middle-class mediocrity. Nor should it be. College is supposed to challenge you. If it's not, it's because you need to challenge yourself. Become the coxswain of the crew team, or a gopher in a production at theater, or a writer for the newspaper.

If there's one thing you can take away from my obscene number of years enrolled here, it's this: You get out of college what you put into it. You're already here, chosen out of the 61,000 applications this school received last Fall. Take that opportunity and exploit it as much as you can handle, and then add a little more.

Good luck, incoming freshman and transfer students. Welcome back, fellow upperclassmen. Let's make this year amazing.

And if anyone needs to know where the free parking is, give me a call.

Ruthie K----
Editor in Chief

Badass (Geek) for a Day

Big day for the Pirate today!
I'm guest posting on one of my favorite blogs, The Badass Geek.  I've been following him for a while, and am continually amazed at the good stories this guy churns out on an almost daily basis.

It must be his moniker.  If you're a Badass Geek, I think you're guaranteed a pretty action-packed existence.

Commandeering his blog is, as we say, a Pretty Big Deal.  And how did I take advantage of this opportunity?

I wrote about pot and fish tacos, of course.  Duh.

Go here to read the whole sordid story.  And then bookmark the geek.  I strongly suggest you visit his blog daily.  But only if you want to be more popular and live longer.

Mini-Pirate Jones and the Temple of Looooooooooove

I spent last Sunday assembling yet another piece of IKEA furniture for our new digs.  This time, it was a nice floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.  (Or, as the tag on the box said, a Kundis.  Those Swedes.  It's like they have a different word for everything.)

I put in a DVD to watch while I worked.  Because no matter how simple and basic the assembly is for an IKEA item, it takes me 3.5 hours.  Every time.

Whenever Saucy and I find ourselves taking on such a project, one that we'll be completing in front of the TV, we use the opportunity to get the Mini-Pirate to watch another movie with us.  For those newer readers, Mini-P has a random movie-phobia.  They can't be too scary, or too loud, and even watching one in the middle of our sunlit living room is dicey.  She jumps up and runs out whenever the music starts to build or get creepy. Plus absolutely does not trust us to pick out movies for her. Even thought I have a perfect track record of choosing movies that that she later loves, even when I tell her I'll fast forward past all scary parts, she's still skittish.  I'm continually reminding her that she loves Star Wars today only because I made her watch it last year.

So as I sat in the living room surrounded by pieces of our Kundis, I decided to go for broke.

I put in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I know.  There are some scary parts.  Nothing as deeply disturbing as Temple of Doom, mind you (Whooooooa!  That guy just had his heart all ripped out!), but still.  I first saw Raiders when I was ten, and even though I loved it, it gave me some sleepless nights.  Dreams of spiders, snakes and jumping corpses.  Plus Nazis with melting faces. But since I knew where all those parts were, I promised Mini-P that I'd skip them all.

She did not trust me.  She never trusts me.

I started the movie.  Mini-P sat warily on the couch with a bowl of popcorn.  I began assembling the Kundis.

We watched the first scene, where Indy worked his way through the temple with the tiny gold idol.  It was very difficult for him.  He almost died three times.  I looked over at Mini-P a few times, and saw that she was riveted.

And by the time the big boulder started rolling, Mini-P was LOVING it.  Sure, as the movie played out, I had to fast forward through some scenes-- like that part where Karen Allen is momentarily left alone in the Well of Souls, and she's suddenly in the middle of a creepy skeleton mosh pit.  (Hell, that scene still gives me the wiggins.)  But overall?  The kid was having a blast watching it.

So.  Halfway through the movie, Mini-Pirate said, "You know, this movie reminds me of Star Wars, but I'm not sure why."

"Well," I said, "George Lucas created them both.  Plus, the music is similar, because John Williams wrote both of the musical scores."  (Hell yes, Mini-P has been educated on the repertoire of John Williams.)

"Yeaa...." Mini-P said, thoughtfully.

"Oh," I added, "and of course the same actor is in both, duh.  Harrison Ford."

"Huh?"

"Harrison Ford played Han Solo, and he also played Indiana Jones.  See?"

She bolted upright.  "That's Han Solo?!?"

She loves Han Solo, of course.  He's her favorite Star Wars character.  I was surprised I'd forgotten to mention the connection to her before.

And then, all of a sudden,  Mini-P made a sound that resembled a choked sob, jumped up, and ran upstairs to her room.  One second she was here, and the next she was up there, with the door shut.

I remained on the floor with my half-assembled Kundis, not sure what had just happened.  We weren't in the middle of a scary part.

"Uh, kiddo?" I called up.  "Are you... ok?"

I heard her voice, muffled.  "I'm fine!"

Was she laughing?  Crying?  It was impossible to tell.

Saucy came in the room, having heard Mini-P streak upstairs and slam her door.

"Did something just happen?" she asked.

"I have no idea."

We both sort of looked at each other.  Saucy called up to see if Mini-P was ok, and again, we were informed that she was fine.  We shrugged at each other.  I restarted the movie.

A few minutes later, Mini-P came back downstairs.  Her face wasn't tear-streaked, but her eyes were watery.

"Sweetheart?  Are you ok?  Were you crying?"  (In other words:  Sweetheart?  Did I just somehow scar you for life for making you watch this movie?  Should I expect a call from your therapist in ten years?)

"I'm ok now, Daddy," she said, plopping back down on the couch.

"What happened?" I asked.  "Were scared by something?  Excited about something?"

"Not really..."

"Are you sure?  You seemed really upset when I told you that Han Solo and Indiana Jones are the same guy."

She got a little thoughtful.  "Well," she said, "you know how sometimes something makes you really really happy, and it makes you cry a little bit?  That's what happened."

"Oh."

"I just was really happy when you told me that.  It was weird."

Weird indeed.  But she was very rational in her explanation.  A rational 8-year-old is a fascinating thing.

We watched the rest of the movie, I finished tightened the last bolts on our new Kundis, and afterwards Mini-P said that yes, she'd loved the movie and couldn't wait to watch it again.

I still have no idea what happened there.  But something tells me I don't want to be around the first time she sees The Fugitive.

Class of 2014! Welcome, Zygotes!

It's been a busy week here.  The school semester starts soon, which means it's time for me start ramping up and getting read to head back into the classroom.

So I can start changing lives.

(Snort.)

I can always feel the students converging in mid-August.  Not unlike an ominous plague.   Before we moved last month, we lived close to my school.  During the summer, the neighborhood was tranquil and calm.  You could hear birds.  The air was sweet with the smell of orange blossoms.  All was tranquil.

Then, about two weeks before the semester began, we'd sense a subtle change in the air.  The faint tang of... beer and socks.

The birds would stop singing.

On her morning drive to work, Saucy would see a U-Haul truck parked in front of one of the mini-dorms at the bottom of the hill.  Then another.  Then a couch would show up on a lawn.  A week later, we'd start to see little red cups littering the sidewalks.  And before you knew it, the area would turn into a mini-dorm No Man's Land.  By Labor Day, the cul-de-sac three blocks down looked like a party post-apocalypse.

It's the plague of the mini-dorms.  I won't miss it.

I do look forward to school in the Fall, though.  For all my big snarky talk about my students, I'm pretty fond of them.  They're goofy and lovable.  They say ridiculous things, attempt to shovel out a lot of bullshit when deadlines roll around, but I can't help but like them.  Freshmen especially.  They're 18, they're excited to be out of the house, and they're giddy with freedom.  They're basically like big happy dogs galumphing around campus on their giant clumsy paws.  Big happy dogs with cell phones and opposable thumbs for better texting.

I  have one section of Freshmen on my class slate this semester.  This year's goal-oriented, self-motivated, environmentally-aware, socially-conscious 18-year-olds (Class of 2014!!!!  AWOOOO!!!) were born in 1992.

1992?

That was the year I graduated from college.

 I remember '92 with total clarity.  I was 21.  I barely qualified as an adult.  While these new Freshmen were evolving from zygotes into sentient beings that, years later, would learn how to do the perfect keg stand on the front lawn of a mini-dorm, I was wrapping up my own keg-standing career (at least, the undergraduate stage of it).  I had no plan, no job, no vision.  Completely clueless.

It really does feel like yesterday sometimes.  I remember the movies I saw that year (Batman Returns and Reservoir Dogs), the CD I played every day (U2's Achtung Baby) and placed I lived (including a mini-dorm near my school in Redlands, CA, with three friends.  Just call me Pirate Hypocritebeard).  I remember the girls I went out with, the jobs I had, and the feeling that my looming college graduation was a precipice I was about to leap from.  I was a spazzy, clueless golden retriever myself,  just like these kids I'm going to teach.  I was 21 years old yesterday.

When I meet them in two weeks, I'll pretend to be an adult, and they'll buy it.  It'll be fine.

Welcome, Zygotes!


P.S.  On a completely unrelated note, go to Dad Revolution to see my latest post there.  Spoiler:  it's neither cute, nor funny.  It's more along the lines of creepy and saddening.

Drunk at Dance Camp

Mini-Pirate is taking "So You Think You Can Dance" day camp this week.  Tis' a good fit for the child.  She has so much energy bursting out of her body at any given moment that it's a wonder she doesn't spontaneously combust on a warm day.  She's physically unable to simply walk from Point A to Point B, ever.  She skips, she gambols, she sashays, she jogs, she prances, and she occasionally barrels, often knocking down strangers by accident.

So dance camp is a bullseye, and she's had a great week.   We're playing, we're dancing, we're team building...

... and we're learning about drunk people.

As I drove Mini-P home from camp this afternoon, I asked her to hit me with some highlights from the day.

"Well, we played dance tag today, so that was really fun."

"Dance tag?  That does sound fun," I said.

"The teacher calls out a style, and we have to do it."

"Like hip-hop or ballet or tap or something?"

"No.  Like today, we had to dance as if we were drunk.  It was sooo cool."

Um.

"You had to dance like you were drunk?" I asked, thinking I had maybe misheard her, or suffered a quick brain aneurysm that affected my ability to translate language.  Not to sound like I'm my own grandfather, but isn't there some sort of rule about glorifying substance abuse during day camp?  Wasn't the whole Making Smart Choices concept invented by a camp counselor?

"Yea," my daughter continued, "I acted all happy and I kept bumping into people, and then I fell down and pretended to throw up."

Huh.  Let's see here:  Happy, Bumping, Falling Down, Puking.  Check, check, check, and check.

Hey, here's a question:  where EXACTLY has my 8-year-old been spending her nights?  How does she have such an accurate sense of what drunk people do?  Is she sneaking HBO after bedtime?  Is she going out and clubbing without my knowledge?

"That sounds pretty accurate, I guess," I said.  "Although if you get really drunk, you usually feel really super sick afterwards."

"Yea, I definitely don't want to get drunk for real," she said, much to my massive, massive relief.  (I understand she won't feel this way forever.  You don't have to say it.  Please don't take this away from me.)

And then:

"Have you ever been drunk, Daddy?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Have you ever been drunk before?"

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart?  I didn't catch that."

"I said, have you ever been drunk?"

"Cough, cough.  Ahem.  Sorry, something was caught in my throat there for a second.  Hey, is that an ambulance behind us?  That siren is so loud."

"Daddy, I said--"

"Hey, honey, look!  A blimp!"

"Fine," she harumphed.  "Don't tell me.  I'll ask Mommy when we get home."

Want cultural enrichment for your kids?  Enroll them in day camp today!!!

Random Tuesday Thoughts: House Porn, Katy Perry, and Culture Brats

“Don't worry.  Randomness is the sign of a gifted mind.”

                                                          --Albert Einstein

                                                          (-- or my mom)

Read the randomness.  Bask in it.  Bathe in it. Then click on the button and to go The Unmom and see how the random can spread like a toxic zombie virus.  Awesomely.

1)   House Porn to Follow

We’re mostly unpacked in the new house.   Saucy has been working over time to get the place looking wonderful, and has completely succeeded.  Fans of the fine SaucyWench and her decorating/organizing skills will recall the time she had ten extra minutes on her hands, and decided to color-code our bookshelves:

 Which was so great, since I’m often in the mood to read something, you know, green.

She’s using these skills here in our new house, and it’s a wonder to behold.  At some point I’ll post some nice house porn pics to show exactly what the woman has accomplished (I’m forbidden until she proclaims the house ready for documenting), but for now, I'll say this: remember all my worrying about letting go of the old house, about Mini-Pirate making the transition, and all that dramarama?  Needless.  Now that we’re here, we’re happy and enjoying it.  As for the kid?  Once she saw all of her old stuff in her new room, she never looked back.   She’s perfectly happy in the new house, and her new room, and the new neighborhood.  Proving yet again that 98% of my parental worrying is pointless.  You people were right.  As usual.  Whew.

2)   Speaking of the Mini-Pirate and Katy Perry

Hear me now: there is nothing quite as disturbing as listening to your 8-year-old daughter singing the lyrics of Katy Perry’s California Gurls.  It’s just not right.  

The other afternoon I overheard her rocking out in her room, a capella:

California girls, we’re unforgettable

Daisy dukes, bikinis on top

Sun-kissed skin so hot will melt your popsicle

I dropped the basket of laundry I was carrying.  What was that about melting a popsicle?  Um…. WHAT?  No. No no no no no NO.  No.

“Uh, Honey,” I asked, “where did you hear that song?  On the radio?”  (In other words: Do I have to break all the radios?  In the world?)

“It’s called California Girls," she said.  "It’s a great song.”

“Yea.  But where did you hear it?”

“At school.”  Her voice carried that faint Duh! inflection that I already hate.

“At school?  Seriously?  Where at school?”

“At the third grade talent show.  Some girls from the other class sang it.”

Great.

I’m no prude.  I’m not saying it’s a bad song (even though it’s a horrible song).  And I’m not saying I yearn to return to the days when her favorite songs were off The Wiggles set list.   Because there were days during the Toddler Era when I considered tearing off my own ears and stuffing them into the resulting bloody holes in my head just to stop hearing about The Big Red Car one more freaking time.

And I’m sure my parents wouldn’t have approved of some of the music I listened to as a kid, if they’d been paying closer attention.  I can remember being in fifth or sixth grade and listening very, very carefully to “Darling Nikki” on the Purple Rain album, and being deeply intrigued, to say the least.

But come on. Back me up here – do I not have the right to drive over to my daughter’s school and politely request that in the future, the adminstration refrain from approving slutty girl pop songs for elementary school functions?  Or am I overreacting?  Is it possible I'm more Amish than I think I am?

  

3)    Culture Brats

Hey! As part of my ongoing quest to conquer the Internet one site at a time, starting today I’m a contributor at Culture Brats, a pop culture site for/by folks who are old enough to remember The Goonies, Def Leppard, and the original MTV VJ lineup – people who recall what it was like to make actual mixtapes.  On tapes. Go there today and you’ll find my review of True Blood, which is currently in the middle of its third season.  (Review Spoiler:  I’m mostly annoyed with it.  Saucy, on the other hand, likes the surplus of naked vampire boys.) 

P.S.  Today's post employed the phrases “house porn,” “slutty girl pop,” and “naked vampire boys.”  Who knows what fresh-faced, hairy-palmed readers Google will kick my way by accident.  Win!

Giganta and The Noble Knight Go On a Date

Mini-Pirate has this great little wooden castle that Saucy picked up at a yard sale a while back, and an accompanying basket of little plastic knights and horses -- a ragtag but loyal contingent of noble warriors. Mini-P and I like to play with them, but our games have changed over the last couple years. 

In the beginning, we had the knights fighting each other for control of the castle.  We liked to stage battles that basically involved dividing the figures into two piles, and then throwing them at each other while shouting “Forsooth!”

“Taste the cold steel of my tiny sword, Varlet!!”

"Get bent, ye stoopidhead!!!”

After a while, Mini-P decided she wanted to insert herself into the epic battles and take more of a starring role, rather than work behind the scenes.  But because she’s a stickler for accuracy when it comes to scale and proportion (something she gets from her detail-driven Saucy mom), she realized she'd have to play the part of the Giant Girl who lumbers into the valley, discovers the kingdom, and gleefully tromps all over the knights far below.  She called herself Giganta.  I would take several of the knights, and point their little spears towards her feet.

“Get thee hence, giant foot!"

Then I would charge, knowing that such bravery would have an inevitable, tragic end.

I lost a lot of good men battling that giant.  Still: good times.

 Yesterday we set up the castle.  It had been a couple of months.  Mini-P declared she would yet again be playing the part of Giganta, Fearsomest Giant Girl of the Kingdom.   She told me to pick out my favorite knight and prepare him for battle.

I made my choice.  Stalwart, noble Sir Tinyman.

Look at his expression.  Bad ass, right?

Sir Tinyman and Giganta entered the field of battle.  The throngs peering out from the distant battlements were silent.  Not a creature stirred in the surrounding woods.  Morning mist curled over the moor.  I moved Sir Tinyman into position, preparing him to rush at Giganta with forthrightness and courage.

Giganta picked up the brave little knight, plucking him from the ground as he kicked and cried out.  She held him up and peered at him.

And then, she said to him:  “Hey, you’re handsome.  Want to go on a date?”

Huh?  Wait.  What?

“Hold everything!” I said.  "Giganta can’t ask Sir Tinyman out on a date!"

“Yuh huh,” she said.  “I can if I want to.”

“But—but,” I spluttered, “they’re about to duel to the death!  What’s all this date business?”

She shrugged.  “Giganta decides she likes the knight, and then they go out to dinner at a restaurant.  And then they fall in love, and they get married.”

I realized that, yes, the game is changing yet again. 

Because Giganta, at age 8, is only five years away from being a teenager.