3 more days till teaching starts

[lobelia321]

I'm always a bit nervous at the start of a new academic year, and a bit more so after a year's leave. I don't like not knowing the students. Everything is much better once I actually get to meet them in the flesh (unless it's a dire group -- and this is why I'm nervous, I suppose: in case it is!).

The theory people are fine. They'll just be art history students and I've taught that course oodles of times. Also, I just teach what I love: semiotics, more semiotics, and is the author's interpretation any more valid than anybody else's? (Remember my pet hobby horse? Heh.) I give them really hard texts to read and then quiz them. Fun! They hate it. But by week 12, they come to love it and say how grateful they are and how interesting it's been. Deep down, all students like to be worked hard.

The film people I know, too. They are more difficult. They don't like reading. They think they're sooooo cool because they're doing *film*. Strangely, they don't go to the movies, either. And they have rarely seen any film made before the year 1992. *Pulp Fiction* is as avant-garde as they think the world of cinema gets. But I can work with them. I lure them in with *Run Lola Run* and then smuggle in Kurosawa (ooh yes, Orli likes him! oooh - *has brief and irrelevant Orli-moment*) and Dziga Vertov and everything else I like. Possibly Bollywood as well.

But the visual culture people! Headache! Tiny group! All of whom boys! Worse: cool boys! I amend: boys who think they are cool! This makes it hard. I envision them sitting round, being so busy with appearing cool that no energy is left over for saying "I don't understand this, please explain." Admissions of ignorance will further be hindered by excess number of balls. How to woo them? Do I show them groovy-poovy filmies? Throw comics and graphic novels at them? Be all hard-hitting and theory-driven? Waltz in and hope my hi-heels will do it all for me?

Miss? Any ideas from your bottomless fount?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ming/]

As a fine arts major who's taken her fair share of history courses (and oh, there's more to come, I know it), I'd just like to say that I would love to be in one of your classes.

The other day my 'Art Identity Through the Ages' teacher was so whacked up on pain-pills that she confused the word "major" for "manger" (ie, 'Here is a depiction of the Christ child in a major') and invented several new words.

Your students will love you just fine. They'll love when you hurt them, too. Even the cool boys.

*fangirls you academically*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*feels all breathless and hair-fluttering from fannage*

And wow: *academic* fannage.

I may implode.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh and thank you for this nice reply. :-)

Manger!!!

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Deep down, all students like to be worked hard.

Oh yes, they do! I would love to be in your class. Perhaps you could teach it online sometime; that way I could become educamated in artish things. (now you make me feel self-conscious every time I use a semi-colon)

And cool boys can usually be won over through the judicious use of heels. I mean wearing them. Or maybe not. You know what I mean! *g*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*snorts with the heelage* Aw, don't make me feel like a heel, Nat. (Or should that be Tash?)

But thank you. Well, the authorial authority thread was sort of like teaching. Except that the comments were more intelligent. People on LJ aren't as shy as students f2f in a classroom.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

On second thoughts, maybe I'll dry-run some of my nvervous-boy sessions online! Hah. Twisting LJ to my own designs.

I love your new series of icons, btw. The big Blockbuster in my town does not have Memphis Belle, either. I checked today. Hrmph.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

University classes via LJ. That would work for me! Actually, I think I've learned as much here as in any class. Along with a lot of things you would NEVER learn in class. Hee.

And isn't LJ there to be twisted to our own designs? Go for it!

I can't believe you can't find that movie anywhere. Too bad your DVD players won't play the American versions or I'd lend you mine. Yes, I can bear to be without it for a few weeks.

I have to thank [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] for the icons. I'm completely useless with such things.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

My DVD player can play all the world's regions!!!! I bought it specially!!! (and somewhat illegally...)

!!!!!!!!

*bats lashes at furious rate*

Cool!

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Just give me a mailing address and I'll entrust you with my precioussss. (and my husband will be grateful to you for getting it out of the house for a while). *g*

[badgermonkey.livejournal.com]

I am aware of the Cool Boys who sit oh-so-casually in the classroom wearing their very best t-shirts and trying to look way too cool to even be there, let alone participate. They like Media.

I wouldn't start with hard stuff, I would start with easy-peasy stuff so that they got into the habit of talking and joining in. Is this a seminar? Does it all have to be talking? Can you steal tricks from sixth-form teaching and make them do things in small groups, fill in boxes on handouts, make spider diagrams and do things on big sheets of sugar paper? Those things work for me with even the most reluctant of groups and I don't see why it should have to stop because they're at uni - I was never a great fan of the 'let's all sit around and discuss' model anyway.

I'm not sure what visual culture encomapsses, but could you start with an advert from a magazine or something so you could start basic theory on something they would get easily? You want to make sure that the ethos of the class is one where people join in, not where they sit around looking pretty, or it will stay like that all semester and get v. irritating.

(PS I was trying to make a GaryBollywood icon but my photoshop wouldn't let me, dammit.)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Bollygary - *implodes*.

Yes, am starting with front page of newspaper. Then getting them to bring photos of friends'n'family and talk about what they mean to them. Then I'll bring in comic books from newsagent. (Oh, am *so* low key.) Am contemplating stealing t'h's X-Box and lugging *Medal of Honour* into class.

What is sugar paper? what is a spider diagram? And small group, *snorts*. I only have 6 students in this class! It is its own bloody small group! *continues to feel nervous*

Thank you for the hints. More, please???

[badgermonkey.livejournal.com]

Look! BollyGary! Heh.

You know, I felt so expert after giving teaching advice. Which makes a nice change from the way I normally feel in t'classroom...

I'm doing the photo thing! Only I'm going to make them bring in photos of themselves to talk about representation - one pic they think shows themselves accurately and one that doesn't.

I think of small groups as 2-3, so you can split them up; people are more likely to talk in pairs or threes. Sugar paper is big sheets of coloured paper they use at school but that you probably won't see anywhere else, it's about A2 size so it's good for doing things to put on the wall or for mapping concepts and things. I have used it twice today and it works like a charm on my classes, especially if you let them colour in! A spider diagram is like a brainstorm - where you put one thing in the middle of the paper and then draw lines off it to represent all the different ideas that are associated with it, which encourages a more lateral approach to things and is an active way of dealing with abstract concepts. The students will definitely know what one is, and they do help start debate.

The rule of thumb I work by is, the older the students, the less work I do. So for Year 7, I will stand and talk and make the lessons very regimented, but the older they get, the more responsiblity I hand over to them. So I get sixth-formers to give presentations and put them in charge of research. If there's something I think I should tell them, I try and find a way of them learning that without me telling it to them in so many words.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

OK, am back on 32 words limit. This is in several parts.

I love this! LJ as professional tip-exchange! Or a sort of excuse-me-miss-teaparty. Except I'm not miss. Also I'm wary of the sugarpaper/spider thing because it sounds very *schooly*, and I do want them to get used to being at *university*. But the photo thing I like a lot. I may adopt it. Get them to bring in pix of themselves as well. Sounds like a good basis for oodles of concepts to emerge. And like fun, too -- because I imagine some of the others might say, but that looks just like you. The added problem I have (which you don't) is that the students do not know each other. So the cool-factor is tripled. Once you've got them socialising and being friends: hey, auto-pilot. But if they haven't gelled by week 4, in my experience this spells trouble and tedium for the rest of the semester. And one of them is a *mature lady*. This is not always a good combo. Still, I will forge on.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am nonplussed by the way I have only nervous disdain for cool boys in my classroom but drool over them with shameless abandon online...

We will also, at some point, *have* to discuss theoretical texts. Now how to make them read it...?

[badgermonkey.livejournal.com]

Heh. I also find it amusing that you are worried about one of the group being a 'mature lady' when we know from experience how mature ladies and cool boys go together. You are a mature lady! By the standards of university admissions, so am I! And *we* like cool boys.

Actually, I have the best fun with the cool 17-year-olds in my classes. In the other lessons, I always feel like I am acting being the Big Bad Teacher Woman, but in my sixth form lessons, I mess around and overact and do silly things and get laughs, and it is very gratifying. Except one of the Cool Boys patted me on the back on the way out of the lesson and now I'm worried that they see me as more of an amusing pet than a teacher. It's a fine line.

But I have acted things out to prove a point before, which seems to go down well. It depends how much critical theory one can mime, really.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

We could try to mime the syntagmatic axis!!!!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I forgot to say: do you think that would work?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I don't want to start with ads. Ads are too hard: with ads, I do semiotics. I might lead them gently towards Roland.

[badgermonkey.livejournal.com]

I did an ad with my Year 10s and introduced Semiotics For Dummies (without using the word, of course) by talking about how things in media products were all signs that mean something, and how we interpret them tells us something about the product, and I thought "You know, it sounds so *easy* when you put it like this, why does it get so bloody hard?"

I think perhaps my 14-year-olds are not ready for Roland.