Of Grammar and Eskimos
When I was in elementary school (and even high school, I guess), I was the kind of nerd who absolutely LOVED going back to school. The new pens, the pristine notebooks that smelled like endless possibilities, the exciting prospect of my best guy friend falling in love with me. Those were good times.
These are not good times. No way. School has descended to a new level of hell that I don't think even Dante envisioned. As a full-time employee at a major research university, I'm allowed to take classes virtually for free. Since I make peanuts, it made sense to enroll in a master's program so that one day I could put more degrees on my resume and hopefully earn something a little closer to cashews or macadamia nuts. Last month I started my third class and so far things are not progressing well.
Let me give you a snapshot of the first day. I arrive in the classroom five minutes before the scheduled start time and find a seat in a comfortable area near the windows. Everyone else in the class arrives en masse about seven minutes later. That's right. I've spent almost ten minutes staring at the professor or trying to avoid eye contact. We're already off to a great start.
So class starts and we begin our thought-provoking (read: mind-numbing) exploration of the Grammar of Standard Written English. He asks us if we've read any of the textbook--I haven't even BOUGHT the textbook! It's the first day of class for crying out loud! But seemingly everyone else has. Yikes.
So then he goes through the class list to take attendance and begins speaking in tongues to random people whom he apparently met at some orientation program I wasn't invited to. One girl speaks Italian and by about 20 minutes in to class she's so far up his ass she's coming out his mouth. One person speaks Bulgarian. Another speaks Hindi. And myself, Plain Jane that I am, I speak English. And silly me, in a Grammar of Standard Written English course, I thought I'd be safe.
During moments like these I console myself with the fact that I have a job and all these other people don't. They're full-time master's students, many of them right out of undergrad, and I am a writing professional. People call me with questions about verb tense and hyphenation. My boss finally trusts me to write articles and publish them on the Web without his approval. But I don't speak French and from what I could tell from the first day of class, that could be my undoing.
Upbeat optimist that I am, I survived the first day with a smile and went back for more. It didn't get better. The professor spouts off in French at least twice a class. But the worst thing, by far, is that he calls on people at random. Without fail, I'll be writing down an incredibly important fact like "This rule does not apply in Swahili, but could apply in different dialects of Uzbeckistani," when he says "Number one, SUSIE!" It's like a spotlight shines down on me from the water-stained, Indian-food-smell saturated ceiling and I'm caught with my metaphorical pants down. I honestly expect the know-it-all, ass-crawling girl beside me to burst into a chorus of "I see London, I see France" one of these days. No matter how hard I try or how much I prepare at night, I still mumble "Ummm, lexical verb?" in a barely audible voice. I'm never comfortable in the class. I always battle throwing up.
But last week was the real kick in the pants, the turning point in my adult educational career. Although many of you have heard about this ad nauseam, I'll repeat for those who don't know. I completed a homework assignment but unfortunately misunderstood the directions, which stated a grammatical rule and said "Using the rule, determine whether the italicized phrases in the following sentences are X or Y." So I thought I had to actually include my reason for my X or Y choice, meaning that I turned in about a page and a half for the exercise. So when he handed the assignments back during the next class, I saw that everyone else merely listed their choices--no explanation. Yikes! Then the nightmare...I don't know if I can actually bear to relive it. Sigh. Here goes.
The professor walked up to me, handed me my assignment and--in his best outside voice--said "THIS WAS REALLY OVERKILL AND I JUST DIDN'T LEAVE MYSELF ENOUGH TIME TO CHECK SOMETHING LIKE THIS."
I really wish he would have said it louder. There's an Eskimo in the Northwest Territories who totally didn't know if he said "overkill" or "overhill."
(Note: "Northwest Territories" was Saskatchewan until I was corrected by an astute reader from said Canadian location who said that Eskimos don't live there. Go figure.)
After an entire class of embarrassed silence on my part (except, of course, when I was randomly selected to answer questions), I left wishing I could just melt into the floor and never go back. But then, as I went back to my office and stewed for the rest of the day, sending IMs like "I'm so humiliated" and "I can't believe what a moron I am!," I passed through humiliation into full-fledged anger. Who is this professor that he can punish me for doing too much? Who is he to make me feel so horrible about myself. Who is he to think I actually WANT to answer questions in his class. Maybe, just maybe, I don't want to be at his beck and call.
As I shared these sentiments with an intern in our office (enrolled in the same graduate program as I, but full-time), she seemed shocked that I would harbor such thoughts. And maybe three or four years ago I could agree with her--that professors have a right to do whatever they want because it's their class.
But since I've been in the "real world" for a while, I realized that my rights as an individual are just as important as his rights as a professor. (And I avoid using "teacher" here because I learn next to nothing from his class, although his book is helpful.) I am paying good money (err...to the federal government, at least) to take this class. Why should I enter every class meeting with a sinking stomach and a racing heart? Why should I sit in utter panic that he might call on me and I might not know the answer? Why does he get to control MY education?
If I want to do too much homework, let me or, if you have a problem with it, talk to me alone and refrain from embarrassing me in public. Ask for volunteers from the class to answer questions or, if you're going to do the random method, give a person some time to think. I didn't enroll in Grammar Boot Camp and I don't appreciate being so scared and embarrassed and frustrated in a class that could be incredibly helpful to my career. Everyone else seems to think his attitude in class is normal--that since we're students we just have to do what he says. I think not. In fact, I think I might ask him to wait one second while I finish writing my notes the next time he calls on me. Or maybe I'll say "LISTEN THIS IS REALLY OVERKILL AND I JUST DON'T HAVE TIME TO DEAL WITH THIS."
And I'll say it loud enough for that Eskimo to hear.
These are not good times. No way. School has descended to a new level of hell that I don't think even Dante envisioned. As a full-time employee at a major research university, I'm allowed to take classes virtually for free. Since I make peanuts, it made sense to enroll in a master's program so that one day I could put more degrees on my resume and hopefully earn something a little closer to cashews or macadamia nuts. Last month I started my third class and so far things are not progressing well.
Let me give you a snapshot of the first day. I arrive in the classroom five minutes before the scheduled start time and find a seat in a comfortable area near the windows. Everyone else in the class arrives en masse about seven minutes later. That's right. I've spent almost ten minutes staring at the professor or trying to avoid eye contact. We're already off to a great start.
So class starts and we begin our thought-provoking (read: mind-numbing) exploration of the Grammar of Standard Written English. He asks us if we've read any of the textbook--I haven't even BOUGHT the textbook! It's the first day of class for crying out loud! But seemingly everyone else has. Yikes.
So then he goes through the class list to take attendance and begins speaking in tongues to random people whom he apparently met at some orientation program I wasn't invited to. One girl speaks Italian and by about 20 minutes in to class she's so far up his ass she's coming out his mouth. One person speaks Bulgarian. Another speaks Hindi. And myself, Plain Jane that I am, I speak English. And silly me, in a Grammar of Standard Written English course, I thought I'd be safe.
During moments like these I console myself with the fact that I have a job and all these other people don't. They're full-time master's students, many of them right out of undergrad, and I am a writing professional. People call me with questions about verb tense and hyphenation. My boss finally trusts me to write articles and publish them on the Web without his approval. But I don't speak French and from what I could tell from the first day of class, that could be my undoing.
Upbeat optimist that I am, I survived the first day with a smile and went back for more. It didn't get better. The professor spouts off in French at least twice a class. But the worst thing, by far, is that he calls on people at random. Without fail, I'll be writing down an incredibly important fact like "This rule does not apply in Swahili, but could apply in different dialects of Uzbeckistani," when he says "Number one, SUSIE!" It's like a spotlight shines down on me from the water-stained, Indian-food-smell saturated ceiling and I'm caught with my metaphorical pants down. I honestly expect the know-it-all, ass-crawling girl beside me to burst into a chorus of "I see London, I see France" one of these days. No matter how hard I try or how much I prepare at night, I still mumble "Ummm, lexical verb?" in a barely audible voice. I'm never comfortable in the class. I always battle throwing up.
But last week was the real kick in the pants, the turning point in my adult educational career. Although many of you have heard about this ad nauseam, I'll repeat for those who don't know. I completed a homework assignment but unfortunately misunderstood the directions, which stated a grammatical rule and said "Using the rule, determine whether the italicized phrases in the following sentences are X or Y." So I thought I had to actually include my reason for my X or Y choice, meaning that I turned in about a page and a half for the exercise. So when he handed the assignments back during the next class, I saw that everyone else merely listed their choices--no explanation. Yikes! Then the nightmare...I don't know if I can actually bear to relive it. Sigh. Here goes.
The professor walked up to me, handed me my assignment and--in his best outside voice--said "THIS WAS REALLY OVERKILL AND I JUST DIDN'T LEAVE MYSELF ENOUGH TIME TO CHECK SOMETHING LIKE THIS."
I really wish he would have said it louder. There's an Eskimo in the Northwest Territories who totally didn't know if he said "overkill" or "overhill."
(Note: "Northwest Territories" was Saskatchewan until I was corrected by an astute reader from said Canadian location who said that Eskimos don't live there. Go figure.)
After an entire class of embarrassed silence on my part (except, of course, when I was randomly selected to answer questions), I left wishing I could just melt into the floor and never go back. But then, as I went back to my office and stewed for the rest of the day, sending IMs like "I'm so humiliated" and "I can't believe what a moron I am!," I passed through humiliation into full-fledged anger. Who is this professor that he can punish me for doing too much? Who is he to make me feel so horrible about myself. Who is he to think I actually WANT to answer questions in his class. Maybe, just maybe, I don't want to be at his beck and call.
As I shared these sentiments with an intern in our office (enrolled in the same graduate program as I, but full-time), she seemed shocked that I would harbor such thoughts. And maybe three or four years ago I could agree with her--that professors have a right to do whatever they want because it's their class.
But since I've been in the "real world" for a while, I realized that my rights as an individual are just as important as his rights as a professor. (And I avoid using "teacher" here because I learn next to nothing from his class, although his book is helpful.) I am paying good money (err...to the federal government, at least) to take this class. Why should I enter every class meeting with a sinking stomach and a racing heart? Why should I sit in utter panic that he might call on me and I might not know the answer? Why does he get to control MY education?
If I want to do too much homework, let me or, if you have a problem with it, talk to me alone and refrain from embarrassing me in public. Ask for volunteers from the class to answer questions or, if you're going to do the random method, give a person some time to think. I didn't enroll in Grammar Boot Camp and I don't appreciate being so scared and embarrassed and frustrated in a class that could be incredibly helpful to my career. Everyone else seems to think his attitude in class is normal--that since we're students we just have to do what he says. I think not. In fact, I think I might ask him to wait one second while I finish writing my notes the next time he calls on me. Or maybe I'll say "LISTEN THIS IS REALLY OVERKILL AND I JUST DON'T HAVE TIME TO DEAL WITH THIS."
And I'll say it loud enough for that Eskimo to hear.