A little later than advertised.
I spent this morning sweeping leaves, when I look back at last year’s post, it’s clear that this is a major milestone in the year.
Last week my life was in chaos, returning from my travels and this week at least to a lesser degree as I try to prepare for the second half of the semester. It has been Fall break for my students, some of them heading home for a few days, others staying in Pittsburgh.
The weather is wonderful, although the nights are cold, the sun is out and leaves are falling from the trees in a constant shower, Saturday morning has indeed involved sweeping and clearing. It was warm, t-shirt weather and I worked hard, a blister has formed just at the bottom of my right thumb where I held the rake, I dug out some gloves and managed to get through it.
I used a broom to sweep the drive, we have a female gingko tree with beautiful leaves but horrid stinky yellow fruit. These are full of butyric acid which is the same as found in human vomit, it is pretty repugnant smell and you can’t help but squish a few as you step out of the car, there’s a depressing pop and then that unpleasant smell as you realize what you’ve just done. The squirrels love them though.
This week a little reminder, some leaves and tough love.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
This fall break, I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped, but everyday somehow I did something, marked work, gave feedback, chased up missing work. I also tied up some loose ends from Qatar, quickly edited a short film (see below), and herded cats as I try to get another trip organized with some of my students. They are adults but I feel wholly responsible for them, I’ll have their emergency contact numbers on my phone which hopefully I won’t use.
I thought that I’d be able to get all my planning in place for the second half of the semester, I managed to rejig the schedules slightly, but not too much. Teaching two new courses though, I am starting to see the gaps, both in terms of what the students need and what I am able to deliver. At first I thought - now I need to learn all about (xyz) because that’s what they need - but I have to remind myself that I can’t be expert on everything, that there are people better qualified than me that I can draw on and who might come and talk with the students.
There are some concepts that you might find yourself revisiting having not taught them for a while, for instance this week we looked at iterative storytelling, the sort that you get in choose your own adventure books or games, I mean I understand the concept and I’ve probably read a few articles but it has been a while. Can I even teach this ? - I suppose the answer is yes, if armed with good questions and enough for the students to start to learn about it themselves. I feel the need to sense check some what will be found, so that we’re not hostage to the possibility of missing important points, but I think we may have enough to go on. I hope. I’d be interested to find out what other people do when they are teaching and inevitably discover these gaps in knowledge when a particular field is so wide-ranging.
At least I’m always honest with the students and I often say…we’ll learn about this together, and hope my instinct takes me in the right direction.
Interlude
Life Lessons
We are into the final stretch of mid-term electioneering here in the states, there are television debates, adverts peppering every channel, and lots of batshit crazy leaflets claiming this or that candidate is going to free murderers, eradicate all jobs, are a danger to your children, will damage your health…you name it. The emphasis, from both sides seems to be on discrediting your opponent in the most hysterical and ridiculous way possible, while saying almost nothing about your own policies (if you have any) Some of the attacks are actually be true, there are candidates who want to remove the right to vote, make choices about your body, get in the way of choosing who you love, marry and whether you can parent and adopt with whoever you’d like. Most ads are delivered with deep, serious voices, those same warning you about fire safety, germs, not wearing hard hats, swimming in open water.
My kids are exposed to a ton of these ads on YouTube and laugh them away, at least they can see straight through them, because they understand how movies and television works, and because many of the claims sound untrue simply because they are delivered in the most dramatic and sensationalist way possible. What is harder to decipher, are opinions they’ll hear on TikTok or Reels. Political advertising is banned on these platforms, but it still sneaks through.
Yard signs are another thing we’re not used to seeing, in the UK people put little cards in their windows, but just red, blue, yellow or green with the name of a candidate. Here in the US there are a confusing number of signs, it is really difficult to find out who is standing and what they’re standing for. I found ballotpedia had some info, but the best one was the League for Women Voters who have prepared a series of pdfs on each candidate with questions on important issues.
In our road, there are a few signs that say things like “Support our Veterans - vote Republican” or “Educators for Shapiro” (Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania). One of my students cannily pointed out that these signs are signifiers for other things. No wonder it is such a divisive political landscape, all issues are reduced to binary choices, finding causes that appeal to those who may have voted for a particular party previously. I feel we’re basically saying that to vote either way is to care less about this group or that issue, when it is a fact that Republicans also send their children to school, or that many Democrats are Veterans.
Despite a green card, we won’t be able to Vote unless we become American citizens, should this ever happen. So my duty is to urge people to vote, exercise their hard won democratic rights, and ignore the bullshit and do what your conscience, your brain, and heart tells you.
Thank you
Okay, it has been a tough football/soccer season, my little team of tough guys have been on the end of a few losses and we’ve er…not coped very well with defeat. They are unused to its bitter taste and instead of drawing on deep resolve, they are turning on each other and the last few minutes can be toxic and troubling, abandoning almost any advice about formation and trying to take it upon themselves to dribble past seven players and score, which almost never works out, deepening this feeling of frustration. In sport, this is called the catastrophe theory, there’s an almost perfect graph demonstrating that when you feel everything is going wrong, then almost everything does go wrong and it’s hard to come back. It’s my job as coach to guide my young team through this difficult time. I’m sure that Jürgen Klopp is going through the same thing, we should go for a pint.
We had a tough game last night and we’ve got another on Sunday, we’ll rejig some of the positions and have a gentle chat to one or two players, but losing is part of sport and they’ll have to face up to it at some point. Again, I feel very responsible for these kids, they’re smashing and I want to get them through it. That or I’ll get the sack on Monday morning.
So, hope that you’re having a good weekend. Look after yourselves, again there’s so much going on in the world that is strange, awful, chaotic, terrifying. We have each other, you’re the good ones you know that don’t you. Hang in there.
If you want special results, you have to feel special things and do special things together. You can speak about spirit, or you can live it.
Jürgen Klopp
Okay, see you next week.