This post is not one to be graded for this class; however, it has everything to do with this class. This really is just a much needed vent for me, so don't feel obligated to read it, although I would be happy to receive feedback. Anyway, to go along with the title of this blog, I've felt like life, metaphorically speaking, has been giving me a lot of Lemans lately, and it's about time I reciprocate and, well, make Leman-ade. So here it goes:
For those of you who don't know, I'm an RA this year in Nesbitt Hall, and I've discovered that, at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, RAs, especially in a freshman dorm, are really the glue that holds a lot of this campus together- the "unsung heroes" of Olivet, if you will. I don't mean to say that RAs are responsible for keeping this boat afloat, but you would have to agree that without RAs, a lot of what goes on behind the scenes at Olivet would fall apart. Hence, RAs are exposed to a lot of what occurs in the lives of the students here, and I'm certainly no exception. This week, especially, I've seen a great deal of brokenness, failures, and pain in several people, both in my dorm and across campus, and I've been carrying it with me all week. Being responsible for thirty-five freshmen can become overwhelming, but I won't go into the details. Ergo, it's been a really dark week; my heart has been truly broken by knowing the amount of suffering that surrounds me, knowing that I can't do hardly anything about it, and knowing that it is only a fraction of the suffering that exists even just at Olivet. It reminds me of a scene from Apollo 13 where Ed Harris' character asks his crew about the team of astronauts in space, "What do we got on the spacecraft that's good?" After a moment of silence, one of his crew members answers, "I'll get back to you, Gene."
That's what the life of an RA can be like, from time to time. All of the problems that we see cloud the positive aspects of this life, and we fail to recognize what's good. Of course, this is only when the life of an RA is at its worst; it's not always this bad. However, I've found that this class, believe it or not, contributes to this feeling of overwhelmingly imminent suffering. I mean, we spend so much time simply discussing things that are wrong with the world seemingly just for the sake of discussion. This week in particular, when my mind was flooded with countless depressing thoughts that had consumed me for the majority of the week (as mentioned above), once I knew that we would be having a guest speaker come in and, in essence, explain more problems of the world merely from a different perspective, I tuned out what he was saying before he even started speaking. Seriously. I have no idea what he said in the entire class period. If a professor is reading this and wants to dock my grade because I'm admitting it, go ahead. I really couldn't care less because I am openly saying that I was and still am in no mood to point out any more of life's problems. I'm done with it, so I don't expect to give any effort in discussing anything in class that feeds my pessimistic tendencies. I get enough of that from my job.
On that note, let me offer a disclaimer before I continue: this is not a cry for help. I'm not saying that the depressing aspects of my job are causing me to spiral into depression myself. I'm doing just fine. It is my job to handle things like this, and I am well equipped to do so. Actually, I thoroughly enjoy my job as an RA, so please don't read this as a plead for someone to come talk through my life with me and lift me out of this dark state. That's not what this post is about. This post isn't even about me; it's about this class.
Obviously, I understand that this class is not an end itself but rather means to an end. We aren't being fed this information about countless crises in the world just to increase our knowledge; we're supposed to take this information and do something with it, but what exactly are we supposed to do? The class itself is very static and discussion-oriented, so it's not like it's equipping us to act on the course material; heck, it's barely even encouraging us to do so. Furthermore, even the bulk of the class, the discussions, is often empty. I don't think it's a big secret the amount of students who neglect the required readings prior to class, and based on my conversations with many other students within our cohort, we, as a cohort, are very open about our ability and proneness to B.S. a class discussion and a blog post. So to go back to my question about the class material that has clearly failed to provoke meaningful thought in many students, what exactly are we supposed to do?
Even though that's a fair question, that's not the question I want to emphasize. Here's a better one: what are we doing? Seriously. I mean, based on my experience in this class, we who have spent more than fifteen minutes of serious contemplation over the class material are merely self-inflicting pain on the human race in an overly-critical self-evaluation of our treatment of the earth with no intention of actually applying the results of our self-evaluation to our behavior due to a lack of instruction of how to properly do so. Am I the only one who feels that way, and if not, am I the only one who's tired of it?
Over the course of the semester, I've often blamed this thought process on my inability to see the point of what we're studying. I've thought that I merely haven't been giving enough effort in this class, and I hence missed the point because of my apathy and laziness. I mean, even though I've done the required readings, attended the required class sessions, and written the required blog posts, I did just zone out during an entire class period, after all. I don't think this is the problem, though, because even when I've found that I give the most effort in this class and am commended because of my ability "to leave thought provoking comments on several students' blogs" (to quote an email from one of our professors) and to be "straight forward" (to quote a message from another student in our cohort), I've discovered that all I'm really doing is finding points with which I disagree and being overly-critical of the arguments of both the authors of the course texts and the students on whose blogs I comment. Since when is being an intellectual synonymous with being harshly analytical? Why must we be negative and, frankly, pretentious in order to have meaningful discussion? Not to mention that all of this makes me really look forward to next semester's class, entitled "Issues in Society." That class sounds like it'll be a joyride...
If this is what it means to be an honors student, then I am almost ashamed to be one. I don't want to label myself as a man who sits down and bashes the human race for the sake of having and voicing an opinion. I certainly don't want to label myself as a man who fakes critical thought in order to earn a certain grade, so if a professor is reading this and thinks that my thought process has completely missed the point of what we're doing in class, then, by all means, give me an F, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend like this class has enriched my mind with a plethora of life-altering thoughts. If that's what it means to be an intellectual, then I don't want to be one, and I am willing to admit that. If that's what it means to be a Christian, then I think we've missed the point of the Gospel. If that's what it means to be human, to go back to the theme of this class, then I'm disappointed in what we've become.
This is what my experience has been in this class this semester, and I understand that I am severely generalizing in my analysis. Honestly, though, I haven't entirely hated this class, nor do I hate the Honors program as a whole, but I certainly haven't enjoyed myself this semester.
So that's my Leman-ade, and I understand that it's pretty sour, but I guess that means I'm just turning out to be a pretty sour Leman.
Drew,
ReplyDeleteI don’t normally read your blog post, but this one caught my eye. Because it’s a public post and honestly expresses the emotions you have regarding the class and the content (content that we’ve wrestled with for a good portion of the semester and have hoped would be compelling as well as challenging), I figured you deserved a public response. The comments and commentary that follow are my own and don’t necessarily reflect those of the other cohort professors.
I want to circle back to the challenges you’ve faced this semester as a RA eventually, because that’s obviously important to the context of your response to the course in general and this post in particular, but for now I’ll comment a bit on the class itself. I admit it’s quite frustrating to find that you (and apparently other students) have self-consciously shut down and tuned out. On the one hand, that’s a failing to some extent on our side. We’ve done our best to give you guys a rich, critical examination of our current agricultural and food production system from a wide variety of angles in a wide variety of formats, and we’ve tried to motivate that with the specifics (theologically, culturally, ecologically, and ethically) of why it matters. Perhaps that’s been overwhelming.
By the same token though, it’s difficult to take complaints seriously when you’re simultaneously admitting that you haven’t done the legwork to engage with what we’ve provided. There’s a perception that we should be providing responses or solutions to the problems we’re examining. I don’t agree with that, and I don’t recall consciously creating the expectation that we would be doing so. Nonetheless, the Wirzba text and in particular the latest readings from Bouma-Prediger have provided a host of potential starting places. More recently, the speakers we had in chapel and in our class provided concrete examples of people who were doing just this: devoting their lives and careers to addressing these problems. But more on “potential solutions” in a moment.
(cont.)
Part of this is an expectation or assumption about what education means. “We aren't being fed this information about countless crises in the world just to increase our knowledge,” you write, “we're supposed to take this information and do something with it.” But as the Bouma-Prediger chapter set out so well in the last reading, that’s exactly not the point. It’s not about what we do, but about the kind of people we need to become. At this point it’s not about equipping for work but formation of character. It’s, like the chapel speakers said on Thursday, about living in the struggle, about leaning into it. You are being fed this information “just to” increase your knowledge—and to increase, to some extent, your frustration about aspects of the world today.
ReplyDeleteBut philosophies of education aside, I think what’s most frustrating to me personally about this post is that I don’t quite understand the why of the self-admitted shutting down. Because the content is difficult or overwhelming? Because it hasn’t been successfully “marketed” or “sold” to bring about a successful “buy in”? Because we’re not providing an expected service or product (the “answers”)? Help me understand this. I applaud the fact that you’re not satisfied with yourself for going through the motions, but why did it take a bleak week and a non-graded blog post to bring this out? The point of us moving to a blog form of responses was to elicit honest, straightforward interaction and bypass the academic fluff that’s sometimes easier in a written paper.
My challenge to you, if you’re indeed dissatisfied with where you are: move. Change your location, metaphorically and physically. I’ve been giving crossed arms, open computers, and closed mouths at the back of the classroom the benefit of the doubt, assuming that you’re honors students and are processing and responding to the materials provided in your own way. But perhaps I’ve been mistaken. Move to the front of the class. Ask the people we’ve brought into class who are living their lives engaged with these questions what they think the answers should be. Come to lunch for further dialogue. Meet us in our offices. Come to the Creation Care forum on Tuesday. Do the readings.
(cont.)
Regarding the answers. You write, “We who have spent more than fifteen minutes of serious contemplation over the class material are merely self-inflicting pain on the human race in an overly-critical self-evaluation of our treatment of the earth with no intention of actually applying the results of our self-evaluation to our behavior due to a lack of instruction of how to properly do so.” If I understand your post correctly, I think this is the crux of your complaint and perhaps the answer to my question above about the why of shutting down: a lack of instruction of how to apply the results of self-evaluation to behavior. You’re getting close. When we sat down to structure this course, we self-consciously did not want to provide you with a list of things for “green and sustainable eating”: eat less meat, avoid GMOs, local source your food, etc. We wanted you guys to develop your own behavioral solutions. And we exposed you to a host of sources to do so. Everything we’ve looked at has offered solutions: Berry has his, the Amish theirs, Fair Oaks Farm had their own, Bouma-Prediger and Wirzba have theirs, and the speaker whom you ignored this past week had his. None of them are clear or easy. All of them are difficult to implement.
ReplyDelete“Since when is being an intellectual synonymous with being harshly analytical? Why must we be negative and, frankly, pretentious in order to have meaningful discussion?” I’m sorry this is what you’ve taken from the course. Again, we built it to be much richer than simply critical argumentation and sources. We had you read novels and short stories, visit farms and communities, in an effort to see this positively and from a variety of angles. It seems as though you’re frustrated with “harsh analysis” because you’ve had success taking this tact in your blog posts, but is that the only possible approach?
“I'm not going to sit here and pretend like this class has enriched my mind with a plethora of life-altering thoughts.” Have the thoughts not been presented? Or presented poorly? Why has the mind not been enriched? For me, enrichment is the beauty of honors. We get to dig deep in ideas. Where’s the disconnect?
Bringing it back to your role as an RA and the challenges you’ve faced recently in that context: connect the dots. Do that for your next blog post. Talk about some of those issues, and try to make connections between the way people are broken and hurting here at Olivet and the things we’ve been discussing in class. Maybe you’ll find something to build on for next semester, as we begin the next stage of our painful experiment.
Dr. Case
Firstly, thank you for your comments. I appreciate that you took the time to read what I had to say and bothered to work through this with me. That really does mean a lot. I'll try to reply to most of what you said, so feel free to ask for any further explanation or clarification:
DeleteLet me start by further explaining what you called the "self-admitted shutting down." It's not a lack of effort, nor is it an all-encompassing disinterest in the class material; it really feels more like an admittance of defeat. This past class period that I tuned out was an exception, and I do want to apologize for having done so because I know that he is dear to you, and what he has to say is important to you. Do know that I wasn't writing him off as a person; I had simply had too taxing a week to stay focused on something that doesn't necessarily tickle my fancy. That being said, I will admit that when I saw the syllabus on the first day of class, I wasn't exactly looking forward to the semester; I'm not very adamant about agriculture or food production, so I'll admit that I came into all of this with a fairly closed mind.
After several weeks, though, I vowed to get past that. I mean, I knew that I would get out of this class whatever I put into it, so I told myself to get over my personal preferences and try to look at the course material with a fresh perspective. It worked, too, for a while. I did my best to get something out of each class, and I think my increased interest was reflected in my blog posts, but, like I mentioned earlier, it all seemed so pessimistic. It seemed like the best way to start a good discussion was to point out as many flaws in the system as possible, and I've finally gotten to the point where it's too exhausting. Like you said, we've been looking at similar topics from several different aspects ("theologically, culturally, ecologically, and ethically"), but that runs the risk of translating as, "No matter how you look at it, the world is a broken place." That's just a depressing thought (even if it is accurate) to be hitting over and over again, and that's why, as of late, there's been a bit of "shutting down." It's just overwhelming, like in my RA duties, to know of the brokenness in this world and to know that I am utterly powerless against it.
"By the same token though, it’s difficult to take complaints seriously when you’re simultaneously admitting that you haven’t done the legwork to engage with what we’ve provided." I have, though. It didn't start out great, like I said, but I've been trying to engage the best I can over the course of the semester. My apathy is fairly new because I've been waiting (in vain) for things to turn around; I've been waiting for the pessimism to lift, but every class period just seems to be pointing out more problems from a different angle, so I only tuned out when I accepted the fact that class really wasn't going to change, which was only recently.
That being said, I understand that I'm probably coming across as unappreciative of the course as a whole, and I don't want you to hear me saying that. I understand that this material is important to you, and I don't wish to take that away from you or anyone else. Moreover, I'm not insulting your abilities as a teacher or administrator; this course was put together very well, and the readings were brilliant. Hence, in sum, my "shutting down" was not a reaction to the course material itself; I simply became exhausted by how the course material was sitting with me and wanted no part in further exhausting myself.
Hopefully that helps you understand my side of things a little better. That's what I'm trying to get at here; your comment helps me understand things from a professor's perspective, and hopefully I'm helping you understand things from a student's perspective.
I want to touch a little on your advice: "move." That's fair advice, but that's simply not who I am. I'm a listener, not a speaker, and I don't think that's a huge secret. I think I've firmly established myself as a quiet one. Sitting in the back with my arms crossed is the best way for me to observe what's going on, so what may appear to be distance to some people is really just my method of engagement. I'm not going to become any more engaged by sitting up front, going to honors lunches (which I'm unable to attend), going to Tuesday's forum (which I'm also unable to attend), or doing the assigned readings (all of which I have done, for the record); I'm best engaged sitting behind a computer screen, processing things in my own manner, and based on the level of discussion that it's produced between me and you right now, I'd say it's worked out okay so far. So I understand your advice in saying that something does need to change, but perhaps, like you said, it's about "formation of character." Maybe I don't need to change my behavior in this class; maybe I need to change my attitude, and I don't think moving out of the back row is necessarily going to change that.
DeleteIn regards to my mind not being "enriched," I'll say this: yes, the thoughts have been presented, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're enriching. If anything, my mind has been merely occupied by such thoughts, not enriched by them, and I would have to agree with you: enrichment is the beauty of honors. However, just because we are presented with ideas doesn't mean that we automatically are given the opportunity to "dig deep" in them. I think that both the professors and the students are to blame for this, though. It feels like the professors make one point with the material that they present, but the students interpret it differently and hear another point being made. That's a reflection of poor communication by the professors, but it's equally a reflection of poor receptivity of the students. That's when discussion seems to take place seemingly for the sake of discussion. That's when enrichment is hindered.
Finally, I want to hit on your second piece of advice: "connect the dots." That's also fair advice, even if it may seem far-fetched. The life of an RA, believe it or not, does not often overlap with the life of a farmer, so I'll do my best to see what I can come up with. I'll try to blog about this later today.
Again, thank you for taking the time to comment on this. I really appreciate it, and I really appreciate all that you do for our cohort. Like I said, I don't hate the Honors program, so I genuinely want to say thank you for being a part of it.
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ReplyDeleteDrew,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the response. Again, I appreciate your candor and your thoughts regarding the course. I'm happy to continue this conversation in person, inside or outside of class. (Actually, inside class may be difficult as our meetings are devoted to our novel groups for the next few sessions.) I will ask one thing though: I'd sincerely appreciate it if you'd humor me and move to the front of the class for our remaining class sessions.I usually make my astronomy students change their seats at least once a semester. Don't underestimate the impact simply changing physical location can have on engagement and perception. (You can keep your arms crossed if you like.)
Dr. Case