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In Which I Brag Shamelessly About Teaching
May. 9th, 2006 12:02 amThe tutoring practice is taking off. In addition to the usual frantic test prep students and first generation Chinese and Indian immigrant kids, I'm teaching a concert pianist who has been out of school for thirty years. She's been teaching piano teachers, and now, to keep that job, she has to get a master's degree in education. Imagine--she got her conservatory degree in the 1970s, and now she has to learn how to write papers again. Oh, but first, she had to learn that a word processor can do a few things that a typewriter can't, and that not every source on the internet belongs in a scholarly bibliography. She was terrified. Once I saw what she was up against and how few current skills she had to work with, I was kind of terrified for her, too.
For about two months, the Pianist and I met one on one for about seven hours a week, to cram what should have been three semesters of undergraduate writing instruction around half a semester of a graduate seminar. When we started working together, the only mode she could write in with any kind of fluency was the personal anecdote. Somehow, we sprinted in a sort of three-legged race to the point where she had a credible draft of what will clearly soon be a publishable case study. She went from failing every assignment for the first half of the semester to getting a B for the course.
I don't think I've ever taken on a harder teaching project. My old instructor gig at the Writing Program, with its alternating rhythm of 50 hour weeks and 70 hour weeks, was more strenuous, but the only thing about it that was more challenging was the sheer volume of papers to grade.
Our best day went like this:
Me:
I can see why your professor's concerned. The paper's due in less than a week, and your citations are still...well, I'm afraid they're a total mess.
Pianist:
Of course my citations are still a mess.
Me:
Let's take another look at the APA Style Manual. You can do this.
Pianist:
No, I mean I can't figure out what citations are for. Why does it have to be so hard? I just can't work myself up to bother. Why does anybody care?
Me:
Okay, so you've written an opera. It's gorgeous, with a compelling story and infectious melodies. You have the usual commedia dell'arte characters, but the cast can't figure out how to read your notation. The baritone who's supposed to be Pulcinella keeps trying to sing Columbina's part, and the soprano can't tell whether this other motif is hers or the Harlequin's, and as long it's not clear who's saying what to whom and why, the audience can't possibly figure out how the story goes. Meanwhile, you've got this sort of narrator character, and if you don't cite properly, pretty soon the narrator crowds out the whole rest of the cast and tries to sing all the parts, even the ones written way out of her vocal range, and then there's no story at all and the performance sounds awful. Also, the narrator's throat is raw. That's why you need citations.
Pianist:
Oh. So I put the year in parentheses after the author's name in the lead-in to the quote, and then the page number in parentheses after the quote? Before the final punctuation for the sentence?
Me:
Yes.
Pianist:
That's it? (laughs) And it only took me six weeks to figure it out.
Why is it that teaching breakthroughs are nearly always absurd?
She played for me once, while I was marking up her methodology section. All words are understatements. So beautiful. I have the best day job in the world.
For about two months, the Pianist and I met one on one for about seven hours a week, to cram what should have been three semesters of undergraduate writing instruction around half a semester of a graduate seminar. When we started working together, the only mode she could write in with any kind of fluency was the personal anecdote. Somehow, we sprinted in a sort of three-legged race to the point where she had a credible draft of what will clearly soon be a publishable case study. She went from failing every assignment for the first half of the semester to getting a B for the course.
I don't think I've ever taken on a harder teaching project. My old instructor gig at the Writing Program, with its alternating rhythm of 50 hour weeks and 70 hour weeks, was more strenuous, but the only thing about it that was more challenging was the sheer volume of papers to grade.
Our best day went like this:
Me:
I can see why your professor's concerned. The paper's due in less than a week, and your citations are still...well, I'm afraid they're a total mess.
Pianist:
Of course my citations are still a mess.
Me:
Let's take another look at the APA Style Manual. You can do this.
Pianist:
No, I mean I can't figure out what citations are for. Why does it have to be so hard? I just can't work myself up to bother. Why does anybody care?
Me:
Okay, so you've written an opera. It's gorgeous, with a compelling story and infectious melodies. You have the usual commedia dell'arte characters, but the cast can't figure out how to read your notation. The baritone who's supposed to be Pulcinella keeps trying to sing Columbina's part, and the soprano can't tell whether this other motif is hers or the Harlequin's, and as long it's not clear who's saying what to whom and why, the audience can't possibly figure out how the story goes. Meanwhile, you've got this sort of narrator character, and if you don't cite properly, pretty soon the narrator crowds out the whole rest of the cast and tries to sing all the parts, even the ones written way out of her vocal range, and then there's no story at all and the performance sounds awful. Also, the narrator's throat is raw. That's why you need citations.
Pianist:
Oh. So I put the year in parentheses after the author's name in the lead-in to the quote, and then the page number in parentheses after the quote? Before the final punctuation for the sentence?
Me:
Yes.
Pianist:
That's it? (laughs) And it only took me six weeks to figure it out.
Why is it that teaching breakthroughs are nearly always absurd?
She played for me once, while I was marking up her methodology section. All words are understatements. So beautiful. I have the best day job in the world.
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