Was It Something I Said?

The goals of teachers and the goals of students are often in direct opposition to one another. But more on that later.

I showed up for the one-time, required physical meeting of the online course (Art Appreciation) I wanted to take. The class and its waiting list were both full, but I have learned that simply showing up makes admission likely.

As usual, students’ time and energy get little respect. There were more people in the classroom than the instructor was willing to accept, but she made everybody sit through her introductory lecture before telling us who was in and who was out. And, later, we stood in one line to register for the class and then went to another building and stood in another line to pay for the class we had just registered. What is this about?

As I fought to stay awake while the instructor talked and talked and talked and talked, I considered whether or not I really wanted to be in the class. The short summer sessions cram 15 weeks’ material into 5 weeks. In a regular class, that means attending every day instead of twice a week. In any class, online or otherwise, it means a lot more reading and writing in a short period of time. The website (which the instructor was demoing on the big screen) didn’t look appealing. Did I want to spend five very intense weeks at the keyboard, or fifteen weeks listening to this woman talk (and talk and talk and talk)? I chose the online course.

Of course, an examination of the website reveals that she writes the way she talks. I printed out the materials for “Lesson 1″. Forty-one pages! And this doesn’t include the required textbook reading or the required web surfing, or the required posting on the discussion boards. (She wants us to participate, to be part of a community, to really think. We will never, she told us, have to memorize names and dates.)

The instructor, of course, really wants us to appreciate art. Teachers who love their subject hope and pray that once in a while, one or two students will really get interested in the subject, will really understand it, care about it, be moved by it, have thier lives touched by it. That’s a noble goal. But this is a general-ed class. The real artists and art lovers usually don’t take this class; they are already more advanced. This class is taken by people who need it to fulfill some unrelated requirement, earning points for graduation. Most of them do not want to participate or to be part of a community — hey, that’s why we’re online instead of in the classroom. And most certainly do not want to think. Give us some names and dates we can memorize for the test!

I’ve had a month off. Not a vacation exactly, since I’ve had plenty of work to do. But I have not been studying (unless watching Italian movies counts).

A textbook called Prego is used by some colleges. It follows the same general curriculum as the book we used in my class, so I think it will be a good tool for review.

Perhaps I’ll start tonight…