Perhaps “nettled” is too strong, though I did detect a surprising and not unwelcome amount of challenge in the questions today.
“Introduction to Literary Studies.” Two sections, one at nine and one at eleven. During my travels to the ELI Annual Meeting, I scheduled films for the classes to watch during the two class meetings I’d miss. The early class watched Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, half each day. The later class watched Alain Renais’ Providence, though I found out this morning that they hadn’t quite finished it (they were about twelve minutes or so from the end).
Last Friday, I asked them to watch the movies with Plato, Aristotle, and Longinus in mind, and told them we’d spend some time talking about Longinus in particular upon my return.
Today, both classes wanted to know just what these movies had to do with our classes, and their questions were not just about curiosity. There was a bit of “hey!” in there as well. To be fair, they may have had their high-school busywork detectors up too high. I’ve seen enough of what my own children endure with substitutes and make-work assignments to understand the potential for cynicism. Yet I was truly surprised that they wouldn’t have trusted me more than that, or (more to the point) exercised their minds more fully to think about what connections might be there. Of course, the willingness to exercise the mind in the presence of a teacher derives from trust, so perhaps it all boils down to one’s willingness to suspend disbelief, if only for awhile. (It did help that I was prepared for the challenges, having read the contributions to the class discussion forum.)
Though it made me a little sad that many of the students apparently started from the assumption that I had assigned them work that had no bearing on the course of study, it also helped to energize the discussion, as the many strong, searching, even urgent connections soon revealed themselves as we began to talk our way through the films and the philosophers. It took about ten minutes for the tone to turn positive, and by the time it did, we were working very ably toward detailed analyses and depth of understanding. In one class, I actually saw a couple of students punch each other in triumph when certain points emerged, as if to say, “see, that’s exactly what I thought!” That shared drama of discovery pleased my teacher’s heart.
So all’s well that ends well. Still, I think about how much time was wasted on skepticism, when acceptance of the enigmas, the challenges, even the oddities might have started the discussion much farther along–and without my having “prepped” the viewing to the point that the experience would be dessicated and contained within my own perspective.
An interesting day and some intense discussions. It would be churlish to complain.
Great post. Thanks for your honesty and your insights into the problems and the resolution. This provides more evidence to my believe that one important purpose–perhaps even the most important purpose–is to make students more aware of the complexity of their reactions to learning. I imagine that many students would find your analysis of their reactions to the assignment in terms of the trust between faculty member and students to be very surprising. If they can use this experience to be more open and creative in understanding the potential learning value of future assignments, everybody wins.
Found the site http://filmsdefrance.com/FDF_Providence_rev.html and read this about the movie “Providence”
“A recurring feature of Alain Resnais’ cinema is the way in which memory distorts reality and creates an alternative view of the world which, in the mind of the central protagonist, becomes every bit as real as the ‘true’ reality seen by an external observer”
That connects the dots for me. :o)
My guess is that those who were the strongest skeptics also were the ones who learned the most about their personal learning through this experience. Certainly, they will not jump to such conclusions so easily next time (at least not in Dr. Campbell’s class 🙂 ) and the search for connections will be more to the front of their minds.