Yesterday's classes went well. It's amazing what a difference the class's text makes. A year ago, trying to take seriously restaurant reviews and essays about blue jeans, I had to reiterate nearly every class session why we were in fact doing the freshman English thing.
A year later, I replace the MTV-esque FYC anthology with Plato, and every freshman is taking the class seriously. Perhaps I'm going cultural-conservative as I approach my thirtieth birthday, but as long as I'm teaching incoming freshman, I'm going to treat them as college students, not as consumers. They'll read Plato because it's good for them, and if they drop the class, it's because they're not ready for real education yet.
Wow, am I ever on a power trip...
Cute baby pictures, pretentious meditations on college teaching, sporadic political commentary--who could ask for anything more?
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