coldhearted scientist وداد

I do not normally teach foreign language courses but I am teaching one now and it is very, very difficult, primarily because of the materials, which involve:

1. Boring vocabulary themes and conversation topics.
2. No connection whatsoever between vocabulary themes and grammar topics.
3. Thin cultural readings which resemble television commercials.
4. No connection whatsoever between cultural readings, vocabulary themes, grammar or conversation topics.
5. Book chapters and exercises are a hodgepodge with no logical progression from one to the next.
6. Workbook exercises are mechanical and mind-numbing.
7. Tests test details and not concepts.
8. Entire course is oriented toward memorization of discrete detail, not acquisition of concepts, systems, or critical thinking skills.
9. Culture is presented as though it were a museum or a peep show.
10. Workbook and lab materials are on line, in a website in Cupertino which is poorly designed and full of bugs. Students and professor are chained to dealing with this rather than with the actual course content.

The reason we have these materials for this course is that professors are under a directive to allow instructors, who teach five sections of this to our two, to be the decision makers about the material.

It is very frustrating to have to use materials which do not work, about which I have no hopes or illusions, and over which I have no control. I cannot abide the irrationality of a system in which I and my students are under the control of a corporation in Cupertino.

And it is not true, no matter what various of my advisors and parents say, that it is not harmful to one’s general outlook to fumble desperately through this kind of muck for several hours a day in a resigned manner, or that one can just leave these really depressing teaching experiences behind at the office and go home energized to write.

In real life, that is, in a course in which I had some decision making power, I would make a change. This cannot be done, and I have just explained how and why simply ignoring the situation and waiting for it to be over does not work. But something must be done to alleviate the pain of this situation now. Here is my plan so far:

1. Stop using the break between this class and the next as time to fine-tune the next. Fine-tune that class the day before, and use that break as time – the only time – to deal with the website in Cupertino. That will mean I am always ahead of whatever that website is doing or not doing, and I will never have to think about it except right after class, when its results are fresh in my mind.

2. Make lesson plans which incorporate material of my own despite the fact that we are supposed to follow the book very closely. The book does not work very well and I keep having to add my own material on the fly. To plan it in is easier. This, too, can be done in the three-hour break between this class and the next, while the needs and tenor of the class as it is, not as it is supposed to be are still very fresh in my mind.

3. Never stay up late or get up early to deal with the website in Cupertino, or any of the other websites spread across the universe from which we are expected to download materials. Always do this two to four days ahead of time. The sites never work well, and it is destructive to be both frustrated and tired.

I will add to this list as I discover more things to put on it. I am very, very frustrated.

Axé.