The Young Research Library has any title I could ever invent, organized on dusty shelves in dark corners. But the bookstore has all the best books pared down to what the faculty thinks we should be reading, all lined up in plastic wrapping, by department. So, of course, when I go there at the beginning of every quarter, I do some intense browsing.
I hit the Italian section first, knees bent for Machiavelli, tiptoes for Ariosto (or as Prof. Betti likes to say, l’Arrosto). Then I go to Comparative Literature– they always have way better stuff than the English department. I browse French, Greek, History, Iranian, and Latin, and then I go back to the c’s for Classics. There I always find new editions of stuff I can’t wait to read in the original. I run my fingers over the hardbacks and take time to observe the illustrations on the new paperback editions. Then I check to make sure that Roman Civics is still putting Plautus after Petronius.
A new one caught my eye in Classics this last time. I think it is what their graduate students have to read, and I hope Italian has something similar. It is What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain from NYU. It costs $21.95, and I bought it for two reasons:
- I'll be teaching college courses next year (!) and I'll need lots of help
- I wanted to see my judgments about my professors validated
(Wait, does the way we spell judgment bother anyone else?)
Now, after reading all 200 pages in exactly 24 hours, from Monday night to Tuesday night, I am applying the theories from Dr. Bain’s pedagogic study to my own college teachers. It turns out that I don’t have any bad ones this quarter. In fact, they are all probably the best! According to this book, one of the first steps that teachers should take when beginning a course is to extract some kind of contract or agreement from their students so they will actively decide to learn and participate. Today, one of my professors actually used the word agreement in the same context. That woke me up with some serious validation.
More importantly, though, the book taught me how to think about my own mental processes without becoming emotionally affected. It’s neat to be able to objectively observe myself learning. The Socratic method is most effective, and it even works without an ancient Greek geezer standing barefoot in front of me refuting everything I say. All it takes is disproving a micro-reality and fixing it with better information (these are my own words). No togas or Mount Olympus needed.
Here are my last classes before graduation:
- Latin 3 – the last grammar class – Charlie Stein and Rob Groves
- Italian 116B – Power & Imagination in the Renaissance - Franco Betti
- Italian M158 – Women in Italian Culture - Lucia Re
- Comp Lit 4AW – Antiquity to Middle Ages - Jeannine Murray-Romàn
Total Side Note: The only time that I ever saw Prof.ssa Adriana Chemello laugh was when I used metonymy incorrectly and pronounced it with a thick American accent. Unfortunately, since that day, my reality has been that I will never be able to learn rhetorical literary terms. Two days ago, I saw the title A Glossary of Literary Terms at the bottom of a handout for CompLit. I don't feel that way anymore.
Saturday, June 9, 2007 at 13:30 | 
