Profhacker has posted what they refer to as a “Teaching Carnival” in honor of, for many of us, the first week of school. I’ll be honest, I have not yet ready any of the links they provide, but I do plan on reading several of them this weekend. I highly suggest you take a look at this post to see if you might find something of interest.
Profhacker also recently posted an open letter to grad students that I would recommend all new grad students read. You can read that here.
My week has gone fairly well, though I’ll give more of a rundown on the details in my post on Saturday. Two things stand out, however. Whenever students portray college teachers in skits or scenes, I am always astonished at how negative those portrayals are. My god, they must see the majority of us as petty, vicious, and mean-spirited people. Actually, there’s a dissertation for you (if it hasn’t been done already): popular culture representations of college professors.
The other point that I wanted to make stemmed from my conversation with E. today: I am extremely privileged to be where I am and to have the support of my department and my university in order for me to spend the bulk of my time reading, thinking, writing, teaching, and talking about ideas which mean something to me. No matter how individual moments may feel negative or stressful or even just plain bad, I should never forget how lucky I am to be in an environment and around colleagues who care about theatre and education and critical thought and the sheer pleasure of learning new and complex things.