Adventures in Blogging: Public Anthropology and Popular Media by Paul Stoller

Author:Paul Stoller
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2018-01-01T00:44:19.180000+00:00

Chapter twenty three

* * *

winter break

(December 2011)

After what increasingly seems like a lightning fast roller-coaster ride, I recently huffed and puffed my way to submitting final grades, which marked the end my 61st semester of university teaching. You could say that the huffing and puffing is due to my age or my physical condition. Neither would be true. I may be approaching “elder” status, but I am physically fit. You could say that so many years of university teaching have made me weary of the old routines—same subject—anthropology—and the same set of courses. But as time has passed, I’ve come to enjoy teaching a great deal.

So, if I’m physically fit and enjoy teaching, why do I find myself exhausted by the end of a 15-week semester?

Part of the reason, perhaps, is the importance that our institutions place upon getting grades. Students, of course, have always been very much concerned about grades. Getting good grades has always been a good a way to move forward on the highway that leads to successful careers in medicine, law, information technology, or business. On that venerable highway there has never been much time for taking a frivolous detour that leads to an uncertain destination. In recent years, though, student tunnel vision seems to have become even more narrowly focused. Many of the students I teach would like me to agree to a grand bargain: the best possible grade for the least amount of effort. There are, of course, notable and inspiring exceptions. Even so, every semester students have the chutzpah to ask me to change their grade—for no good reason. Two weeks ago, one of my introductory students who had earned a “C+” wondered if I could change her grade to “B-.”

“Can’t I get some extra points for attending class?” she asked.

Another student, who had barely passed my introductory class, wrote to me. “Is there any way you could change my grade to a “C-?” she asked, not even offering up her record of attendance as an argument for a grade change.

Fortunately, student encounters about grades, which are always a bit irritating, are few and far between. They don’t account for my end-of-semester fatigue.

Something has changed in higher education. When I began professing in 1980, there seemed to be more time to teach. We had the same 15-week semesters, but my courses were much more demanding—for me as well as for my students. We covered more topics and did so in greater depth. The readings were more extensive. I assigned more research papers, which required extensive work in the library. Students found the time come to my office for conversations about anthropology, philosophy, literature, or even the meaning of life! These days most of my students complain about not having enough time to do the course readings, let alone a series of moments to do more than a cursory amount of archival research for a paper. Some of them hand in assignments after the due date. Most of them avoid my office and any kind of serious face-to-face social interaction.

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