20151206.0711

This is the last weekend of the term. The next few days will see me preside over and grade final exams in which my students, spread across four sections of first-semester composition, will proofread the (translated and altered) text of an Anglo-Saxon riddle, assert an answer to the riddle, and explain how the text justifies their answer. It is a thing I have discussed previously in this webspace to some extent (here), and it is a thing that I have discussed with my colleagues. Admittedly, not all feel the exercise to be an appropriate one; they have not said much with words, but even I can see the disapproval on faces from time to time. But many like what they hear about how I go about using such materials, and I take comfort from that.

The discussion of the exercise with my colleagues prompted the note that there is some argument against the perception of fragile-mindedness among the students in how they respond to the assignment. As I note in the earlier discussion of how my students answered Riddle 44 in class, few averred the "dirty" interpretation of the text--and even when the "dirty" interpretation was voiced, it was argued against, and successfully. More, the students enjoyed the work. Perhaps it was an artifact of a smallish class whose students had had the chance to learn one another (an earlier paper asked them to profile one another, building group cohesion), and perhaps (if I may flatter myself) I have succeeded in fostering an atmosphere of open inquiry and safety, but it seems that the students in the classes showed no signs of traumatization in approaching the text, no signs of recoiling in horror from an uncomfortable idea, no signs of being ready to run off and call the "PC police." It is a thing on which one of my colleagues, in particular, remarked, suggesting that I might work up a case study about the thing. I probably will not do so, admittedly; I am somewhat pressed for time, although I acknowledge that my colleague's idea is an excellent one. I think it offers a nucleus for a useful counterpoint to the refrain complaining about "kids these days."

Perhaps the students do complain more than they used to do. Perhaps things are thought of or acknowledged as problematic now that were not then. Many things are, depending on the then. As in an earlier note, I wonder at what then the people who complain about how things have changed think things ought to have stopped. At what point were things perfect? Why were they better? How were they better, and for whom? Hell, what does better even mean in such a context?

I note no answers are coming. Perhaps I am not owed them. But I have to wonder what is wrong that those who will trumpet so loudly about going back to a better time cannot name that time. And more people should wonder such wonderings.