learning

IS IT JUST ME, I WONDER

A couple of weekends ago:

TWANGY, seeing an opportunity to bond with DAZZLE, (the three-year-old niece) while the rest of the family are engaged in an interminable game of Capitalist Market Forces Monopoly, extends 'claws' and roars, experimentally:
Rrrrrar! I'm a tiger.

DAZZLE smiles indulgently.

TWANGY: What are you?

DAZZLE: I'm a people.

How deflating.

---

Further conversation, this time with a student:
ALEX(not real name!): So, in relation to.. I just want to understand. My head is wrecked here. When you copy a file, where is that?
TWANGY: Emmm. Well. What? It goes on to the clipboard.
ALEX :  But.. where is the clipboard?
TWANGY (not feeling terribly patient at this point): It's just out there, Alex. In virtual space.
In your computer's RAM or something, Alex.
ALEX: But. It's  just these notes don't talk about the clipboard. I think these notes are a bit...
TWANGY considers a rapid exit out of the window.

Speaking of the Hotel Tallafornia, and the "learning" that takes place therein with my unemployed would-be designers, it should come as no surprise that we are dealing, per usual, with the Usual Suspects. The same ould cast of characters. There's the one with the attitude, there are the moaners, there are the gigglers, there are those afflicted with shyness, those encumbered with laziness. The sickly, the smart, the motivated, the dense. 'Twas ever thus, was it not, teachers, educators, librarians? The moaners were moaning at me last week, and I had this lightbulb revelation: these people (whispered The Little Voice of Obviousness) are not my friends. In this relationship, here,  it's my job to hold the thing together, and be respected.

This is stunningly self-evident, I do realise. Maybe it's the chronic informality of the Irish, but up to now, I have always assumed that friendliness, a general enthusiasm for the subject, respect for their efforts and a pretence at a flat hierarchy would see me through this teaching gig. Now, I realise that to act as if there is no difference between us, except that I just happen to be standing at the other side of the table is just not going to work. After all, I am in charge of time-keeping, and there is money involved in that, this being a state-sponsored training course. So, how to play it? Shall I become (gets carefully into American character) a 'hardass'? Would this be better for all concerned? Thoughts on this welcome. What is your style?

I've told you about the hotel as venue of higher education in this brave new world, haven't I?
We are in the one heated room on the fifth floor of a mostly empty office block, (itself mysteriously part of the hotel), surrounded by empty offices like this:



It's so fantastically creepy, like some weird art installation. The other morning, the previously abandoned and chilly reception area had leaflets scattered around and a big poster over it:
THE PENTECOSTALS
Presumably they checked-in-but-can-never-leave the night before? Yet no sign of them since.
And then, odder yet, and, to use  The Young People's favourite word, 'totally random':


Bridge tables sprang up overnight. Bridge tables. 

What next, friends? The Annual Trapeze Artists' Convention? The League of Capuchin Monkey Handlers? YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE.

Rest assured, I will keep you posted.

T

Comments

[Bionic Baby Mama]

I spent 45 minutes over and above my extravagantly lengthy syllabus explanation last night to explain the following: There are two sheets going around. The one that says "presentation sign-up" is for presentations; the other is for critiques. Please sign them.

45 minutes! Jesus wept.

I vote hardass but am lousy at it. I figure aiming for hardass keeps me this side of totally sloppy fool. This semester's first days have included a generous dollop of, "don't you fucking dare plagiarize or I will nail you to the wall," for spice.

[Andie]

Heh heh, "i'm a people".

Well, I have no advice about the teaching, unfortunately. But the stupid is kind of overwhelming. Where is the clipboard?? Really? Gah.

[Adele]

No need for hardassery (unless the moaners' moaning gets really out of hand). I had the same issue when I began teaching. Too much friendly goodwill did not inspire, er, their attention. My trick in that type of situation? I pretend that I dislike them very, very slightly. Keep in mind I teach The Young and Feckless. (And that said, I am successful at employing this trick about 10% of the time).

What a strange hotel!! I envision you running into a team of International Ghost Hunters one day (a terrible television program which, I hope for the sake of the Irish nation, has not made it's way to you yet).

[a]

3 year olds - they're harder than anything to bond with. 4 or 5 is much better.

You have to be a hardass sometimes. Just don't tolerate the moaners - brisk impatience with moaning is probably effective. Of course, I've never taught anything other than a couple hours of "this is what I do, and this is what you need to do so I can do my job," so what do I know? Oh yeah, I also got removed from the training line-up that time because the jackasses were getting offended that I was trying to tell them how to do their job. I mean, it's not like I had YEARS OF EXAMPLES OF HOW THEY WERE DOING ALL THE THINGS I ASKED THEM NOT TO DO or anything. So, yes, it's probably better to just ignore me completely. It's been over 10 years and I'm still bitter.

[Womb For Improvement]

I think next will be creepy twins holding hands and not talking in the corridor.

[Twangypearl]

Haha! Someone give w4i a prize. That is too funny. Twins! And the fact that you are a twin yourself just makes it all the more fantastic.

[Dr Spouse]

I am totally intrigued about the ability to keep this room heated, electrickeried, and one assumes, connected to the internet, when all around is decay...

[Twangypearl]

Dr Spouse, you're so right: we were on a generator for the first few weeks, until some people downstairs started to complain about the fumes coming up the lift-shaft.

It's all very: SYSTEM FAILURE.

Brr!

[QoB]

One of my favourite moments with my now-12- then-7-year-old cousin: I was reading him a story and did 'the voices'. He looked at me thoughtfully, and said, slowly: "You're really weird, aren't you".

Ahem.

Still better than the time his four year old brother asked me what my sex name was.

[Valery]

mhm, I thought I wrote a comment, something about being ones friendly self but it is not here? Maybe I left it in the office? I'll look for it tomorrow, sorry :(