Re: song & dance

[Marcy Bauman <marcyb@umd.umich.edu>]

On Fri, 2 Feb 1996, Stephen Newmann wrote:

> Eric, I think you are exactly right on this.  It carries over also (we 
> are a predominently residential college) to the students social life.  
> They seem to expect the college to provide entertainment for them.  They 
> say over and over "there's nothing to do".  I usually reply that they 
> should take the intitative--that they should create something to do 
> (other than sex and booze anthough those can be fun).  

	[snip]

> But they just sit back and complain and wait for someone else to take the 
> responsibility to do something.  I talk to my students, too, about the 
> difference between "being entertained" (or made interested) and 
> "entertaining oneself".  They often think that when they say "this stuff 
> is boring" what is really the case is that "I am bored".  They are 
> actually reflecting more on themselves--their own condition--than on 
> whatever external thing they think they are refering to.  --stephen

	I think that Stephen has introduced some additional elements here 
that I didn't read in Eric's post.  I don't think Stephen means to do 
this, but I think that if we're not careful, this discussion could 
devolve into tape loops about what's wrong with students.

	I think that there's more implicated here than what some people 
can & can't devise to do to entertain themselves.  I think there's a 
whole cultural mythology that confuses work with pain and play with fun; 
that says that play by definition must be brainless and escapist and 
nonproductive (the "Miller Time" mode) and that says that work must be 
disciplined, tedious, productive, and something you gladly escape from 
(to your condo, to your dream vacation, to your Miller.)  

	It may be that students don't know how to phrase their complaints 
in the terms Eric uses; they don't know how to say they want to be 
interested.  They may not even know what it's like to be interested, if 
interested means engaged in a challenging pursuit of their own choosing.  
I suspect, though, that you can't get through 18 or so years of life 
without being engaged by _something_.  If students aren't engaged in our 
classrooms, that's only partly their faults.  It's also partly the first 
challenge of teaching; casting blame doesn't get us anywhere.

Marcy

Marcy Bauman
Writing Program
University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Rd.
Dearborn, MI 48128

email:  marcyb@umd.umich.edu