Crack of the Haitian-born prof who I work for.

When chiming in in class about how expectations of how people are different affects interactions with them, a (Chinese-American) student mentioned how many Chinese restaurants have different menus for white people.

"And what about black people?", the Haitian-born prof said, laughing.

When she laughed and said they had separate menus for them too, he laughed again and was like, "I don't know, I like the food I eat when I get it..."

Odd encounter at a New Age store.

So, one of my students in "Round Two" of my art school freshman writing class came into class and said that she had not only found out about this New Age store near the south end of downtown, but had also already attended a free class there, and was wondering if she could maybe do her fieldwork there for her site visits for my class, since the place offered a ton of free classes.

I appreciated her enthusiasm and said I'd look into it for her, and so I trekked over there one Monday during lunchtime when I was downtown.

The place was tucked away on the 2nd floor of this prominent old rehabbed train station downtown, and had plenty of crystals and books in the window looking out on the mezzanine area.

I walked in, introduced myself to the person at the counter, and she immediately said that I should talk to the owner, and this short-haired (older) (white) woman popped out of an office opposite the counter.

I told her that I was teaching a class on new religious groups and students had to go out and observe an organization and a student had attended a class there and was interested in maybe doing her research paper on them, and she quickly walked me over to a table, handed me some fliers on the classes that they offered, and was like, "But we're not a religion."

"That's cool," I was like, "We try to involve a range of organizations so that students have to question what they think they know, and spiritualities are very cool, in fact..."

"We're not a spirituality," she was like.  "We're a science."

Then, she strode me over to a rack of books on the Akashic Records and was like, "This is all quantum physics," and then started telling me the ins and outs of how classes are run.

"Now if students could attend a class, who should they run that by, the instructor?", I was like.

"If they came, they'd have to participate," she was like.

"That's cool," I was like, "I can flag that participation is expected here.  But who should they talk to, like if they want to talk with the other students in the class, like if they did research on why people seek out this organization?"

At that, the woman got tight-lipped.  "Talk with other students?  We don't need investigative reporters in here."

"That's cool," I was like.  "Students write on a range of topics, from beliefs to stuff like why people become teachers.  Maybe there's some other topics that could be open to them?  That's fine, if that's a boundary for this organization."

At that, she started to say something in a very brusque and clipped way, so I was like, "...or maybe this isn't a good fit?".

"No, it's not," she was like, "It's not a good fit."

"Okay," I was like, "That's cool.  Anyhow, I have a letter here explaining more about the course that I can leave with you, in case you have any questions that you'd like to email me about later, since I just popped out of the blue like this."

At that, I set my bookbag down and went to take out a folder, and the woman was like, "You can leave that at the counter," and she turned around and strode into her office.

So, I went to the counterperson and gave her the letter.

"I used to work at an acupuncture office," she was like.  "We had a lot of privacy issues, and sometimes people I knew from the neighborhood would come in, and I had to reassure them that it was okay, that I wouldn't say anything."

I then started chit-chatting with her about ethnography ethics, what a yoga place and a New Age bookstore had felt comfortable with, etc., and this went on for quite some time, then like five to ten minutes later, the owner strode out of her office again, went to a shelf and grabbed something, then walked behind the counter and slammed some crystals down as she stood with her back to me and facing the counterperson and was like, "Here, price these, I need some help."

She then said a few things more while holding her back to me and my convo with the counterperson was obviously cut off, so I said a pleasant goodbye in the direction of the counterperson through the owner's back and left...

As soon as I got back to school, I started googling the shop's and owner's name and "lawsuit" to try to figure out if they were in trouble with the FDA over claims about science, and I turned up nothing but one weird Yelp review from someone who was told to pay cash for a $14 purchase but couldn't complete that purchase unless she gave her name and contact information, and the owner got snippy when she said that she thought that was very weird.

Interestingly as well, according to the place's website, the owner teaches a class about overcoming emotional barriers from your past lives.

Also also, during break the next time that class met, I explained to the student why it didn't pan out, and that if she ever went in there out of personal interest, to maybe not say that she was associated with the class, and even if she did, to be careful that they weren't exploiting her for money somehow, since the situation just gave me a bad vibe and something seemed really off.

Very Odd Situation: Homeless Man on the Subway.

The other day I got on the subway downtown around lunch hour, and as I sat down, this (old) (black) (scrawny) homeless guy up a bit in the car began asking people for food, and saying how the shop windows were full of merchandise but no-one could spare any food for people like him.

That really got me, so I opened up my bookbag and got out an apple and offered it to him, but he said that his teeth weren’t too good, so I offered him an orange, but he said that wouldn’t work either, his teeth weren't that good.

Then, he began telling everyone that he was Jackie Robinson.

After a while at that, he set down his Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup on the middle of the floor and said that he got it out of the trash, then he began dancing with the metal subway car poles over to it, and eventually came over to me and said that I was a racist for trying to give him food that he couldn’t eat, and at that several (black) women in the car who were trying not to look shifted in their seats and looked visibly uncomfortable, I could see out of the corner of my eye.

“Do you know who I am?”, he said to me after coming up close and standing over me, “Look into my eyes, look into my eyes!”, and with that he stared at me very intensely.

“Jackie Robinson?”, I was like.

At that, he broke out into a smile and went to give me a fistbump. 

“Brother, how’d you know,” he was like.

“You just said that to those women two minutes ago,” I was like.

“Then why don’t you give me food that I can eat,” he was like.

“I’m sorry,” I was like.  “I had a banana earlier, but I ate it.  If I had known that I would meet you, I would have saved it for you.”

“A BANANA?!”, he was like.   “You calling me a monkey, racist?”

But, at the same time that he was saying that, he was winking at me out of his eye on the opposite side of the face from where the two (black) women were sitting, and I knew that he was playing it up for them.

At the next stop, he got out, and so I began speaking to the women.

“Well,” I was like, “That was something,” and I explained that the poor guy was not actually mad at me right before he got off, but had been winking and playing the situation up, in his own way.

Complicity in the Unethical Behavior of Banks.

As soon as I’m done with school, I’m going to end my Citibank account.

I wonder how much harm I’m doing by having all my thousands of dollars in there.

Thankfully, there’s a credit union right around the corner from my apt., but I think it only has 2 locations, so I really do wonder about ATM availability.

Addendum addendum –

From speaking with my parents – my dad has a lot of good teaching advice – I got some good perspective on the half bad evals that I got from the first term of my freshman writing class.

Though, my parents are certainly intense.

“I’ve always hated how people say learning should be fun,” my mom was like.  “People need to recognize that learning is work, and maybe at times it’s fun, but first and foremost it’s work, and sometimes a lot of it.”

She also said she thought that it was "fucked" that the dept. head gave me advice only based on student evals.

"Really, what do students know?", she was like.  "That's just crazy."

Addendum –

I got this advice from another faculty member, to continue to be intense, but to put that intensity into repetition of basic points like he does, to bring students along, esp. since they’re so young.

He also had the idea of adding in one type of short text to certain units to illustrate key theories, that might enliven those units and give students more exposure to different types of religious groups, though that sort of addition will probably have to wait until the next time that I teach the class since I don't have time to assemble those materials this term.

Thinking about my last art school class:

My evals from my last art school class were very polarized – half very strong, half very negative – and though other instructors said that that wasn’t unusual, the dept. head said that they were among the worst, and called attention to certain wording from the negative evals and suggested that perhaps I was too intense with students, since usually comments on high standards and toughness are tempered by reflections like “But it was worth it.”

I agree with that, though I wonder if part of it is his projecting his own impressions onto the evals; I have noticed that at times in committee meetings I have come across as very task-focused and intense, and had noticed one time at one meeting that he seemed to perceive me that way.

That said, part of me also wonders if some of the results were the result of a one-time bad mix of students and departmental requirements that encourage poor results:

On the one hand, at least 2 students took the class b/c it seems like they didn’t want to take any required writing class at all and it seemed like the most interesting available, and several others weren’t ready for college level work because of very poor organizational skills and major learning disabilities.

On the other hand, the department didn’t prep me to expect those particular challenges or give me effective ways to address them, so I had to address them on the fly through multiple requests for assignment re-dos, then one-on-one meetings when a student had been given a chance to complete an assignment according to guidelines and still hadn’t.

Part of that, too, is that since the grading is “credit” ~ “no credit”, it’s not like I have the hammer of a grade or the ability to give very, very low grades for a shitty assignment, and instead am forced into either passing a student along, or making sure they complete assignments according to minimal standards.

 Overall, it seems like the major issue for me is how to deal with students who don’t put in a good faith effort, specifically how to get them to complete assignments according to minimal standards of professionalism and competency without resenting me.

One other instructor said to stress that rewrites are part of the process so that any requests like that are met without a 2^nd thought, but to me that’d make it seem like I’m setting myself up for more work, and even encouraging students to turn in a shitty first paper with no effort at all.

Additionally, during that 1^st term, I’m only on the art school campus one time a week, and that whole multiple re-writes expectation seems to assume that I’m around campus a lot and have the leisure to take up a lot of time for underperforming students who are actually students who are not putting in a good faith effort to begin with.

Thankfully, this semester’s group for the same class is like night-and-day.  After the 2^nd assignment – a mandatory re-write of the 1^st assignment – I could tell that every single student was putting in effort, and the class as a whole is totally gelling.

You know what’s crazy, though?

All of my current 7 students just got out of a writing class from last term, and only *one* had had an instructor give explicit structural advice on academic composition.

The rest just received some sort of vague advice like “Just write.”

Honestly, what’s happening in the rest of the classes that are being taught, I wonder?

Even though I had students complain, I saw serious progress with each and every one of them last term, not just the half of the students who wrote strongly positive evals.