Comments on: Teaching trivia http://homecookedtheory.com/archives/2005/04/12/teaching-trivia/ Mon, 14 May 2012 05:22:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Christian McCrea http://homecookedtheory.com/archives/2005/04/12/teaching-trivia/comment-page-1/#comment-434 Christian McCrea Wed, 13 Apr 2005 02:31:25 +0000 http://homecookedtheory.com/archives/2005/04/12/teaching-trivia/#comment-434 All of this makes sense when your students come in to learn. But in my case, most of my students are moneyed drones of a middle-class I cannot interpolate any longer. They come no longer even to find themselves, but are as aimless and detached as the zomboid participants of a Dawn-of-the-Dead parodic shopping mall. "Will this be on the test?" long after the establishment of there being no test, "Why is this important?" at least once a week. I encourage my students to criticise my method and politics all the time, but there are disinvested even the basic forms of intellectual need. When there is engagement on the level of political discourse, it is merely apathy versus that engagement. My university has imploded in the past 2-3 years; there has been a complete shift in the demographic entry points of students. Even cultural studies here has a 35% full-fee paying student ratio. My department is around the same number, but my course, an informal survey puts it at 50%. Angry week! All of this makes sense when your students come in to learn. But in my case, most of my students are moneyed drones of a middle-class I cannot interpolate any longer. They come no longer even to find themselves, but are as aimless and detached as the zomboid participants of a Dawn-of-the-Dead parodic shopping mall. “Will this be on the test?” long after the establishment of there being no test, “Why is this important?” at least once a week.

I encourage my students to criticise my method and politics all the time, but there are disinvested even the basic forms of intellectual need. When there is engagement on the level of political discourse, it is merely apathy versus that engagement.

My university has imploded in the past 2-3 years; there has been a complete shift in the demographic entry points of students. Even cultural studies here has a 35% full-fee paying student ratio. My department is around the same number, but my course, an informal survey puts it at 50%.

Angry week!

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