Liberal Professors!

Before I talk about the FIVE HOUR class I just got home from, let me briefly discuss tonight's College National Championship:

Ahem. The Big 10 sucks. The Pac Ten sucks. The ACC sucks. The Big 12 sucks. Notre Dame sucks. The SEC is by and far the best and toughest college football conference in the nation. I don't care what your stupid, pussy-footing-in-the-meadow team did or who they beat and how this supposedly makes them good. If they didn't play a SEC team, they didn't play anybody. From the SEC, watching other teams play each other is like watching the girl's flag football team practice. That's why it's frustrating to see everyone talk about the current USC or Ohio State or some other hack school that looks talented because they're playing against such powerhouses as Oregon (lost 38-8 to the Fightin' Mormons of BYU) or the Michigan "But we should be in the championship because we're sore losers" Wolverines (lost 32-18 to the aforementioned wieners SoCal). Wisconsin was the best team in the Big 10 this year. Final quote, from Florida defensive end Jarvis Moss after trouncing national darlings/sloppy vaginas Ohio State 41-14: "Honestly, we've played a lot better teams than them. I could name four or five teams in the SEC that could probably compete with them and play the same type of game we did against them." Ouch.

Now, about that marathon class. It's only the second class I've had here at UCR, but I had a crazy liberal professor! He was goofy, did imitations, referenced the current administration's policy choices, all the things that you think of when you imagine a college professor. The class itself was mostly a review of one of the courses I took at Kennesaw State, but having a teacher that cared about the material and is a dynamic force in the room really helped keep me up for the first three hours. In addition to just teaching the material, he actually made connections to the real world of teaching. He showed us how what we were learning applied to what we would be doing. This is a great way to maintain student interest, as I found myself imagining different ways I could present various lessons to a future classroom.

To be fair, my professors at Kennesaw also gave real world examples of what happened to them in their teaching careers. But when they, Crusty Old Southern Lady and Still Angry Black Woman , told their stories they were so far removed from the student experience that it sounded like a World War One veteran complaining about Elvis. Crusty Old Southern Lady was the worst in this regard: "Now. You won't believe this, but these kids were actually smoking in the bathroom." Pause for expected gasps of horror from the class. "No! No, it can't be! Surely no one is that horrible!" we would exclaim, in her mind. "Seriously. These boys - it's not always the boys now either, ok folks? I'm telling you. These boys, they would sneak into the bathroom at lunch and be there smoking! During lunch! In school! And you'll have to deal with this when you're a teacher." Add thirty minutes and that was basically my daily experience at Kennesaw.

But back to my current professor. He brought up issues ranging from middle school crushes to student suicide pacts he unwittingly discovered. He discussed how his own sons were educated and ways he found ineffective in his teaching (the topic was educational philosophies). But again, he was wacky! The most effective thing he did as a teacher, though, was actually care about his class. He also helped me make a Family Guy pop culture tie-in. Family Guy is basically nothing but pop culture satire, and in one episode Peter runs for school board because his favorite high school teacher is being fired or isn't fun anymore or something. The teacher that Peter remembers was, well, wacky. And it turns out that this teacher is insane and is put on medication before Peter gets him off of it and eventually the teacher is carted off to the insane asylum. Now the connection: while talking today about effective teachers, our professor mentioned an older movie called Teachers. He didn't go into plot details but, as you may have guessed, had high school teachers as the focus. All types of teachers were in this film, from boring to illiterate to mean, but the students' favorite teacher was their goofy history teacher who dresses up and acts out and makes learning come alive! And apparently the movie ends with this teacher being carted off to the insane asylum because it turns out he isn't actually a teacher but, well, a crazy guy. So there ya go. You learned something. Also starring Ralph "Yo Mistuh Miagi! Kom' mee' my ma!" Macchio.

The class tonight is actually the regular class followed by a two hour "lab" session. Our lab instructor is the professor's graduate assistant, and he talks just like Greg Giraldo. Same inflection, same cadence, different vocabulary. Tonight's blog is brought to you by the letter the colon and the number quotation marks.