This chapter on beginnings brought back a lot of memories of little mistakes I'd made and things I'd learned my first few semesters pf teaching. My second semester teaching I had a Film Studies major in my class. During the section on memoirs he was constantly telling me that he would do so much better if he could do a video memoir, to which I would respond, "I'm sure you would, but the class is called Composition." I eventually told him that while he still had to write a memoir, I would give extra credit to anyone that wanted to make a YouTube video for their memoir. Bob* was the only student to do so
The next class we started with Bob's video. I hadn't read his memoir yet and as it turned out, Bob was writing about a college party he attended. The first few minutes showed actual footage of the party with students dancing in a crowded house and what I'm sure was underage drinking and people smoking pot. But I was trying to be open minded and allowed it. Then I uttered a sentence I didn't ever think I would say in a classroom, "Bob, is that girl not wearing pants?!?" What made it even better was that as I made my way to the front of class to turn the video off I heard shots being fired and people yelling about the police showing up. There was a minor discussion/argument about finishing the video that may or may not have ended with me shouting, "You guys are going to get me fired!" Safe to say, I learned from then on to watch all the videos used before they were shown to the students.
* Fake name.
Agreed. Couple years ago, I showed a Korean movie to my students to talk about How cultural difference between US and Korea is. The dialogue sound OK in Korean, but the subtitles was translated in inappropriate ways. Since I naturally ignore subtitles when I watched Korean Movie. So it made me so embarrassed. If you pick any video with subtitles, make sure you totally reviewed before you bring into the class.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joy that student must have been throughout the semester! That's a great lesson to share--I don't know how I would have handled it. I always arrive early and review content in my classroom, but that is due to my fear of technology failing me instead of content fears. I hadn't ever thought of that being an issue before, so thank you so much for sharing! Cautionary tales ftw!
ReplyDeleteYour tale is apt for me as I am currently researching videos to use in my unit on argumentative writing. I have already come across a few compilation videos that use....less than appropriate material. There is so much trash out there, and this would be an easy mistake to make. Even though students themselves are probably watching and maybe even creating the same of worse types of media, there is a pressure to maintain a false purity belief in students. I would never want to offend someone or lose my job, but it is also frustrating to consider all the PC jargon that can sometimes get in the way of honest composition.
ReplyDeleteI hope at least the argument your students made linked back to rhetoric in some way? haha
I can only imagine your terror as these things unfolded. I think it is important to foster student creativity, but when we give them the power to do these things, it's extremely important to make sure it is class appropriate--not to mention academically appropriate. I don't think "Bob" understood the position he was putting everyone in. He not only put you as an instructor in an awkward position, but everyone in the class. However, I think you handled it appropriately. And I think the moment anyone says, "Is that girl not wearing pants," is the moment that you end this activity. Kudos to you for handling it as professionally as you could in that moment. Like Tara, I'm not so sure how I would have handled it. Lesson learned indeed.
ReplyDeleteOh, wow! What a story!
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