How to Make Classes Work, Step One

The classroom should have windows.

Every class I’ve taught in a windowless classroom has been difficult.

This is by design.

A built-in feature of the postwar modernist architecture used for a lot of schools and other public buildings in the United States is that it facilitates certain types of social control. For example, if you put students in a room with a low ceiling, poor lighting, no windows, and acoustic features that mute sound, it has a soporific effect. This is meant to make students sluggish, thereby minimizing class disruptions like, you know, a student asking questions or formulating their own ideas.

If this sounds dystopian to you in theory, let me assure you that it’s even more dystopian in practice.

There’s not much I can do about this, to be honest. The last time I tried to request classrooms with windows, I was told that the only time slot available was Saturday morning at 8:00am. The shortage of classrooms at large universities is also by design, even at well-funded flagship state schools located in depopulated areas with declining enrollments. The purpose of this artificial scarcity of basic teaching resources is to keep both students and instructors in a subservient position, but that’s a much longer essay that I have no patience (or emotional energy) to write.

Still, I guess I can at least keep asking. There’s no harm in trying, right?

How to Make Classes Work, Step Two

Wear a suit to every class.

No exceptions.

Because of some weird harassment from my department chair, I had an intense panic attack at the beginning of the semester that left me so sick and weak that it was impossible to wear a suit for the first two weeks. Anxiety may be psychosomatic, but it’s still very much a physical illness.

You may be thinking that I must be some sort of crazy person, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but I’m actually one of the most normal people I know. If you sat next to me on an airplane or met me at a wedding reception, you’d think I was normal too. I like to talk about normal adult things like pets and vacations and real estate and other people’s children. I’m even a little boring, but in a totally normal and average way.

So how does a normcore person like me with no history of health issues turn into a nervous wreck? Stewing in a toxic environment for a few years will do that to you, and at this point I can’t even begin to imagine a more toxic environment than academia.

That’s by design, too – the university system is structured to consume so much of your life (see my essay about tenure) that you stop being able to imagine what the world outside looks like. This isn’t healthy, obviously.

Anyway, I think the combination of my casual clothes at the beginning of the semester and the fact that I’m not a cisgender man may have led some of the students to arrive at the conclusion that I am fun.* I actually am fairly easygoing, but I’m always 115% serious in the classroom, and the suit helps convey that message with less room for misinterpretation concerning the level of effort and engagement I expect from my students.


* This conclusion is erroneous. I haven't had fun since 2008.

How to Make Classes Work, Step Three

Figure out everyone’s name immediately.

This can be much more difficult and awkward than you’d think it would be.

For whatever reason, a lot of students are cagey about sharing their names, and a surprising number of them tell me something to the effect of, “You can call me whatever you want.” I couldn’t care less what name someone uses or what their pronouns are, but it’s embarrassing when a student won’t tell you what they prefer to be called and then doesn’t respond when you call them by the name that’s listed on the course roster.

It’s also embarrassing when a student won’t give you a straight answer about how to pronounce their name. This applies to every gender, race, and ethnicity, so don’t @ me.

It usually takes me about a month to learn everyone’s name – in other words, I learn people’s names once I’ve had the opportunity to read, comment on, and return a few weeks’ worth of assignments. Once I learn someone’s name, I make a point of using it as often as I can so that the other students pick up on it as well. This process is usually natural and painless, and the students usually get to know each other at some point, but sometimes this just doesn’t work.

What I’m therefore going to do during the spring semester is to devote at least five minutes of every class period during the first three weeks to self-introductions and name memorization games so that everyone learns everyone else’s name from the start whether they want to or not.

The students don’t have to be friends, but I need them to all be emotionally invested in the class and each other, and this has to start with me not being such a coward about misidentifying people and mispronouncing their names.

The Only RPF I Will Tolerate

I'm not entirely sure how this happened, but some point I went from being harshly critical of Shinzo Abe to wanting to read fic about the comedic misadventures of a tired middle-aged career politician who has spent the past decade trying to convince otaku trash to have children.