Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Quality Through Volume

A student found me eating at the nasty food pit on campus. I give you the choice bits of conversation here:

I love your section because you're loud... I can't fall asleep. And you walk around the room so I have to pay attention.


I don't go to any of my other classes, but because you make us [2 missed sections = F - ed.], I go to section all the time.

I have to admit I'm taking these as compliments. I can't wait to get my evals back "I liked Overread. He was loud."

3 comments:

luckybuzz said...

I would totally take those as compliments. I worry sometimes that I'm not loud enough, but my friends assure me that's not possible, so I don't know.

BrightStar (B*) said...

I'm loud, too. Probably not a surprise.

Vaguery said...

When I was young, my Dad (a NASA physicist and engineer who, essentially, managed people who built human-machine interfaces and machines themselves) started flashing his turn signals randomly. Click-click-click-pause-click-click-paus-click-pause-click-click-click...

He said it got people's attention better than just the inbuilt periodic clicking. In hindsight I dunno -- I think maybe people pay so much less attention these days, what with phones and all, that they might just glance up during the pauses and miss the whole message entirely.

This to say: I have always tried to be Socratic, but very very loudly so. So major. emphasis. on. every. Point. Including. Both. Facts. And. Examples. Punctuated. By! Anyone? Anyone? What are the loud parts punctuated by?

I'll wait.

I figure that I can take that strategy until they start using their cell phones in class. (Which means, I suppose, no laptops, huh?).