'Tis the Season

Well, it’s that time of year again—the festive lights shine bright, the holiday music pumps out over every available sound system, and a familiar early-December refrain greets my ears on at least a twice-daily basis.

“I really need to pass this class.”

With final exams and the end of the semester bearing down on them, many of my students are now in full-on panic mode. The Reckoning is here, and all the missed classes, botched quizzes, and didn’t-bother-to-do-the-readings are knocking at their doors.

In all honesty, I never gave much thought to my students’ “I really need to pass” before; I would typically dismiss it with a shrug or an offer to go over their grade with them. But I’ve been thinking about it more and more lately, and I have a new response that I can’t wait to try out.

“Why tell me?”

There’s a big assumption underlying their statement that I can’t ignore. When they tell me that they need to pass my class, what they’re really doing is transferring the responsibility of their grade—of their education—over to me. They’re saying, You alone can pass me…please do so. But I’m not Santa Claus with a bagful of passing grades, and what they need to realize is that I’m not the one they should be talking to. Instead, early in the semester and then over and over again throughout it, they need to repeat “I need to pass” to themselves.

And then act accordingly.

What does “act accordingly” mean? Here are a few observations that may offer a clue: it’s never the students who show up every day who say “I need to pass.” It’s never the ones who bother to read the material, or who engage in class discussion, or who come to my office hours to go over assignments, or who manage to stay awake and off their phones during class. It’s the ones who mistakenly believe that the “opportunity” to earn a degree is the same as the “right” to have one, the ones who think that simply having a seat in the classroom is enough.

The fact of the matter is that the stakes (not to mention the costs) of education are at an all-time high, and the margin for error is slimmer than ever. Assuming a student can even complete a degree—much more the exception than the rule for the underprepared multitudes emerging from high school today—there’s still a job to find after graduation, and if you’re saddled with debt, then that job had better be a pretty good one. But those jobs are in short supply, and if you’re competing with huge numbers of applicants, you’d better set yourself apart from the crowd with some important basics, like having a strong work ethic and being the person who cares most about your education.

So to any students reading this who have ever told (or continue to tell) your professors that you “need to pass,” here’s a suggestion for a New Year’s resolution: make sure you tell it to the right person.

Looking Ahead

I always feel a kind of heaviness at the end of the fall semester. Every year as it winds down, and as my students work diligently (I hope) on their final papers, projects, and revisions, I can't ignore the fact that it's the end of another year as well. With its shorter days and chillier air, December provokes sobering reflection on the previous months, and--like usual--I have very mixed feelings about this particular year. On the one hand, it brought some incredible joy--the publication of my second book, That Hidden Road, for one, and the all-but-improbable World Series win of my beloved Chicago Cubs, for another. Yet there has also been the bleak political landscape and all the mess stemming from what has been--in my opinion--the most chaotic and meanest Presidential election of my lifetime.

For these reasons, 2016 stands as a year I'll regard with much more ambivalence than normal. And of course, the New Year is an arbitrary point; the repercussions of the previous year always continue into the next. But right now, the fear and uncertainty is way too big to take on, so I'll concentrate on something a lot more manageable (and self-serving)--some upcoming events early in 2017 where I'll be reading from and/or signing copies of That Hidden Road. Sometimes all we can do is share a little bit of ourselves with other people in the hopes of making a connection, and it's in this spirit that I look ahead to these places where I've been given the opportunity to do so:

On Thursday, January 12, I'll be at Anderson's Bookshop in Downers Grove, Illinois, at 7pm. For more info, click HERE.

On Sunday, February 5, I'll be at Warwick's Books in La Jolla, California, at 12 noon. For more info, click HERE.

On Tuesday, February 14, I'll be the featured author at the "Writers Read" program at the Fallbrook Library in Fallbrook, California, at 6pm. For more info, click HERE.

In addition to their intrinsic rewards, I've always found teaching and writing to be distractions from the sometimes oppressive onslaught of daily life, and I'm certainly hoping that they continue to be in 2017.

Good News!

Just a quick update that I'm making in part because I have timely news to share and in part because it's been over a month since my last post.

So, the news. I received word just before Thanksgiving that my memoir, That Hidden Road, was accepted for publication by Apprentice House Press, and the fact of all this is still sinking in. AH is a small press that's affiliated with Loyola University in Maryland, and it's a great fit for two main reasons.

First, in the editors' wish list were "travel stories" and "memoirs of personal discovery." Check and check.

Second, AH has a story that really resonates with me. Here's an excerpt from their website:

Apprentice House is the nation’s first entirely student-managed book publisher. Students at Loyola University Maryland are responsible for every aspect of the publishing process, from acquisitions to design and publication of every book. Our mission is, first and foremost, to educate students about the book publishing process.

As a program within the Communication Department at Loyola University Maryland, it is driven by student work conducted in four courses: Introduction to Book Publishing, Manuscript Evaluation & Development, Book Design & Production, and Book Marketing & Promotion.

Therefore, students in these courses serve as staff in Apprentice House’s acquisitions, design, and marketing departments, respectively.  After students leave the courses, AH professors and AH student staff sustain the on-going operation of the company and market its frontlist and backlist titles.

Though I spend a fair amount of time writing and like doing it (most of the time), I consider myself a teacher first, and the teaching project of which I'm most proud is my college's literary magazine, Bravura, which is a much, much smaller version of what they do at AH.

So I'm looking forward to working with the students and teachers at this press, and I'm looking forward to seeing That Hidden Road in print, which should happen in or around next fall.

Next up is my deadline is February 1, when I need to turn in the final revised manuscript. So, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do...

#AmWriting, #AmReading

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”

                                                               --Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

This is a different kind of post—one that is much more rooted in my teaching than in random occurrences from my everyday life. For that reason, it might not be for everybody. But, if you’re at all interested in reading, writing, and the connections between the two, then step right in.

Every semester, my creative writing class is packed to the rafters (well, acoustic ceiling tiles) with students eager to become better storytellers. They come for a variety of reasons. Some are there to fulfill a requirement (which it does). Some are there because they think the class sounds fun (which it is). Some are there because they love [INSERT LATEST FANTASY SERIES HERE] and are writing their own fantasy series (which, sadly, I don’t allow in workshop…yes, I know, I’m a monster). And some are there because writing creatively is a part of their lives, they want it to continue to be so, and they’d like to know how to do it better.

To all of these students, I say there’s no real secret to becoming a better writer. Really, you only need to conscientiously and regularly do three things:

1. Write
2. Share your work
3. Read

Let me quickly break down the first two before I get to the third, which is the real subject of this blog post.

Number One. “Write” actually encompasses two things—drafting and revising. Of these, the first is necessary, painful, and usually not very good (“shitty first drafts,” to use Anne Lamott’s priceless phrase). The second—revising—is where it all happens. I like to remind students that “revision” means “to see again”; in other words, they shouldn’t confuse revision with proofreading. The latter is like sprucing up a room with some spackle and paint, while the former is gutting and rebuilding a functionless room with sledgehammer, reciprocating saw, and a dust mask. That spackle and paint will come much, much later.

Number Two. It’s  important for writers to get over the understandably high levels of anxiety that go along with sharing their writing. Even more important is that they share that work with the right kind of readers—readers who are smart, honest, and aware of the aforementioned difference between proofreading and revision. Such readers are more rare and valuable than a Dodo bird that shits gold, so if you’re lucky enough to find any, hang onto them with both hands, both feet, and a prehensile tail if you’ve got one.

Number Three. As the most prolific and successful writer this or any planet has ever known says (see my cold opening), reading is vital. Yet there’s a little more to it than that. Someone could be an avid reader and still not be able to write a compelling opening paragraph, let alone the rest of the story that needs to follow it. Reading is important, but more important is rereading (every bit as important as rewriting) and how we read.

Settle in, because this may take a while.

Let’s start by considering the opening paragraph of  one of my very favorite short stories—Tobias Wolff’s “The Chain”:

“Brian Gold was at the top of the hill when the dog attacked. A big  black wolflike animal attached to a chain, it came flying off a back porch and tore through its yard into the park, moving easily in spite of the deep snow, making for Gold’s daughter. He waited for the chain to pull the dog up short; the dog kept coming. Gold plunged down the hill, shouting as he went. Snow and wind deadened his voice. Anna’s sled was almost at the bottom of the slope. Gold had raised the hood of her parka against the needling gusts, and he knew she couldn’t hear him or see the dog racing toward her. He was conscious of the dog’s speed and of his own dreamy progress, the weight of his gum boots, the clinging trap of crust beneath the new snow. His overcoat flapped at his knees. He screamed one last time as the dog made its lunge, and at that moment Anna flinched away and the dog caught her shoulder instead of her face. Gold was barely halfway down the hill, arms pumping, feet sliding in the boots. He seemed to be running in place, held at a fixed, unbridgeable distance as the dog dragged Anna backward off the sled, shaking her like a doll. Gold threw himself down the hill helplessly, then the distance vanished and he was there” (199).*

In our first read of this, we probably READ LIKE A FAN

Well, maybe “fan” isn’t the best word. The point is that when we read in this mode, we read to be entertained, to consume. Most often, that thing we consume is the plot because a) we expect things to happen and b) we like to know what those things are. If a piece of writing is compelling, we don’t always notice or appreciate what makes it compelling; instead, we let ourselves be carried away, having gladly accepted the writer’s invitation into what John Gardner refers to as the “fictive dream.” There’s nothing wrong with this kind of reading; in fact, it’s this exact kind of reading that makes us love reading. And, perhaps, want to be writers.

In a first rereading of this paragraph (and with the benefit of having read the rest of the story), we might start to READ LIKE AN ENGLISH MAJOR

I use this term a little facetiously, but what I’m getting at is that when we read like this, we read beyond the page. We find deeper meanings and patterns and connections. Since this is a rereading, we now know that “The Chain” can be seen as a tragic tale of seemingly justifiable revenge gone awry, and as we look back at the story’s opening, we notice a few things. First, of course, is that chain. In the story’s opening paragraph, it’s a literal object, but upon further examination we can now appreciate it as metaphor (or symbol—a word I loathe but seem unable to escape). It’s not just a metal chain, it’s the chain of events that poor Gold will set in motion and watch spin out of control. It’s also a symbol (damn it!) of restraint, and its inability to restrain the dog in this opening will be echoed later by Gold’s inability to restrain himself. The wolf, too, can be seen as something larger. Our base animal aggression, maybe? Finally, there’s the business about Gold’s daughter’s coat. In the ensuing story, Gold’s pursuit of what he feels is right leads to trouble, and this drama is foreshadowed and encapsulated neatly in the detail of the coat. He does something to protect her (“Gold had raised the hood of her parka against the needling gusts”), but now that “protection” renders her deaf to her father’s insistent shouts and blind to the dog’s imminent attack. Later, in doing what he thinks is right, Gold will open the door to all kinds of wrong.

But it’s the third way of reading that I’m most interested in, and that way is to READ LIKE A WRITER.

I tell my students to imagine a beautiful watch. Some people might use this watch only to tell time. Some people might also admire its shape and fine lines. Still others—some few others, I would say—want to take that watch apart and see how it works. That’s reading like a writer.

Let’s take the first line of the story:

“Brian Gold was at the top of the hill when the dog attacked.”

It’s a sharp, concise line that's elegantly symmetrical as well--eleven one-syllable words bracketed by two two-syllable words. The line also packs a punch, to be sure, but what’s most intriguing from a writer’s perspective is how Wolff packs that punch and how much he accomplishes in such a small space. The first words establish character and point of view, the next few words establish a setting, and the final words introduce conflict.

About conflict, writer and teacher Janet Burroway says it best: “In literature, only trouble is interesting.” It’s an obvious lesson, but like most obvious lessons, it’s easy to forget. Too often, early drafts of stories wade through pages and pages before the writer even suggests that there’s trouble afoot. If there’s no trouble, nothing’s happening, and if nothing’s happening, few readers are going to stick around to watch the paint dry. Writers must promise conflict, and they must promise it early. Like first or second sentence early.

By the end of Wolff’s first sentence, we know there’s going to be trouble. Moreover, those details of character, setting, and conflict that he introduces are broad enough to give himself room to subsequently answer the questions that the reader inevitably asks—What’s the hill like? What kind of dog? Who’s being attacked? Finally, there’s the overall momentum of this first line; because Wolff drops the “weight” at the end—“the dog attacked”—the reader is compelled to read on:

“A big  black wolflike animal attached to a chain, it came flying off a back porch and tore through its yard into the park, moving easily in spite of the deep snow, making for Gold’s daughter.”

Here we have a longer sentence that begins where the first one ends, developing “dog” into “big black wolflike animal” and “attacked” into “came flying off a back porch and tore through its yard into the park.” We get an added bit of setting—the “deep snow” tells us it’s winter—and the conflict is delivered (and intensified) again as a weighty surprise at the end of the sentence, where Wolff reveals what’s at stake: “Gold’s daughter.” More of that momentum. Now we really want to keep going.

“He waited for the chain to pull the dog up short; the dog kept coming.”

Yes, we were wondering about that “attached to a chain,” which Wolff buries in the second sentence but focuses on now in the third. He returns to a short, clipped sentence to develop a staccato rhythm. Also, as with the previous two sentences, this one ends in a familiar place. Consider the pattern:

End of sentence one: “…the dog attacked.”

End of sentence two: “…making for Gold’s daughter.”

End of sentence three: “…the dog kept coming.”

With this repetition, Wolff keeps us focused on the image of a dog charging toward a helpless little girl.

Having firmly established that, Wolff now shifts his focus, moving Gold into action with a few details that further develop the space in which the action is unfolding:

“Gold plunged down the hill, shouting as he went. Snow and wind deadened his voice. Anna’s sled was almost at the bottom of the slope.”

Three short sentences. Direct and to the point. Also, Wolff moves us away from the dog; there are, after all, two other characters in this scene. Yet he chooses his words carefully so as to continue the tone of dread and danger initiated by the (for the moment) absent dog: “plunged,” “shouting,” “deadened,” and “bottom.”

The next sentence reads,

“Gold had raised the hood of her parka against the needling gusts, and he knew she couldn’t hear him or see the dog racing toward her.”

Here, Wolff delivers a brief bit of backstory that ups the ante of the situation—his daughter can’t hear him as danger closes in. Wolff continues to intensify the initial conflict with this detail, and also by returning to the dog, who once again appears at the end of the sentence.

Then, this:

“He was conscious of the dog’s speed and of his own dreamy progress, the weight of his gum boots, the clinging trap of crust beneath the new snow. His overcoat flapped at his knees.”

There’s a fluid transition from “dog racing” at the end of the previous sentence to “dog’s speed” near the beginning of the first one here. But by and large, the focus is on Gold. Specifically, as a counterpoint to the dog. Wolff does this overtly at the beginning, where “the dog’s speed” is set against “his own dreamy progress.”

Also, he focuses on details that at once reinforce the snowy setting and concretize Gold’s slowness: “weight of his gum boots,” “clinging trap of crust,” and “overcoat flapped.” These details represent a true economy of language as they serve more than one purpose (something writers should strive for in their revisions).

Finally, by shifting the focus to Gold temporarily, Wolff leaves us worrying about how close that dog is getting to his daughter.

Creative writing teachers like myself will often draw something on the board that looks like this:

We use this image to represent the classic structure of narrative: rising tension/development of conflict (the upward slope), a climax/crisis point (the peak), and the denouement/falling action (the short dropoff). Wolff, in this opening paragraph, delivers a miniature version of this structure—a smaller story within the larger one—and his next few lines reside squarely atop the point:

“He screamed one last time as the dog made its lunge, and at that moment Anna flinched away and the dog caught her shoulder instead of her face. Gold was barely halfway down the hill, arms pumping, feet sliding in the boots. He seemed to be running in place, held at a fixed, unbridgeable distance as the dog dragged Anna backward off the sled, shaking her like a doll.”

A few things to notice here. From the beginning of this paragraph, Wolff has carefully choreographed his three characters—father, daughter, dog—and in the first sentence here all three converge in a fairly breathless fashion; it’s a long sentence (a compound-complex sentence for all you grammar nerds) that unfolds across a series of actions: Gold screams, the dog lunges, Anna flinches, and the dog catches her. Then, Wolff leaves us momentarily wondering what the dog is doing with Anna by focusing again on concrete details of slowness (“barely halfway down the hill” and “feet sliding”). In fact, Wolff stretches the scene out to an excruciating degree by continuing these kinds of details (“running in place,” “held at a fixed, unbridgeable distance”) at the beginning of the final sentence before returning to the attack and  delivering the action we’ve been dreading (shaking her like a doll”).

Finally, like Gold, we arrive at the end:

“Gold threw himself down the hill helplessly, then the distance vanished and he was there.”

Note how his arrival is anti-climactic, rendered so because Wolff uses the accursed passive voice (“he was there”). Consider the difference, for example, if he had ended the sentence with “…the distance vanished and he pounced on the animal.” This crisis isn't yet over, and just as one sentence of Wolff’s urges us to read on, so too does he design paragraphs that push us into the next one.

Action doesn’t just write itself; it needs to be carefully constructed and developed by an attentive writer with his or her finger on the pulse of the story. But something else, something even more subtle, is going on here. By starting at this particular moment, Wolff patches the reader into his main character’s perspective at a moment of crisis so that Gold’s fears and feelings of helplessness become ours as well. This identification and sympathy is absolutely crucial to the rest of the story because it prevents us from judging Gold’s later actions too harshly. The readers are, in fact, the only ones who can truly sympathize; as Wolff writes about the aftermath of the attack, “[Gold] had been alone in his anger for a week now and wanted some company. Though his wife claimed to be angry too, she hadn’t seen what he had seen” (201). But we have seen what Gold has seen. And we have felt it, too. Wolff’s skillful writing makes sure of this.

Obviously, reading like a writer can be a bit tedious if we subject a story’s every sentence to the microscope, and I offer this close reading merely as an example and model for a general principle—that there is much to be learned by looking at craft and much that we often miss. If you want to become a better writer, then you should develop the skill of reading from a writer’s perspective. If you find yourself caring for a particular character, go back and see if you can figure out how the writer made you care. If you find yourself thinking about a scene or conversation in a book, go back and examine how the writer choreographed that scene or phrased and presented the dialogue. Every good story is filled with lessons about how good stories are told, and for the writers among us, these are treasures well worth unearthing.

*All quotes taken from Wolff, Tobias. “The Chain.” Our Story Begins. New York: Vintage, 2009. 199-213.

A Year in the Life

I just wrapped up the fall semester, and it occurred to me that it was very different from my previous two semesters of teaching.

Mainly because I felt like me.

One year and two months ago, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I had surgery in October of 2013 and then began twelve weeks of chemotherapy that stretched from November, 2013, through January, 2014. In March of 2014 I had another surgery--this one pretty major--and a complication developed that didn't resolve itself until late May.

The chemo and that second surgery really kicked my ass. I lost my hair and bloated up through chemo, and then I started to waste away gradually and then rapidly after my surgery and as I dealt with my compromised lymph system. At one point, I weighed a little over 150 pounds, which I haven't weighed since I was about fifteen. I told my classes last fall and last spring that they only had about 80% of me on those days that I was able to make it in. Eighty percent at best, which wasn't very often.

The worst part of those eight months was not feeling like myself. My body--and mind, at times--had been hijacked and replaced with a lesser, confused, infirm version. Rocco negative 2.0.

During that whole time, I took a selfie a day. Sometimes more than one (like when I shaved my rapidly balding head). When I was nauseated and tired, it was hard to do; I didn't really want to look at myself any more than I had to.

I stopped taking the pictures a while ago, roughly around the time that I started to feel as close to normal as I'm going to get. So now I finally got around to putting all of those pictures together into a short video chronicle of a very tough year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ejneG-Ngk&feature=youtu.be

On a Positive Note...

I feel like I need to offer a little bit of balance to some earlier posts—including the last one—about the state of today’s college students. Yes, it’s fun to focus on problems (like not bringing books, paper, or even a pencil to class), and yes, it’s much easier to entertain with these little anecdotes than with the feel-good stuff, but it’s also important to give credit where it’s due, and the truth is that I have encountered some incredibly motivated and talented students over the last fifteen years.

Before I get to my woefully incomplete list of these students, though, I have to say a few words about teaching.

To put it bluntly, I love my job.

In fact, I’m so grateful doing what I do that I try not to talk about how great it is; at best, it would seem like gloating, and at worst, I might jinx it. But the truth is that I get to talk to students about ideas, enrich their lives through reading and writing, and help them define and reach their goals.

And I get to do this at a community college—the most truly democratic institution in our educational landscape in that it has a 100% acceptance rate, affordable tuition, and outstanding instruction. If one believes, as I do, that a broadly educated populace makes for a healthy society, then it’s the community college that will help get us there.

But back to my students. Below is just a fraction of recent students who are doing amazing things since passing through my classroom:

One is working on her teaching credential and is currently doing classroom observations at a local middle school. She’s one of many of my former students who have chosen to go into teaching.

Another just transferred to UC Riverside, where he’s already been accepted as one of a handful of fiction editors on their literary journal.

Another, also interested in writing, transferred to UC Berkeley to study creative writing. Next semester, he’ll be one of thirteen students who was accepted into a workshop that will be taught by Joyce Carol Oates.

UC Berkeley was the destination of another former student. While at Palomar, he started our English Majors Club. After graduating from Berkeley, he worked at Google for a while and is now heading to law school.

Yet another one of my former creative writing students (who was also an editor on our literary journal) is currently in a master’s program at Portland State University.

It’s not all about books and writing and literary stuff; one recent student, a navy veteran, is currently enrolled in business school at UC San Diego.

Another one just started a Ph.D. program in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Cornell (after finishing a Master’s degree program at Columbia). She’s already published one article with a second one on the way. When she was at San Francisco State, she put together a collection of creative and personal writing by women that she had worked with in the community.

Okay, so we’re back to writing.  Here are two more:

One woman entered my creative writing class several years ago as a returning student. She’s been working as a tutor in our writing center for the last few years, but she’s also been working on her own projects. She recently published this book, and is hard at work on her second.

And another student took a couple of composition classes from me as a sixteen-year-old. She transferred into the USC film school (no easy feat), received her degree, and recently published her first novel with Simon & Schuster. Her second novel is coming out in the spring, and both are the first installments in two separate middle grade/young adult fantasy series.

My apologies to the many other former students of mine that I haven't listed here but who have nevertheless worked hard to achieve their goals. I’d love to hear stories from others about your positive experiences as either student or teacher and how your hard work (on either end) has paid off.

Teaching the Dude with No Stuff

Teaching has been taking over my mind these last few days.

Maybe it's the Chicago teachers' strike, or maybe it's a couple of ballot measures in my state that could profoundly change public education (Yes on 30!  No on 32!), or maybe it's that the college where I teach just wrapped up the fifth week of the semester and I've got stacks of papers to grade.

I should be working, but I'm thinking about teaching, so I'm going to write about that.  About a student. 

One of the reasons I love teaching at a community college is that my students are so diverse.  It's a rare semester when I'm the oldest person in my class, and there's a wonderful mix of cultural background and life experiences and points of view that I never experienced in my own schooling.  I've taught first-generation college students, single parents, newly unemployed heads-of-households, the physically-challenged, and a whole host of others.  By and large, I get energized by my students--their stories, their questions, their observations.

But there's one student that I'm starting to see way too often in my classes.

I call him the Dude with No Stuff.  He shuffles into class late (when he bothers to shuffle in at all), slumps into a seat (usually in the back), and sits there with his hands folded across a desktop as blank as his mind.  When we discuss the reading, he pulls out neither book nor handout; when we do in-class writing, he leans to a neighbor to borrow paper and pencil.  This really gets me.  I've been known to ask the Dude with No Stuff, "Would you go to a P.E. class without shoes?"  Uh, no...  "Then why would you go to a writing class without something to write with?"

Sometimes a little embarrassment does the trick, and the Dude with No Stuff becomes the Dude with Some Stuff--in other words, a dude that doesn't raise my blood pressure.

I say "dude," but this behavior cuts across gender.  I've seen both men and women in my classes without any class materials.  One of their favorite activities is to stare down at their crotches and smile.  It took me a while to figure out that they're texting a friend.  Something really important, I'm sure, like class soooooo boring wt r u up2.  At least, I hope that's what they're doing.  Maybe they just like their crotches.

Before I embarrass them, though, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and ask them (privately, of course), if they're waiting either for financial aid money to come through or to get paid.  But this question is kind of a formality.  The students that are financially strapped and dedicated to their education have already been in touch with me, asking if copies of the books are on reserve or in the library or available anywhere else.  Those are the students who understand that nobody should care more about their education than they do, and that getting that education is not a right; it has to be earned through hard work.

No, the Dudes (and Dudettes) with No Stuff are just sleepwalking through higher education in much the same way that they probably drifted through high school.

So how do I teach the Dude with No Stuff?  I don't.

Oh, I give him a chance to change.  I'll discuss the value of education and the work it takes and the options that it creates for those who do the work.  I'll talk with him about effort and expectations.  

But if he still shows up with no stuff, then I'm done.  He's welcome to take a seat (he--or someone--paid for it, after all), but my energy is finite and I'm spending it on the people who at least take the trouble to bring their book to class.

I've been thinking about the Dude with No Stuff in light of all the news and debates and forecasts about the state of education.  How public schools are failing.  That if a business produced such a shoddy product as today's graduate, why, they'd be put out of business and damn quickly.  This is my least favorite popular misconception of what it is teachers do--churn out a "product."  Schools aren't factories for lots of reasons, but the biggest one is that in a factory, workers can at least expect a certain level of quality raw materials.  

The materials that a teacher gets to work with--the students--are hardly "raw" and far from perfect.  They exist in complex, often challenging family and socio-economic conditions that sometimes exert tremendous force against the learning process.  They may come to school tired or hungry--two conditions that make them extremely resistant to any kind of "molding."  They may not get much support at home or from friends.  Or they may just be lazy and see nothing wrong with showing up to class with nothing but a cell phone.  

As a teacher, I can assign reading and homework, but I can't go home with them and force them to crack open the book.  I can tell them everything I know about writing--that it's a process, not a night-before-the-paper-is-due-frenzied-typing-crapathon--but I can't force them to give that process a try.

The problem with most educational reform plans--other than the fact that very few actual educators are involved in their writing (they're too busy teaching)--is that they're based on the assumption that everything is within the teacher's control.  Low test scores?  It's the teacher's fault.  Poor grades?  Blame the teacher.

The problems that face education--like most things--are complicated.  But the biggest problem is that we live in a society where people want simple answers and someone to blame, and our politicians are more than happy to provide both.  The truth is, there is no quick fix and no obvious culprit.  

Well, there may be a culprit.  The Dude with No Stuff.  That guy really bugs me.