I wasn’t going to post another response–I’m still trying to work out all of my feelings about my last one–but teaching yesterday changed my mind. I looked up at the clock in the middle of moderating a high-spirited conversation between three students about Lady Macbeth and realized that we were three minutes over time. Our class always runs out of time. What is impressive to me is that only half of the class pays attention to it. The other half willfully ignores both the clock and their classmates and keep talking until I stop them, which is really sweet.
Anyways, I started thinking about On Austrian Soil again. One of my reactions reading it, a reaction that didn’t seem relevant at the time, since it was unrelated to the “deeper” issues, was the mundane consideration of class time. In both classes that Sondra taught, there was an underlying anxiety about getting a massive amount accomplished in a limited time frame. Perhaps because I struggle with time management in my own classroom, I was constantly worried that they wouldn’t get everything done.
Now I am wondering; how does a teacher balance everything, balance the pedagogically ideological work with the workaday classroom business? Basically, where does one find the time in the syllabus either to be a full person in the classroom or give the students room to reflect on the ethics and morality of what they’re doing? I know it can be done, but how to find the balance?
