OK, I asked and my student answered.
Question: What new skills or insights have you learned so far this semester?
Answer: "To be more relaxed when I write; to write a thesis, and
that not all English teachers are A-holes."
Yes, she actually turned it in.
Add this to another "Why I Teach" favorite: "Professor, you're giving us information overload!"
P.S. And speaking of information overload, while I'm at it: "Why don't we know these things?" "Why doesn't anybody tell us?" These are questions from an outraged student, an Eastern European immigrant, after I showed a documentary, "Out of Obsurity," about a little-known 1939 library "sit-in" when five young black men in Alexandria, Virginia protested their inability to get library cards and use the new "white" library that ALL Alexandria taxpapers funded, simply because of the color of their skin.
Remember, this outraged student is of the generation that was taught how to pass standardized tests; not any standard or useful content.
