Oh, the power of being at the head of the table...

I sat at the head of the large conference table today in Seminar in College Teaching. I was slightly late for class and someone had taken my usual spot at the side closest to the door. But, the new position seemed to embolden me, such that I challenged the instructor a few times during the 3 hour long class. The instructor has this tendency to make bold, blanket statements to incite controvercy. So he made the statement that he hates Social Psychology, whereupon which I practically pounce on him, "Well, I LIKE Social Psychology!" (I just happen to teach Social Psychology, so I may have been unconsciously taking this statement personally.) He qualifies his statment, "Social Psychology is based on research that is artificially created in the lab and therefore, does not represent true social behavior." So I state, "I disagree, field studies have been conducted that are closer to assessing natural social behavior." Then he speaks some blasphemy about the Stanford Prison Studies and how that was a field study that still had to be conducted with close controls, and thus, could only speak to behavior that fit within the constriants of the controls. So I shot back with, "Yes, generalizability is a problem with Social Psychology, but that does not justify completely denigrating the whole field." Then he changed the subject.

I think I scared him and other people in the room. I saw the look in one girl's eyes...just like how a deer's eyes look when they are caught by the headlights of an oncoming car. From then on, I made continued references to Social Psychology. When he said he hated counseling, too, I said to the counseling person, "Now he's picking on you guys." (I just may have been expressing my taking-it-personally perspective there.)

When class was over, he came over to me and said that he didn't really mean that he hated Social Psychology, he just read an article about the generalizability issue. I mentioned that I'd be intersted in reading the article. I thought I was being nonchalant about the whole thing, but he kept trying to reassure me (or perhaps himself???) that nothing was meant by it, etc, etc. Now I really thought I must have scared him. I just said that it was no big deal, I had just decided to fight back for once. He said, "Great! I just try to push people enough to get them to argue their point of view."

You know, I have actually gotten to really like this professor over the course of the semester. He keeps his political ideology out of the classroom, and he's always willing to argue the unpopular, underdog side. But, I think I've learned a very good lesson today: Don't sit at the head of the table (it has mystical ego-inflationary powers).

I'm having age issues

Why is it that everytime I tell someone I just met that I'm a first-year Ph.D. student, they immediately say, "Oh, are you a freshman?" The last time it happened, I decided to pretend they actually heard me. So I said, "No, they don't call first year graduate students freshmen." I'm not even straight out of college either. I already have a master's degree in neuropsychology and I took two years off after that to do research before I went back to school again to begin my first year in a new program. I'm 26 people!!! Stop confusing me for an 18 year old!!! Last weekend, a nice old man asked me about my Thanksgiving. When I told him I was glad to have spent time with my little sister, he asked me how old my little sister was. I told him she was 18 and a look of shock passed across his face, at which point he asked me how old I was...thinking I didn't look a day older than 18 myself, so how could my little sister be 18! To which I responded, "Yeah, it's okay, I get asked how old I am all the time. I'm actually 26. People usually think I'm 6 to 8 years younger than I really am."

My students even flat out ask me how old I am. Maybe I'll start wearing a sign on my forehead that says, "Don't bother to ask...I'm 26 years old." It really undermines my authority to look so young. I think I'm a victim of ageism.

Anyways, I decided to not teach anymore. This will be my last semester teaching and I'm hugely relieved. I really don't like teaching (as evidencd by my last two entries). However, I think I managed to keep teaching without conveying that sentiment to my students. I actually had one of my students give me the ultimate compliment that a teacher could receive. She wanted to know if I was teaching again next semester because she wanted to take another class with me. I actually considered teaching again for a couple of days before I remembered my distaste for teaching. Maybe I will, but I don't think so. My advisor put a grant in for funding next fall. I'm hoping it gets funded because I'd be given a research assistanceship. Although, I'd have to drive to inner city Denver to test people in their homes. Scary!!

Two weeks and the semester is over. I'm absolutely amazed and absolutely swamped with work. I'm writing a paper on reading comprehension theories and instructional strategies (more accurately, I'm thinking about starting the paper) and I have a teaching philosophy to write (I do actually look forward to that, strangely enough) as well as a final project for another class, let alone taking 8 hours to write the final for the class I'm teaching (including a study guide and one last set of lecture notes). Whew!! Way to much. Any case, I'd better stop procrastinating and write up the meeting minutes and agenda for the Ed Psych society meeting tomorrow or I won't get any sleep tonight.