Random bullets of September: so far, so good, and a measure of balance

Our semester began a few weeks ago, and so far, everything's moving along. 

Teaching: 

 I'm repeating the "no tech--write everything in class" experiment from a few years ago, and so far it's going well. I told them on the first day that this was a space walled off from technology for our mutual attention to reading and discussion in a world of distractions, and they knew coming in that they'd write something on most days.

• As the syllabus says, no, you can't find these readings online (many are contemporary and copyrighted), and yes, you need to bring your book--an actual, honest-to-god paper book--to class. 
•  I write on the whiteboard and sometimes on paper via the doc cam, and we have actual, in-person, non-mediated-by-whatever-shiny-thing-edtech-is-pushing-on-administrators this semester discussions. You know, party like it's 1999. Following my mantra of a few years ago (in the link above), "Write big & move big is the lesson here, I guess"
• If they want to let AI do the work, there are online sections that they can take, so I'm not uniquely depriving them of their Precious; they just have to go somewhere else to use it. 
• Yes, we will have quizzes that help them to retain information, and yes, I will call on students, and yes, they will talk in groups and present their findings at the front of the room. 
• Yes, I can read their handwriting. I've been doing it for decades and have concluded this: (1) they're doing the best that they can, and more practice can only improve handwriting for those for whom it is a challenge; and (2) yes, I grant a sweeping dispensation to those with 200 or 500-person classes to have them type or Scantron instead (that's not my situation); but (3) those of us with smaller humanities classes ought to meet them halfway and at least try to encourage their writing in class, even if it's a bit more work for us.
• And yes, we're going to the actual library where print books live and I will be turning them loose for a scavenger hunt.  
• So far, so good, and they seem eager to learn. 

Research:

Last year I spent a ridiculous amount of time on campus and living just off-campus, creating teaching materials and showing up for everything. I learned my lesson, and this year I am making a point not to do that. Some might call it "spite commuting," and those people would not be wrong.

• I'm keeping track of my time to distribute it in ways specified by my contract. 
• By keeping away from campus physically, I'm not tempted to ignore the hard work of research in favor of the low-hanging fruit of improving this lesson or lecture or exercise, because (1) it already works well and (2) the maybe 2% additional improvement does not justify the hours I put into it.
• In other news, I worked so hard on teaching last year that I have a lot of good stuff to work with already. 
• By being physically surrounded by my research materials, I'm working with them more and getting more ideas.  
•  As I've deliberately cut back the hours of creating teaching materials, my research brain has slowly come back online, and I'm writing more. 

Service: 

I'm doing my share of service, but I'm not hanging around the office ready to volunteer or be helpful or show up for a meeting in person when no one else does. Zoom exists for a reason. 

Hope your semester is going well!