Bragging on My Little "Snowflakes"

"Snowflake" is the derisive term for students used by the good people over at Rate Your Students. To my fellow instructors who are on the net constantly, if you're not checking in with RYS daily, you're missing a good dose of hilarity on the academic profession. Grad students, full tenured profs and everything in between--sometimes students--put anonymous blog posts on that site. It's my daily dose of sanity. As a side note, I have the honor of being a repeat publisher there--something that only 3% of posters can claim!

But instead of slamming my students, I want to brag on them for just a minute. I've done something new with my classes this year, born of the fact that my mentor dropped me and my project like a hot potato during the 11th hour of our planning. Because I don't like quitting, I just used my community contacts and set the whole thing up anyway. ::sticks tongue out:: It's called "service learning", and basically it means I've figured out how to make the writing they have to do anyway bridge into the community. When we wrote our literacy narrative--a myopic little piece about how they learned to do something and how they've carried that skill to the point where they are today--I made them do "community literacy". This could be volunteering or service learning in high school or through church. I even planned for those with negative experiences or no experiences. I had several papers about how they had been forced to do service and never really saw the point of it; they ended their papers with how it could've been better and what they could've gotten out of it. I had students write about how they had no experience whatsoever, but if they could design the perfect experience, this is what they would do.

And you know, those papers were the best narratives I've ever seen since I've been reading them (and by now, that's about 168 papers). They couldn't just say "This is my little life and what I learned about it." They had to stretch to say what their experience said about their community. It was much less self-centered. Some of them even put in their reflective writing (sort of a little memo to me about their process throughout this paper), "You know? I've realized I'm a pretty self-centered bastard. That's gotta change." Thank you. My work here is done. Let's pack up our stuff and go home. If you can get a young person to figure out there's more to his/her life than their little melodramas, you've done the world a giant favor. The kid has a head start on life. Because it seems to me that most people are still pretty myopic and haven't figured out that their individual experiences really aren't quite as important in the grand scheme of things as they'd like to believe. I also learned that many of them had done quite a few things for the community. But it wasn't until they sat down to write about it that they realized how important it was. Or so they claim. :) They could be "glossing" me.

In between assignments, we've been doing readings about the importance of getting involved. Not the kinds of things that berate you for standing still. But the kinds of pieces that make you realize just how easy it is to do something. The latest one, which I am in love with, is called "Political Paralysis". I've linked it in case you want to use it. Fellow instructors will note with a heavy heart that at the end of her article, she describes herself as a PhD still looking for a job. But let's just keep our blinders on about the market, and stick with the moment, shall we? This piece sparked more conversation than I've had with them all semester. The important part of the piece for my purposes is when she describes walking by the railroad, finding trapped turtles and picking them up and setting them free. She says, "For those turtles, that much power that I have is enough."

So we talked about "flipping turtles," and how you don't have to be a Ghandi to do something that's appreciated and makes a difference. She uses the term "anonymous saints." Think of that insurance commercial about one person doing a good deed that sets off a chain of others doing good deeds, even if it's just picking up a kid's fallen toy. Their 3rd and 4th paper is an interview assignment and a multi-genre paper, respectively. Instead of interviewing their roommate, or some other relatively meaningless source, they have to go to a community agency and find out more about that agency and the issue it deals with. I even gave them a quiz and a handout to help match them up with the issues that they had more passion for. The best of the interviews my community partner is going to help get published in the local paper. Their multi-genre paper requires them to create eight original documents, and I'm requiring them to make three of those documents something that would potentially benefit the agency. The documents are supposed to show an issue from multiple points of view. So for the agency, they could create fliers, brochures, etc. and still have it fit in their project.

They were worried about doing something "good enough" for other people to use. So the "Political Paralysis" piece came just in time for them to see that it's the effort that matters most. As I told them, you aren't trying to singlehandedly fix the AIDS problem with a flier. You're just moving one small step closer. I've tried to talk this project up to them. They have to do the work anyway--it's required that 101 follow the same course and kinds of papers. I've just figured out a way to get it to "count" for something more. They get 10 service hours for this; many departments are requiring service learning projects just to get into the major. So hopefully my kids will have a leg up. Let's just hope they don't pee on anything...

Just the same, they're scared to death. They're good kids at heart (except for three bastards I can think of offhand), and they want to do the right thing. They are all doubtful of their writing abilities anyway--often for valid reasons--and they fear failure like the Black Death. But when we talk about it, I seem to see them putting their "game face" on. It's the same way Dante looks when he really doesn't want to do something because he thinks it will be too hard or scary, but he's going to push through and do it anyway. It's called staring the real world in the face. In one of their journal entries, one student wrote, "Oh my God, I realize what college is supposed to be about now. It's not just a piece of paper for a job. It's about life and being part of the world!"

You go, snowflake. I'm behind you all the way.

-- Virgil