Dave Press

from James Franco’s WhoSay website.
This is more for reference than anything else, but lately—beginning to teach—I’ve been really thinking about the kind of teacher I want to be and I think this is interesting to note from some other perspective. I’m not particularly good at criticizing anything and if I’m not particularly good at finding flaws and helping teach people become better, I probably won’t be a particularly good teacher, but I think I could take a cue from Mr. Franco here and think of it as a performance, but I’m not much of an actor.

This is more for reference than anything else, but lately—beginning to teach—I’ve been really thinking about the kind of teacher I want to be and I think this is interesting to note from some other perspective. I’m not particularly good at criticizing anything and if I’m not particularly good at finding flaws and helping teach people become better, I probably won’t be a particularly good teacher, but I think I could take a cue from Mr. Franco here and think of it as a performance, but I’m not much of an actor.

1 year ago 4 notes

“It seems to me that the intellectualization and aestheticizing of principles and values in this country is one of the things that’s gutted our generation. All the things that my parents said to me, like “It’s really important not to lie.” OK, check, got it. I nod at that but I really don’t feel it. Until I get to be about 30 and I realize that if I lie to you, I also can’t trust you. I feel that I’m in pain, I’m nervous, I’m lonely and I can’t figure out why. Then I realize, “Oh, perhaps the way to deal with this is really not to lie.” The idea that something so simple and, really, so aesthetically uninteresting — which for me meant you pass over it for the interesting, complex stuff — can actually be nourishing in a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can’t, that seems to me to be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to feel.”

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David Foster Wallace, quoted by walkwhilereading. There is quite a lot in Wallace that I love and think about now knowing that I will probably be spending the rest of my life teaching literature and writing. This interview has a number of interesting points on his teaching:

I like to teach freshman lit because ISB gets a lot of rural students who aren’t very well educated and don’t like to read. They’ve grown up thinking that literature means dry, irrelevant, unfun stuff, like cod liver oil. Getting to show them some more contemporary stuff — the one we always do the second week is a story called “A Real Doll,” by A.M. Homes, from “The Safety of Objects,” about a boy’s affair with a Barbie doll. It’s very smart, but on the surface, it’s very twisted and sick and riveting and real relevant to people who are 18 and five or six years ago were either playing with dolls or being sadistic to their sisters. To watch these kids realize that reading literary stuff is sometimes hard work, but it’s sometimes worth it and that reading literary stuff can give you things that you can’t get otherwise, to see them wake up to that is extremely cool.

This is my number one thought regarding teaching lit: be passionate about what I’m teaching and be excited and if I’m excited hopefully the kids will be also. The other aspect is to really push the idea of finding something you can relate to in the text we’re reading, which is something Wallace reinforces:

What do you think is uniquely magical about fiction?

Oh, Lordy, that could take a whole day! Well, the first line of attack for that question is that there is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don’t know what you’re thinking or what it’s like inside you and you don’t know what it’s like inside me. In fiction I think we can leap over that wall itself in a certain way. But that’s just the first level, because the idea of mental or emotional intimacy with a character is a delusion or a contrivance that’s set up through art by the writer. There’s another level that a piece of fiction is a conversation. There’s a relationship set up between the reader and the writer that’s very strange and very complicated and hard to talk about. A really great piece of fiction for me may or may not take me away and make me forget that I’m sitting in a chair. There’s real commercial stuff can do that, and a riveting plot can do that, but it doesn’t make me feel less lonely.

There’s a kind of Ah-ha! Somebody at least for a moment feels about something or sees something the way that I do. It doesn’t happen all the time. It’s these brief flashes or flames, but I get that sometimes. I feel unalone — intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel human and unalone and that I’m in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness in fiction and poetry in a way that I don’t with other art.

We’re doing “Consider the Lobster” in my English 2 class and I don’t wanna spoil what we’ll be doing regarding the essay, but I think it will be a neat exercise.

(via walkwhilereading-deactivated201)

1 year ago 329 notes

ComicsAlliance interviews activist Bill Ayers about teaching comics. This is interesting, I had no idea this book was done.

Since I’m just getting started teaching this semester, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to integrate comics into the classroom, though I know it works, and quite a few people use them. It’s mostly just been in the theory phase, and it works one-on-one with the high school senior I tutor, but still I don’t feel quite experienced enough to facilitate them effectively. Having the knowledge is completely different from actually teaching it. That’s the thing that I’m discovering with teaching—it really is just touch and go and sorting out what’s best and works for you to get the point across.

Frequently, I think it looks like a stand-up routine because I’m completely unafraid to make fun of myself, unable to write on the board and talk at the same time, but I feel like it is the sort of thing that you get better at the more you do it. I just have to loosen up, really, and if you know me at all—that’s not something I do well.

1 year ago 0 notes

Chris Sebela reports on the Kickstarter Project, “The Graphic Textbook” which brings comics to the classroom. This is particularly relevant to my interests as throughout this semester I’ve been trying—through trial and mostly success—to use comics to unlock higher literary concepts, and how they can work in a core composition class or in a high school setting. The thing is, I’m largely flying blind, but I guess this Reading With Pictures organization is a great place to start. Thanks, Chris!

1 year ago 4 notes

You may now call me Professor Press.

I’ll be teaching a few sections of English Composition at North Country Community College and Paul Smith’s in the Fall. To say that a few goosebumps sprung on my neck upon hearing “Professor Press” is putting it pretty mildly. This is the best birthday present a guy could have.

9 months ago 15 notes

So this where I will be teaching in the Fall. I’m pretty lucky to inhabit three beautiful campuses in my time. (Taken with Instagram at Paul Smith’s College)

9 months ago 4 notes

Yesterday, I had faculty orientation at Paul Smith’s College. The place is amazing, absolutely beautiful and the people I’m working with are supportive and magnificent. I’m in love with the library.

This is the view from the top floor looking out on the lake, with my fellow freshman composition teacher Sarah in view working on her syllabus. I’m really lucky to be a part of this staff, and I’m so giddy that I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning making sure everything is perfect for my first day of class next week.

My old boss, Robert Viscusi, said to me in text message when I told him I got hired: “As Emerson wrote to Whitman on a famous occasion, ‘I greet you at the beginning of a great career.’ ” I got pretty choked up.

9 months ago 6 notes

I did not read a comic in public today. Instead I taught one in a classroom.

8 months ago 2 notes

Adjunct life. Exciting yes?

8 months ago 3 notes

#on teaching

You may now call me Professor Press.

Dave Press