It's all over but the whining

Ah... I just clicked the "submit grades" button and bid farewell to teaching. That felt good, although I do know that I have deal with the grade grubbing. A few of my stock responses:

• I made "A"s on all of my papers! How could I have made a C on my final?
  - You probably should've studied.
• But I did study!
  - You know, if you study stoned, you should take the test stoned. It's what psychologists call "state dependent learning." 'Course, this wasn't a psych class.
• My average on Blackboard is a "B." How come my final grade is a "C+?"
  - Could be those six classes you skipped - or did you miss the part on the syllabus about me docking you half a letter grade for every three unexcused absences you have?
• It says on Blackboard that my average is a "C." How come I failed the class?
  - Huh. It could be because you came to exactly three lectures (and no discussions). Or it could be because you didn't turn in a paper, and the syllabus says that you need to turn in all of the assignments in order to pass. Or it could be that you're just a big jerk.
• But I took the class Pass/No Pass!
  - Right. "Fail" means "No Pass."

Oh the joys to which I have to look forward.

A few folks have asked if I'm going to miss teaching. The answer is a resounding "no," for a few reasons. First, I didn't like doing the prep, or the grading, or the lecturing, all of which makes it pretty difficult to enjoy teaching in the first place.

The more important reason, however, is that teaching required me to be something of an authority or an expert. I have no doubt that I am more knowledgable about my fields of competency than 99.99% of the world's population. Hell, I've probably forgotten more than that 99.99% knew. But I've always had in my mind that the more I learn, the less I know - and that's certainly true here. The more in depth I go in to a field, the more questions are raised, the most important being, "Do I really believe this shit?" Add to this the obsessive self-reflexivity of an ethnographer and the participant observer's reticence to be seen as any particular kind of authority, plus the "what do I as a white, middle-class, heterosexual male have to teach you women about oppression" complex through which I've been suffering, and you have someone who doesn't have the requisite confidence in his own knowledge to feel qualified to pass it on to others in the University setting.

So I'm not going to miss teaching at the University. Luckily, the organizing jobs of my future will fill that void - you have to teach folks to organize, and it seems that I do have a knack for that.

So farewell academics! I care about you enough to fight for you, but not enough to pontificate among you! And congrats to all of you who are successfully pursuing this path. You're special people and I admire your commitment!