For this week’s blog, I’ve been mulling over in my mind what my personal academic essay might be about. I have a few ideas, but one of them has to do with being an academic, and maintaining mental health. No joke, it’s what I’ve been thinking about. I especially became interested in themes of identity when reading “Living the Narrative Life.” What does it mean to be in college and maintain some sort of identity, when, as Pagnucci writes, professors “take pride in opening students’ minds, working to help them consider their biases, their blind spots, their fears.” (25). But what happens if we take too much apart, too much “of the students’ original selves” to where the student can “never go back home” (25)? Pagnucci summarizes it perfectly, as it relates to telling narratives, when he writes “as we develop a critical mind, how much does that chip away at our emotional being?”(26).
I’m not saying college makes emotionless robots of us all, and I don’t think Pagnucci is either, but where do you draw the line? How much of your critical ability to question and analyze texts can creep into your own life? But maybe this isn’t the issue. In regards to Freshman composition classes, and because I’ve been thinking about this lately, shouldn’t we let them tell their own narratives? It’s a matter of letting them maintain some sort of identity. College is about testing previously held assumptions, but it isn’t about losing them altogether. Sometimes, in the case of myself, I feel like I question everything. Maybe this is a matter of me letting my work spill into my life, but for once, I’d like to not overanalyze something to death. This may be partly where I go with my personal essay, but if I do, I would pose it in the context of the 1301 classroom. How do we get those students to learn the perfunctory standards of college, while maintaining their identity? Pagnucci is right that education is an “imposition of one set of values over another, a secular ideology over a religious one,” but I believe the students have a choice on what they want to keep and what they want to leave behind (27).
Then I catch myself. This is a boring topic. Maybe it’s important to the field of study, but how can I remotely make it interesting if I’m just not feeling it? What I really want to write about, and what all of this boils down to, is my inability to take on responsibility and grow up. Its not that I don’t want to, or that I haven’t started doing it, it’s that I’m scared to death of it. How the hell do you do it? How do you get to that point? What’s the secret, as a crazed Willy Loman would ask? Of course I want to write about identity and college because I still don’t feel ready for the real world. Ironically, this crisis of responsibility makes me feel closer to my Freshman students, who just recently had to leave their homes, their comforts, and some of their beliefs, behind them. How you make this academic, I’m not sure, but there has to be a topic in there somewhere, some wild, unruly paper waiting to be written. It might still be boring, but at least it will mean more to me.
4 comments:
That sounds like an awesome topic. Growing up seems to happen when you least expect it. It will probably come at you in a flash, and you'll realize, "Wow, I'm grown up."
Or it will be like 9:00 on a Saturday and you'll be exhausted reading a Baby Names book. Either way, it kind of just hits you!
Honestly, I think that when you write what's interesting and exciting to you, it becomes exciting to the reader. Just like with good music when all the elements work together (in this moment, I'm thinking of the big scream in "We Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who...a moment of pure perfection), it's because the musicians are inspired-it's like they're playing for themselves and no one else. Readers and listeners who care about inspired moments in art can sniff out dishonest or uninspired motives from a mile away. And when you are inspired, it will inspire others. In answer to your (probably rhetorical)question, I don't think you can make something interesting if you're not feeling it yourself.
Write about your Peter Pan syndrome, and don't worry about it being important to the field...because, as Pagnucci pointed out, we don't have a field.
Pagnucci is right that education is an “imposition of one set of values over another, a secular ideology over a religious one,” but I believe the students have a choice on what they want to keep and what they want to leave behind (27).
Then I catch myself. This is a boring topic.
Garrett, are you absolutely kidding? It's a great topic, of intriguing interest. It's not only academic and personal, it's political. And dynamite too. Go with it!
As someone who just experienced the Jazz festival this weekend, I love it when I see musicians at play signifying to each other in their singing and instruments. I see grown ups playing and enjoying each other's company as if they were kids. We need these outlets as we mature and sometimes the essay helps me feel like a kid at play with others. The wonderment of new discoveries that I find as an essayist keeps me young.
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