[This week marks the conclusion of another Fall semester, my 21st at Fitchburg State. Since we’re all going through it at the moment, I thought I’d share one significant challenge I faced in each class this semester, and a bit about how I tried to respond. Leading up to this special weekend post on my younger son’s first semester!]
As I highlighted with this August blog series in particular, my younger son (and phenomenal Guest Poster) Kyle started his first year at the University of Michigan this Fall. It was as full and kick-ass a semester as I knew it would be, and there are countless moments and experiences of which I’m very proud and which make me even more excited for all that’s next. But for a series on teaching reflections, I have to highlight two very distinct but complementary and equally impressive papers Kyle wrote for his tough but fascinating and rewarding first-year history seminar on the study of deep time:
Toward the start of the semester, Kyle’s professor asked them to write a personal observation and analysis of some aspects of the (beautiful) Michigan campus, tied to the class themes of continuity and change over deep time. He chose to observe the seasonal pattern of the changing Fall leaves, to connect it to the cycles of campus construction, and to consider the relationships and contrasts between these natural and man-mind experiences of the landscape, setting, and time. And he did so in a style that was equal parts funny and wise, warm and thought-provoking, very much Kyle’s but also something I hadn’t quite read from him before. My favorite paper I read all semester, with absolutely no offense to any of my FSU students!
The course’s second assignment was a somewhat more typical analytical paper: working with multiple class texts to develop a thesis about and multi-layered analysis of a central class question and theme. Kyle chose a complex and important question/theme about whether and how human progress is possible, and worked closely and convincingly with a series of dense and challenging texts (including one featuring the perspective of the legendary Werner Herzog) to develop a thoughtful and nuanced thesis about different theories of progress as, themselves, the best reflection of both the limits and the possibilities of such change. If Kyle continues in his pre-Law path he’s going to have lots of occasions to work with dense texts to consider big human questions, and this paper made me very excited for that continued arc—and every part of Kyle’s next steps at Michigan!
Next series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
PPS. I drafted this post before Kyle wrote his final paper for the course, a truly stunning synthesis of many different ideas about deep time, both from class readings and (especially) from his own evolving perspective. I could go on & on about that culminating essay and his incredibly thoughtful and multilayered work in it, but I’ll simply conclude this post with his banger of a concluding sentence: “Through a collective understanding of deep time, humanity can challenge notions of temporal insignificance and inevitable environmental destruction, pioneering a newfound epoch defined by interrelational mutualism between man and nature, not one categorized by geological antagonism.”
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