Questionable Fridays

I’ve been thinking. Yes, again.

I won’t be teaching any more after this summer’s McD class ends, and that’ll be good because I absolutely hate grading things. Hate it. The first rule of teaching creative writing is “First, do no harm,” and grading or evaluating too often does harm. I think I mutilated a student last term. Not happy about that. On the other hand, people want honest feedback, not patted on the head. It’s just too damn hard and too damn depressing. So it’s good that I’m getting out.

BUT I love answering questions because questions make me think. Also that’s where real teaching takes place, discussing things. That’s where I do a lot of figuring out what I really think. And when students challenge my answers, that’s even better because that’s when I learn a lot. So questions, yes, I’m going to miss questions. Which is when I thought, “I could do that on Argh.”

Here’s the thing, though: questions only work when they lead to discussions. Which means it would have to be one post per question. I’m good with that because I’m assuming there won’t be that many questions, so I just have to figure out how to get the questions. Which is what this post is about.

Anybody have a question they’d like to talk about? I’m assuming it would be about writing since I know nothing about cars or welding, but I’m open to something else. Also, is this a good idea? Because my usual method of posting is “I find this interesting and I’m sure other people would, too, so here goes.” Needless to say, sometimes those miss, so starting with somebody’s question would at least guarantee that one person would be interested. Probably. I dunno. It’s Friday night and I’m full of brownies and I have a lot of grading ahead of me (oh god) so this could also just be a stalling tactic. Which is another reason it would be good if people did questions/requests.

What do you think?