"I'm not here to bullshit you. I'm here to get you all to step up your game."

I think the School of Teaching & Learning got the memo and made sure the professors were knowledgeable & provocative this go round. I feel excited about the two courses I'm taking, especially the one on issues in urban education. Instead of jumping to a redundant, dead-end discussion about socio-economical dynamics in the classroom, we're confronting how our society is structured and how we've all been taught to integrate into it. She has me holding a lot of the ideas I developed about social class and cultural capital at arms' length, scrutinizing some and throwing out the rest - not because they were bad, but because I soon realized how unfounded they were. I'm kind of afraid to speak up, not because I don't want to sound dumb, but because I have no idea where she's going and I can hardly keep up. It's a very loud class, she's literally all over the place, kneeling on a table at one time, crouching on the floor at another. I like her just because she shut down a few of the kids who are on that "I'm more conscious than you" tip. She challenges everything we say, and for that I'm grateful. I'm trying to go back to my thinking, learning self. Hopefully my motivation to learn will be contagious in my own classroom.