10000 hours....

It is now the end of my second complete semester here at BPU and as good a time as any to take stock of what I’ve learned. I’ve been reading (about) Malcolm Gladwell and have recently been amused to see that his reputation as smartest hipster around has begun to make him a target (here, here, and here are some representative attacks). It was inevitable.

His latest “work” includes the theory that you can become good at something if you work at it for more than 10,000 hours. That’s over 400 days and I think it’s fair to say that the only thing I’ve worked at that long is drinking.

And I’m still not quite at the level I want to achieve!

Oh.. I should add in sleep.. and again.. I just haven’t got it quite right.

I had this 10,000 hour thought after walking down the stairs from the final exam of my Japanese Studies class. They all moaned and groaned when I did the listening part of the test, but to my surprise all did well on it. They had a bit more trouble on other aspects of the test, but part of that was due to really poor test-design. The test included instructions that were difficult for me to decipher, and vocabulary that had never been covered in the class or the workbook. This semester I decided to use the test provided by BPU, as opposed to last semester when I wrote my own. This was a mistake and leads to learned thing #1: Take as much control of the course content as you can. Sadly this conflicts with LIFE-LEARNED lesson number one: Be lazy. Still, it makes me glad I’m moving on the BPU2 and close to complete control of the syllabus and methodology. Some time soon I’ll post the rather detailed syllabi I’m compiling (replete with works stolen from very many of my betters).

Anyway, I was walking down the steps feeling I’d given it a fair go, when Gladwell’s equation popped into my head. I did some quick figuring, and so far I’ve taught 525 hours at this level. I’ll give myself about half of that in preparation time, grading, and reworking things for a closer fit in the classroom. So that puts me at 787.5 or so.

On the other end of things, I’m not sure what to assign all that time I worked as an IA in the CC system. I should certainly get full credit for time in Mass Comm 6 at Chabot, since I not only wrote the thing but taught it; I’m not sure what I should assess for doing the tutor training; all the pedagogy work I did on the ESL/CALL interface should count for something; heck, I might even count in time spent as being student, both for myself and others; Time spent researching and writing academic papers and presentations, and; I suppose, some things I forget. Optimistically, and giving myself full credit for things that were in fact half-assed, I have about 5,000 hours. Probably far fewer.

Which means I have 5,000 to go.

I won’t live that fucking long. ;-)

Doesn't matter anyway - BKF is gonna become a world-famous translator and then I can retire from the teaching fray to the more gentile world of text-editing, canapes, and the occasional caress of the rattan cane.

Today was also the second-to-last day of my International Student Lab Class. They have three finals between today and our final class on Friday at 10:30. They go from that class directly to another final. I asked if they would rather study during my class, or have another presentation and discussion on Western Culture. There was a 100% response in favor of one last day of work. This means at least two things. First, they feel prepared for their finals. No surprise, as they actually study and learn. Second, it means they like my class, since they had a free pass to not come to it. Which leads to learned thing #2: I prefer to work with motivated students, “good” ones, even (though we aren’t supposed to make such invidious distinctions). To be honest, I’m not drawing a line that would mean much back in the States. In the CC’s in California, even the most basic of remedial classes contain students better at English than the Korean kids at BPU. The Korean kids at BPU aren’t, largely, interested in English, nor do they have reason to be or should be.

Additionally, today was my second-to-last “running all over the fuck” day. My morning class is at the “Nearly a Bizness Skool,” then I run up the hill to the University, finally scramble back down to the Institute for my night class. These days are always hectic, even if I have brilliant and complete lesson plans (or, I imagine they would be hectic if I ever did!). Which brings me to learned thing #3: I don’t like working all over the known Learniverse.

Which brings me to learned thing #4: I should really prepare my classes better (this is strongly related to learned thing #1, but slightly different). Which, as I will post later, I think I already have started to do.

I hope this all adds up to BPU2 being a better school for me. The fact that I get to make all the content up should naturally lead to better answers to learned things #1 and #4. I don’t think I will be sent off campus, so I should have more time spent working. Finally, the students in a translation program will probably have to be better than the average ones at BPU.

Also, I hope, BPU2 will give me an office computer that works. ;-)

And, to be fair, that trading grades for sex thing never really worked out here at BPU and I need to give it another shot at BPU2.