A richer semester ~ with Brian Goedde ~
Another Classroom Romance
(Names have been changed.)
As their instructor, I wouldn’t dare inquire as to the status of their relation, but it has clearly reached a level of significance. They began the semester across the room from each other. Now they sit next to each other during every class, and have a hard time containing their giggles.
I ask for an example sentence to put on the board, and from their whisperings a hand is raised.
“Shaun always lies about texting.”
The two of them burst into an embarrassed laugh. Across the classroom I see a few smiles break, more eyes roll.
I pause, wondering if I should write it on the board. I don’t want to draw more attention to what has become an increasingly distracting element in the classroom, but offering the sentence is legitimate participation, and it’s actually a good one for us to parse. There’s an adverb, which is always worth a review, and my personal favorite: a prepositional phrase. Oh! And the object of the preposition is a gerund! That’ll be a fun detour.
“OK,” I say, turning to write it on the board. “This is a complete sentence. It has—”
“But it’s not true!” Shaun says. “Why write it if it’s not true?!”
I ignore the protest and dissect the sentence, but by putting their tiff on the board, I seem to have permitted the distraction to bubble over. Now a whole side of the room is not paying attention. I erase the sentence and ask for another one—before getting to the gerund.
Romance can offer a lot to the world of education, but it sure can undermine a lesson.
We just had midterm conferences, and I asked each of them, individually, to choose not to sit next to each other. The bottom line, I said, is that it’s disruptive. I have to catch myself from chastising too severely, however, to save myself, in my own heart, from hypocrisy. The truth is, when this comes up in my classes it always brings to mind another classroom romance: my own. I met my wife in graduate school years ago, and if memory serves me correctly, our attention suffered severely in that class, too.
Brian Goedde
English and Writing Department
Washtenaw Community College