The Borders of Things

First Day Fun

I just got out of the first day of my second quarter teaching, and I had a particularly fun time. After much internal debate, I put the first line of "Karma Police" by Radiohead as an epigraph on my syllabus, copied from the album lyrics: "karma police arrest this man he talks in maths he buzzesLikeAfridge hes like a detuned radio." I did it for three reasons: 1. It's kinda hip 2. It refers to police, and in our discussion of Foucault we talk a lot about discipline 3. I wanted to start the course with a close reading challenge for my students, to emphasize that all texts are based on context and audience, and we need to be aware of that.

So I handed out the syllabus and asked them what this quotation had to do with writing and why in the world would a writing class instructor put such a grammatically anarchistic passage on his syllabus. They stared at me for a few seconds. "OK, what do you think it means? Anything at all," I asked. Finally, a bold individual commented that there seemed to be a contrast between the radio as a machine and the idea of karma. This was great, so I wrote it on the board. With a little coaxing on my part, they offered definitions of math (abstract, communicable, logical system) and this led, of course, to language. This contrasted nicely with the nonlanguage noise of the detuned radio. Suddenly, we have a conflict between meaning and meaninglessness, and the police are needed to put an end to this nonsense and restore order. By the end of the discussion, I had ink all over the white board.

It was beautiful. I then said "would you believe if I told you I had none of this planned before I walked in here?" (which was more or less true.) They didn't believe me.

I was struck by the human ability to make meaning even in the most strange of circumstances. Obviously, I was the power forcing them to do so, coaching their connections; but they were able to produce something meaningful from a rather strange phrase. We are such creatures of communication; we can't help it, I think. We interpret. I hope we can keep that energy throughout the quarter.