#start so i'm trying to do a simpler thing than my automatic impulse was. but i'm trying to do it Well.

[rodrickheffley]

been freaking out over an assignment since the term started and just forced myself to start and now i'm at almost 1k words yay

[blackcandlesinwinter]

Oh man. Yep, this got me last Fall when I taught a class for mostly freshman college students and non-science majors for the first time. I was like "I will set the bar super-low for these students, make things super simple, and make my expectations of what they need to do extra-extra clear and it will be fine!" But oh man. It was not fine. Little did I know that floor-level was not where the bar needed to be; I needed to start digging.

I'm teaching the class again and I have done my best to make the class even MORE fail-proof than before. But if this batch of students is as tough as last Fall's, I'm not sure it will save me. I fear that the person to prove me wrong is even now barrelling in to meet me.

Just me rambling about my frustrations below the cut:

Like, I get that it's kind of in vogue on this website to blame any failure of the student on the teacher, and I don't even totally disagree with the impulse, but... also... I can't MAKE a student try. I can give them tons of opportunities, I can invite them to my office a million times, I can stop at their table and check in with them, I can offer feedback, I can give them second chances, I can try to work around their life circumstances, but at some point, they also have to make an effort back because I can't do the class FOR them.

Like for instance, I gave them an assignment. I handed out printed versions of the instructions. I read through the instructions in class and asked for questions. I put the instructions up on the screen in class multiple times and summarized them verbally. I linked the instructions multiple places on the website and placed them in the class google drive. I emailed the instructions to the students as well. And multiple students still turned in things where it's very clear that they just hadn't even touched the instructions. Like, they saw the title of the assignment, ignored everything else, and just did something 100% based on vibes which had nothing to do with what was actually requested. I just... don't know why you would even bother to do the work of making and turning something in at all at that point?? It's like if someone handed me a Physics exam and instead of reading or trying to solve any of the problems, I just turned the exam over and wrote a random essay about Physicians and then handed that in expecting to get a passing grade. ??????

Even if the work was good (which it wasn't) this just fundamentally doesn't demonstrate that you've learned or gained the skills that my class is supposed to teach you, which is the whole point of me assessing this assignment! I hate grading. I'm not doing it for fun. I grade because that is how I tell the college "yes, this student has demonstrated that they have gained the expected skills/knowledge that this class is intended to provide" or "no, they haven't."

And since I am an explainer, my automatic impulse is to try to explain and re-explain things in new ways, with new words, make it simpler, make it clearer, make it more engaging, make it more repetitive so maybe it will stick, etc etc. But none of that helps if folks just... won't listen, won't read, and won't care. I kept hoping, "surely the students will at least just do this much" and the answer was always no, no they won't. And it made me feel like I was going crazy because they seemed so confident that they would get a good grade while they did just the most absurd, nonsensical things. And they seemed to think I was being unreasonable and confusing when I wanted the 2-page writing assignment to be a 2-page writing assignment and not a set of 5 power-point slides with just stock photos of weather phenomena in them???? And they're like "I didn't know we needed to turn in any writing" and I'm like "did you not... read... the very first sentence of the instructions???? Is asking you to read at least one single sentence unreasonable?????" and I genuinely started to wonder if maybe it was because I was just so baffled by this brazen behavior!

And to be fair, there were students who did try. I did have functional students. But there was a critical mass of non-functional ones that just really sucked the life out of me last Fall and I am still dreading this class as a result. I sincerely hope that it was just an especially bad crop of students and this semester will be better but I am afraid. I am afraid that they will not just...

If any part of your plan involves the words "nobody could be that stupid", please be prepared to be proven wrong at any minute at a moment's notice. Pay in mind that the person determined to prove you wrong may already be aware of this assumption, and is already approaching your current location at an alarming speed.

[janiedean]

Do you think that, if given the chance to move forward with a romantic relationship, Brienne would have an issue with Jaime's previous relationship with Cersei or do think she'd move past it easily? As someone who likes both couples (for VERY different reasons and in different ways) I'm super interested in how one affects the other. (If this question is too related to Cersei or the Jaime/Cersei relationship though and you'd prefer not to talk about, feel free to ignore!)

nah it’s fine I mean I’ll tag it properly so ;)

that said: I don’t think she’d be bothered that he had it, I think they’d have to work through the *consequences* it had on him.

(now, general premise: I think what I think about how j/c works ie that it was extremely unhealthy and damaging for him more than her, so if anyone has issues with that reading feel free to ignore me xD)

now, in specific:

brienne has known of that relationship since the moment she met him - when she was down in the dungeon with cat he was questioned on throwing bran from the window and then in the bath he reiterated it ("You ought to be pleased. I've lost the hand I killed the king with. The hand that flung the Stark boy from that tower. The hand I'd slide between my sister's thighs to make her wet."). actually she actually started their knowledge at his worst possible moment because the first information she had from him first hand were that he pushed bran because he saw him and cersei having sex and her opinion of him was abysmal at that point, so... if in affc she’s willing to die hanged for him because she loves him anyway (and I think that from her affc povs it’s pretty much obvious it’s canon on *her* side or she wouldn’t be dreaming of jaime putting cloaks on her) while going against her vow to cat regardless of his previous relationship with cersei or his misdeeds I really don’t think she’d have issues with the fact that he was in a relationship with cersei, if she fell for him when she had known from the get-go and it was because they got to know each other and saw he was more than she thought. but like, she knew the bad sides from the beginning so i really don’t think *that* would be the issue;

like, she probably wouldn’t even care the moment they got together;

the problem is that jaime has actual damage from that relationship he has nowhere near even come close to deal with that would automatically cause consequences in any other relationship he might have after;

specifically: he doesn’t have experience with having a relationship that he doesn’t have to hide from people, he doesn’t have experience with a relationship on an *equal* footing where both people get to take decisions and he just doesn’t go along with the flow (because jc is not on equal footing whatsoever), he doesn’t have experience with caring for his sexual needs properly (guys he’s basically been celibate bar the times he was with c. for his entire life and again.... a thirty-four year old guy into women isn’t troubled by his body’s response [literal wording] when he sees a naked wet woman in a bath after being imprisoned for one year, the fact that he reacts to being physically attracted to brienne like a fourteen year-old because he doesn’t conceive being physically attracted to people that aren’t cersei means that his relationship with his own sexuality is fucked to hell and back), if he had children he’d have endless issues on how to relate to them even if he’s actually good with kids because his own father was shitty, it’s text that he barely remembers his mother and he couldn’t father his own, and his entire arc was about how he has to find out he’s his own person and that he’s not cersei, which means that in a subsequent relationship he should grapple with the concept that in relationships you don’t have to annul yourself for the other person;

this has to be paired up with the fact that brienne has never been in one herself but has been on the receiving end of two failed betrothals in which... the first one ended in a public humiliation based on her looks, the second ended because the prospective husband couldn’t stand that she wanted to be a knight and not to stay home and have her children, so since she knows how it feels to be treated like you’re a commodity and to be at the other end of a forced relationship where the other party doesn’t recognize your needs would not want a partnership where any of the two parties is treated like that, and as she does like jaime for his shining personality too she most likely would not be too impressed if he didn’t try to argue with her or just went along with what she wanted and so on, never mind that while she has zero sexual experience herself at least she doesn’t have to unpack 15+ years of forced celibacy/the issues jaime has;

(for the sake of making things simpler I’m not touching The Elephant In The Room when it comes to jc’s sexual history but let’s say that if I was right about my hot take on it and he actually Dealt With It at some point it would have fairly bad repercussions but let’s just pretend that is not going to be an issue or this turns into a dissertation xD)

so: she wouldn’t have issues with his past relationship. I mean, again, she was gonna get hanged for him, I doubt she cares about that. but if they get together they’d have to, at least, work through the following:a) how he’d react to not having to hide it and how he’d work through it, because I doubt he wouldn’t have the impulse to make sure others don’t know and the likes, which she might find hurtful since she might assume it’s because of her looks;b) their sexual life would be interesting because she has zero experience herself (though she’s been living in the middle of armies since she was seventeen I mean she definitely isn’t completely naive about it) and he has one experience that has left him with fairly bad notions of how you should have sex and whatnot, so they’d have to figure it out from scratch and I think she’d actually have less baggage than him at this point;c) if they had kids they would definitely need to communicate a lot because he’d most likely freak out and she would for different reasons (ie: as far as affc goes, she thinks she’s too old for them even if she wants them so... like, add with his issues above, they definitely need to negotiate and talk the matter thoroughly when it comes to that one topic);d) as stated, she wouldn’t appreciate someone who doesn’t contradict her or does what they think she wants or just goes along with her plans, and he would need to realize that he can retain his individuality if he’s in a relationship with someone and they’d have to work through it esp. because he acts on instinct a lot of times and his instincts would most likely do what worked with cersei... which wouldn’t work with brienne /o\

like, I think she wouldn’t give a damn about the fact that he had a thing with his twin sister especially since she’s known for the get-go and she obviously doesn’t care, but the fact that he was in it for his entire life would definitely give them cause to possible misunderstandings/frictions/arguments for the above stated reasons. obviously I’m personally of the opinion that since they’re p. well-balanced in that sense they’d eventually work it out but there’s no way that the moment they don’t have to kill zombies and settle down any of those consequences don’t end up causing issues, because he wouldn’t go straight from that kind of all-encompassing relationship into a balanced one without blinking, especially because he has... no direct experience of how a balanced relationship works in the first place. I mean, as stated he barely remembers his mother so he can’t have his parents as an example, he was with cersei, tyrion never had one (because their father ruined it for him and he feels like shit at being complicit in it even if putting it on him is imvho unfair, it’s 100% on tywin) so he can’t know from him, then he had the first row seat to aerys and rhaella’s and cersei and robert’s and that’s it, so he can’t even draw from other people’s. like, in that sense it definitely would affect his rship with brienne period, but not because she’s bothered that he was with someone else before/that the someone in question was cersei, if I explain myself.