Three Beautiful Things 02/04/14: Remembering Student Conferences, Paul Tillich on the Bus, Watching *Hoosiers*

1.  Teaching in my retirement means I'm at LCC a limited number of hours and so I don't hold one to one scheduled conferences with my students any longer.  I've had very few students come by my office to talk or for help.  Today, however, a struggling student came by and our conversation brought back a flood of over thirty years worth of memories of working on an individual basis with students and their writing, which often turned into working with students and their need for encouragement, for things explained in a way suited to each individual's way of learning and understanding, and their need to trust an instructor.  Here's what I think:  over the course of a ten week course, we as instructors rarely see the results of this work.  The good things that happen emerge later, long after our work together is done. I've taught college writing since 1977 with this faith:  unless the student enrolls in another course of mine on down the road, or unless we keep in touch, I don't see the fruits of my instruction.  I love the cases where I have seen the fruit of our work together.  I developed faith, however, that good things happened, that my students would read and write and think better on down the line as the work we did together took hold, and, over the years, believing this has brought me deep satisfaction.

2.  The light on the bus at 7:40 a.m. is dim, but it's worth it to strain my eyes a bit to read sermons by Paul Tillich on my way to LCC.  Today, I read the early paragraphs of his sermon on Isaiah 40.  I didn't get too far because it was so stirring to read the rousing poetry of Isaiah 40 itself.

3.  Am I alone in missing video rental stores? I'd love to be able to walk four blocks or so over to Hollywood Video and rent Gene Hackman movies.  Tonight, however, I could watch Gene Hackman because I own Hoosiers.  I love this movie, especially the way Hackman plays Coach Norman Dale and the ways he wins his players' trust and I love the chance Coach Dale takes on Shooter, the Dennis Hopper character.  I also love the movie's cinematography, the pictures of Indiana in the autumn and the interior shots of gymnasiums.  At times, I thought I was looking at a photography portfolio as much as watching a movie.