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SPRING BREAAAAAAAK.
Mar. 16th, 2012 12:07 pmMy spring break began *checks watch* OK, technically it won't begin until my office hours are over, but that's not the point. SPRING BREAK, that's the point. Anyway, I wanted to share two things I did this week, because I thought they were both funny, and you might be amused. In both of my classes, students had papers due at the last class before spring break, and no reading assigned, so I decided we might as well enjoy ourselves (hopefully while learning something).
First, in intro to comparative politics, I played dress-up.
(description: a posterboard crown, reading "Lord High Sandalwhag of Khwollop, on my head)
If your first response is to tell me I spelled it wrong, a) yes, I know, but I listen to it on audiobook more than I read it and b) free pangalactic gargle blasters, on the house.
We were at the hinge point where we move from studying concepts of comparative politics to doing case studies, so I decided that clearly the best move was to dress up as the benevolent dictator of a fictional country, tell the class they were a consulting firm, distribute topics we'd discussed in class, and ask them to give me advice. For the record, Khwollop is an island archipelago off the coast of a continent, it has abundant agricultural resources, probably good mineral resources (undeveloped), and no modern educational system, it has three major religious groupings, and two major ethnic groups (one majority ethnic group with a religious split, and an ethnoreligious minority), and rule has historically been through the Sandalwhag, a hereditary position, who is advised by two bodies, a council of elders drawn from all three religions and a Sandalwhag's council made up of members of the majority religion. (If you have recognized this as fake!Indonesia, well, you're wrong; it's fake!Malaysia.)
The students had fun, both laughing at me for wearing a crown and advising me to build an army, develop domestic capacity so Khwollop won't be taken advantage of on the international economy, to build an elected parliament that assures representation from all ethnoreligious groups (possibly along the Westminster model), and to encourage economic development through education and robust social services. Under their guidance, I have great faith that Khwollop with grow peacefully and well.
As for my feminist political theory class, well, they met this morning, at 10AM on the Friday spring break starts, so we took it very easy. We watched Jane Austen's Fight Club (let me know if there are geographical restrictions on that, and I can find another link), Women's Suffrage Bad Romance, read a bunch of Feminist Ryan Goslin and Feminist Harry Potter, and talked about the feminist uses of parody. I think I may make the students come up with a feminist political theory macro project by the end of the semester...
If you've got a spring break coming up, or that's just ending, I hope it was/will be productive and pleasant! I've got two article revisions to finish, about sixty papers to grade, and hopefully some lovely weather to play with my kid in. Sounds like it's gonna be awesome.
First, in intro to comparative politics, I played dress-up.
(description: a posterboard crown, reading "Lord High Sandalwhag of Khwollop, on my head)
If your first response is to tell me I spelled it wrong, a) yes, I know, but I listen to it on audiobook more than I read it and b) free pangalactic gargle blasters, on the house.
We were at the hinge point where we move from studying concepts of comparative politics to doing case studies, so I decided that clearly the best move was to dress up as the benevolent dictator of a fictional country, tell the class they were a consulting firm, distribute topics we'd discussed in class, and ask them to give me advice. For the record, Khwollop is an island archipelago off the coast of a continent, it has abundant agricultural resources, probably good mineral resources (undeveloped), and no modern educational system, it has three major religious groupings, and two major ethnic groups (one majority ethnic group with a religious split, and an ethnoreligious minority), and rule has historically been through the Sandalwhag, a hereditary position, who is advised by two bodies, a council of elders drawn from all three religions and a Sandalwhag's council made up of members of the majority religion. (If you have recognized this as fake!Indonesia, well, you're wrong; it's fake!Malaysia.)
The students had fun, both laughing at me for wearing a crown and advising me to build an army, develop domestic capacity so Khwollop won't be taken advantage of on the international economy, to build an elected parliament that assures representation from all ethnoreligious groups (possibly along the Westminster model), and to encourage economic development through education and robust social services. Under their guidance, I have great faith that Khwollop with grow peacefully and well.
As for my feminist political theory class, well, they met this morning, at 10AM on the Friday spring break starts, so we took it very easy. We watched Jane Austen's Fight Club (let me know if there are geographical restrictions on that, and I can find another link), Women's Suffrage Bad Romance, read a bunch of Feminist Ryan Goslin and Feminist Harry Potter, and talked about the feminist uses of parody. I think I may make the students come up with a feminist political theory macro project by the end of the semester...
If you've got a spring break coming up, or that's just ending, I hope it was/will be productive and pleasant! I've got two article revisions to finish, about sixty papers to grade, and hopefully some lovely weather to play with my kid in. Sounds like it's gonna be awesome.