I Would Prefer Not To
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Bartleby, the Scrivener
14 min read
Linked in the article (12 min read)
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The Lottery
10 min read
The article mentions using Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' as the central text for a week-long Socratic Seminar, describing it as a peak moment in teaching. Understanding this controversial 1948 short story about conformity and blind tradition provides rich context for why the author chose it to create memorable learning experiences.
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Peak–end rule
15 min read
The article extensively discusses Chip and Dan Heath's work on memorable moments, specifically citing the 'peak-end rule' as a psychological principle. This cognitive bias concept, developed by Daniel Kahneman, explains why people remember experiences based on their most intense point and ending rather than the average of all moments.
Time is a funny thing. We all get 24 hours in a day, and we choose to (or are obliged to) spend those hours as we (or others) see fit. As a teacher, I spend seven hours, five days a week, teaching my students. For 2,100 hours each week, my job is to instruct, motivate, inspire, correct, coach, and assess my students. Every day, I oscillate between teacher, counselor, disciplinarian, and, much to my chagrin, sometimes an entertainer. Some days, when we lose ourselves in collective flow states, those seven hours fly by. Lately, though, the hours are monotonous; every day seems the same.
It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable.
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
An engaging learning experience demands that you are fully present with your students. Teaching in a classroom is a dynamic process with interpersonal give and take. It can almost feel like breathing. There is so much variability, even from minute to minute, that it is impossible to be on autopilot. Masterful teachers make learning feel alive because they realize that no two students, classrooms, or school years are ever the same. What worked last period will most certainly need to be tweaked for the next. A lesson that landed beautifully last year, might completely bomb this year. The nature of learning is what makes teaching so exhausting and ultimately, rewarding.
This year, teaching feels more machine-like: administering worksheets and managing compliance instead of engaging and inspiring students to learn and grow. After two back-to-back 15-Day Challenges, and two more upcoming, I’m beginning to feel like Bartleby the Scrivener. Work is dull and wearisome. The expectations are rigid and stressful. I feel it. Other teachers in the building feel it. Students feel it. We are all feeling restricted and confined. Student misbehavior is increasing while teacher morale is plummeting. Everyone is trying their best to keep it together, but stress cracks are starting to show. Even our most sanguine staff are becoming cynical.
Passive Resistance
Herman Melville’s 12-page short story, Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story Of Wall-street, was first published in Putnam’s Magazine in December, 1853. Bartleby is a legal scrivener who endures the mind-numbingly boring, soul-crushingly banal task of repetitively copying legal documents by rote within
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