Tag Archives: class

Dec 13 2024
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Class of 24/25 (and teacher)

Thursday 12th December 2024, 1.30pm (day 4,858)

Class of 24/25, 12/12/24

In the last of my taught classes last year, it took about three-quarters of an hour (or felt like it did) for all the students to get their shots with teacher that then go onto social media, somewhere. (And, see also 2022’s version of same.). As I am, essentially, a grumpy man, I insisted that this year I would do it on everyone’s behalf. Apologies to those whom I have eclipsed.

There have been very few shots of my 4,858 so far which have been taken using the self-timer, but there have been some: any of the astronomical efforts (e.g. this shot of Jupiter and its moons, of which I’m still quite proud) will have used it. But I’m sure this is the first where I’ve used the timer to take a photo of myself, with or without others, and used it as the daily picture. So there you are, this is what I look like when I’m not taking a photo.

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Dec 03 2024
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Learning with a Psalm

Monday 2nd December 2024, 2.45pm (day 4,848)

Psalm lecture, 2/12/24

My Monday afternoons as a student continue, though the next one isn’t going to be until February. It crossed my mind today that we are being taught in much the same way as we would have been a thousand years ago, had we been doing much the same in an abbey somewhere. Look at examples of other people’s writing, be told about some idiosyncracies and abbreviations, and then do our best to reproduce it all. We don’t get handed a quill pen and some parchment, which is a shame, but then again these were valuable items in medieval times and perhaps not to be wasted on students just starting out. It does work if one merely wants to learn to write, or rather to copy: but although I admit my Latin is getting a bit better, there is no interpretation here. What does any of this text actually mean, not just in translation, but really mean for anyone’s life? Beats me. But for that, I guess we would have taken different classes.

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Nov 05 2024
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Inspecting the manuscripts

Monday 4th November 2024, 2.00pm (day 4,820)

Rylands manuscripts, 4/11/24

Another one of my Palaeography classes in the John Rylands Library. We have moved from Hogwarts (the old reading room) upstairs and into the new seminar room, with tape still on the windows. Checking out the manuscripts themselves is always the best bit, and they need to be ready, and cared for — would that students got to sit on such comfortable-looking cushions.

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Oct 01 2024
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Daily Post, Interior

Lecture in Hogwarts

Monday 30th September 2024, 2.00pm (day 4,785)

Rylands lecture, 30/9/24

Another lecture, only this time I am facing front instead of at the front. For several Mondays over the next few months I will be a student again: the subject, you can see for yourself. ‘Hogwarts’ is, in fact, the Historic Reading Room of the John Rylands Library; a spectacular setting for a class, and somehow appropriate (though this was opened in 1901 and is detinitely not a medieval construction). But by next time I hope they’ve turned the heating on. Mr Rylands himself, or his statue, at least, pokes up behind the screen.

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Mar 21 2024
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The joys of the hybrid meeting

Wednesday 20th March 2024, 1.00pm (day 4,591)

Hybrid meeting, 20/3/24

“Hello… hello? Can you hear me…..?” [pause] “I think you’re on mute….” Did the Starship Enterprise’s communications network have a ‘mute’ button do you think? Colleague Louis does his best.

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Mar 09 2024
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At uni, late

Thursday 7th March 2024, 5.05pm (day 4,578)

Late uni class, 7/3/24

I am not often to be found at work after 5pm — not ‘in the office’ anyway — and heaven forbid that uni’s now seemingly random system of allocating timetable slots gives me a 5-6pm class next year, or any other year. I can feel the ennui even when spying on them from across the corner of the Ellen Wilkinson Building.

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Mar 01 2024
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David Shaffer

Thursday 29th February 2024, 10.10am (day 4,571)

David Shaffer, 29/2/24

I’m not saying this has never happened before — see the note — but today I can say that along with about twenty-five other people, I took a class with someone who is genuinely the world-leading authority in their specific field. Like, the ultimate teacher. I said to a colleague the other day that I was coming to this session on epistemic network analysis (it’s a way of depicting the patterns of conversation in groups, the way they talk about things) with some ’eminent American guy’ and she said, immediately, ‘Oh, you mean David Shaffer?’. Even Clare — who, while being a highly intelligent woman, does not move in the same strictly academic circles as I do — had heard of him. And Prof Shaffer turned out to be a friendly, agreeable chap, the two hours of my time very well spent.

Note: I think there are three other appearances of truly globally reputable teachers on here: Etienne Wenger, Michelle Brown and Jürgen Habermas.

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Dec 12 2023
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Last class for quite some time

Monday 11th December 2023, 3.45pm (day 4,491)

Last ETC class, 11/12/23

The last class of the semester, and as I’m on sabbatical for several months next year, the last one for me until late September 2024. And that’s just fine by me. I do — generally — like teaching but it is tiring, time-consuming work and if I want to do some proper thinking I can do with taking a break from it. The last class of the semester also gives rise to the annual ceremony of ‘having pictures taken with one’s professor’ — I make people upset if a 20-minute window isn’t offered up at the end.

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Mar 26 2023
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Independent thought

Friday 24th March 2023, 12.05pm (day 4,229)

DMIL students, 24/3/23

I think I might finally have provoked the students into some independent thinking. They were talking about something, anyway.

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Dec 14 2022
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The Last Class: photography ceremony

Tuesday 13th December 2022, 10.45am (day 4,128)

ETC last class, 13/12/22

It’s the last class of the semester, and the done thing among students now is “get a photo of themselves with the lecturer” at this point. I acknowledge this but it did require leaving at least 20 minutes at the end of the session so the ceremony could take place: what you see here is the queue after at least half of them had already had their time. I was feeling like a cardboard cut-out of myself by this point, although not an unhappy one. Here I said, ‘right, I’m taking a photo of all you lot while you wait to take a photo of me’… and this is the result.

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