Back To School!

[sleigh]

Today's the first day of school this semester. Ah, the smell of newly-sharpened pencils and fresh textbooks...

So here's today's question while I'm off trying to scare my Creative Writing students into dropping the course: What was the best class you ever took in school, and why?

Comments

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

My favorite class was an honors course at Pitt that I took when I returned to school in 2000 to finish my degree. It was The History of Medicine, and was a very detailed look how views of medicine and medical education changed over the years. We had a huge amount of reading to do, and got to do research in the University of Pittsburgh Medical History library.

The professor enjoyed knocking the snotting pre-med students down a little. He was also a pretty hard teacher who demanded results. When I ran into this professor later, he noted our class gave him a particularly negative rating, which I thought was a shame.

While doing some research for this class, I found a little book which talked about my great-X5(or so) grand uncle who introduced smallpox variolation to the "frontier" of western Massachusetts.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize it at the time, but the best class I ever took was a marketing class at Northeastern Illinois, taught by Jerry Field, one of "those" Fields. He took us through the basics of marketing, explaining the Why of all sorts things we see every day. He intentionally or not taught critical thinking - "What is your message? Is that getting through?" - that resonates when watching ads to this day.

[controuble.livejournal.com]

I went back to school 6 years after graduating from high school and I took an Intro to Computers course back in '81 that changed my life. Both the instructor and I realized that this logic stuff really clicked for me. The very next day, I started researching universities that I could transfer to and changed my major to Math. I wanted to be able to transfer all my credits because back in those days, all that was offered in computers from a junior college was an Associate degree called Data Processing and it wouldn't have transferred for squat. Once I got the Associate degree, I was able to get a job that paid for both my BSCS and my MS.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I have more than one answer, so bear with me.

In High School, my favorite class was Algebraic Geometry. An honors senior class, iirc. All the fun geometry proofs demonstrated with x and y coordinates.

In college, it would be hard to pick just one, but for the nonce:

Herodotus (or Ancient Greek History, or somesuch). The teacher knew his stuff and would occasionally go off on these interesting tangents. The work itself was fascinating, and fanned the flames of (though probably not originated) my interest in Greek and Egyptian culture.

The prof had just written The Winged Word (http://www.ebdb.net/Details.aspx?id=23918c9d-f993-4f5a-8328-361c26e65ba6&r=short&refp=490&s=Berkeley+Peabody+-+The+winged+word%3A+A+study+in+the+technique+of+ancient+Greek+oral+co), about how written language changed how people thought. One of his tangents was about The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072) which he said demonstrated physiologically what he had demonstrated linguistically. This also informed much of my reading of Samuel R. Delany. I wound up taking several courses from him. Thanks to college roommate Frank Balazs for dragging me into the Comparative and World Literature department.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I would love to know if anyone besides you and I here on lj have read "Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"! That's one of those books for which I rarely find anyone who is aware of its existence. I thought it was a fascinating work, but I'm not convinced that the theory is sound.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Truth in LJ: I haven't actually read the Jaynes book, since my professor covered the topic and had reservations. If it comes to that, I haven't read all my professor's book either. Listening to him go on was far more fun.

If this topic interests you, I highly recommend Tales of Neveryon by Samuel R. Delany.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

Not really a class, but second grade with Mrs. Sirrine was a major positive impact.

The Algebra class that I took the summer of my last year in college is one that I wish I had discovered sooner. Because it was a summer class, we really didn't have time to spend on investigating the interesting bits (of which there were too many). The instructor clearly enjoyed the subject, and teaching the subject, and the subject matter fell into the category of "Why hasn't anyone shown me this stuff sooner?!?"

Favorite Class

[jdonat.livejournal.com]

I had a 400 level Political Science course -was worldbuilding. Create a world society. Well, heck. For someone who reads SF/speculative fiction and alternative histories, this is EEEEASY. With all the "world government" stuff in SF going all the way back to early Heinlein, this was a cinch. I got all A's in this one, and had a great time debating the Professor and a couple of the students on this one. Most SF readers, especially ones that cut their teeth on the Masters of SF, have been arguing about world societies/governments, since they put the first book down.
I think I still have the paper buried somewhere.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

One of the best classes I had was "Ritual and Symbol". Going into the class, I naively thought that we would learn about interesting rituals and symbols from different cultures around the world. We did none of that. Instead, it was about how to observe and discern the meanings of rituals and symbols in their greater cultural contexts. Lots of methodology. Lots of discussion about the meanings of rituals and symbols and the language we use to describe them. It was anthropological deconstruction at its best. :)

This was a great class because it challenged my assumptions, not only about what Anthropology is but also about why people do the things that they do. Also it was very enlightening about the differences between what people say about what they do and the implied meanings of what they do taken from the greater context of their culture.

[alces2.livejournal.com]

In high school, probably the independent study course that honors students were allowed to take instead of a second semester of American Government. Everyone got an automatic A. I spent a semester studying South African history from the time the Portuguese happened upon it to just after the Boer War. I found it interesting and entertaining. Although it was also entertaining taking a self-paced Intro to Psychology class in which I finished a semester course in about half a semester. Much of the material seemed to have been taken out of Psychology Today to which I had a subscription and had been reading for a year or two. In college I would have to say the various and sundry Psych courses, Childhood and Adolescent Psychology is the one that immediately comes to mind. We were asked to write papers relating our own life to things we studied. For reasons I never fully understood the professor really liked my papers. I wonder if I would have had more fun had I pursued a degree in psychology and somehow been able to push myself to actually get a Ph.D in it. Modern English Grammar, which I took in summer school, was also entertaining. Small class and I did well in that too. I had fun diagramming sentences in various and sundry ways. I did well well in math and science but I don't think I can honestly say that I had fun although it was fairly rewarding actually completing some of the problems and exercises we had to do, the ones where you had three or four problems and it took you days and many pages of paper to actually solve.

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

Drawing the Head. It was very difficult for me, since it involved sculpting, life drawing, and then drawing at home - but I still use a lot of the information now, and it was one of the few no-BS classes I took in art school.

[tcastleb.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Actually, it was the creative dance classes I took in 8th and 9th grades. (Same school.) Part of it was because my very best friend (who was a guy) was in it with me, and we got to do our own dance to "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast. the teacher loved it. Another part was because the two of us were also on stage crew for those two years, and the dance teacher was in charge of stage crew, and she put on huge, lovely dance recitals with all her classes twice a year so stage crew got to skip entire days of school to help out in rehearsals. :>)

the other part, though, was that the teacher was absolutely fantastic about including everyone and making sure their ideas helped put the dance together. Like, she'd tell us to make up a move that took twelve counts, then she'd go through and take bits from everyone's and make a whole dance out of it. Really amazing how she did that. And even those who were shy or felt like they couldn't dance had support and encouragement.

[andpuff.livejournal.com]

Classical Literature: a grade twelve alternative English course that started with the Odyssey and ended with Lord of the Rings. It was the first English class I ever took where I had to actually put some effort in. I loved it. Stayed in touch with the teacher (who'd also taught me in the one year of Latin my highschool offered) for years.

[tshaile.livejournal.com]

A high school physics class for the nuts and bolts straightforwardness of it, enjoying the material and the quality of the teacher

A high school social studies class for the novel grading approach and the flexibility it allowed.

Half my high school classes because I was coming into my own and experiencing that in large part through my classes.

...and finally, the one you'll like - a college english comp course because of the connection I formed with the professor and the resulting extra effort I put into my class work.