TEACHING AFTER MIDNIGHT

3:15 a.m. Friday, today, as in a little while ago. Back from teaching my midnight class, College Writing I, 11:45 p.m. to 2:45 a.m. at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. I drove past Harvard and MIT on the way home. The lights were out. I only have a few minutes until Inside Higher Ed’s 4 a.m. deadline. Here goes.

Any students at midnight?

Yes. My section is full. Same for Pysch 101, which began Tuesday. Forty-seven students in all are enrolled in the two midnight courses. Four students are taking both courses. Two thirds of the midnight students are part time, same as at the college as a whole. The youngest of the 47 is 18, the oldest 59. Sixty-four percent of the midnight students are 18-22 years old, the so-called traditional college age. Nationally and at Bunker Hill, most students are women, but most of my midnight students are men. The national average age for community colleges students is 27. Languages other than English in my class this morning: Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese and Somali. The Russian student also spoke Ukranian and German.

Since the classroom had no windows, I couldn’t tell it was midnight. No one nodded off. This was just a regular class. Kathleen O’Neill, who taught the Tuesday midnight class, said that her section may even have been livelier than daytime sections. This morning we applied Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle, writing in class to read aloud. I sent them off with Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and an assignment, from the Advanced Placement English composition exam, to analyze the rhetorical strategies Lincoln used to achieve his purpose. Students stayed after class to ask questions.

Click here for the full article. Source: Inside Higher ED, September 11, 2009 by Wick Sloane.