Finally finished “The Origin of the Work of Art,”
which is not an essay but a confrontation:
you have to be engaged with it at all times to see
what is being said, to see even a part of it,
only sixty pages long but taking me two weeks
to read. Yesterday on the first day of class,
after thinking so long over break about some
nasty student evals I received, how to get better
as a teacher, how to get more out of my students,
specifically how to make them feel more
comfortable while still pushing them,
as the #1 complaint is always that I am not
“sensitive to students’ needs,” I was confronted
by students already looking away when I
made eye contact or just staring into space
as I spoke, still staring into space when I returned
my gaze to them half a minute later, and
I could feel my frustration creeping in again,
all the hopeful theorizing I’d been doing
about how best to help these students being
met, on the first day, with anxiety, insecurity,
boredom, indifference, though my energy level
and enthusiasm were higher than usual,
and “enthusiasm for the material” is always
my highest mark on evals, begrudgingly
marked 4 out of 5 by even the most hateful
students, and I joked how already I was
seeing people stare off into space, saying,