On the Lack of Posting

It has been many months since my last post. I wonder why my impulse ceased, and hope to get back to posting regularly.

This blog had largely become a teaching blog; a place for me to reflect on philosophy and my classes, to work out solutions to various problems, and explores ideas in a public forum (though my audience is exceptionally small, and I like it like that). This blog actually became one of my most important tools in my first three or four years of teaching, as I would frequently stumble upon great flaws in my teaching, or need to work out how to teach a particular philosophical lesson to my classroom audience.

But something happened in the past year. A switch occurred over the course of a few months whereby I became much more comfortable teaching. I rarely finish a class now where I think the entire thing is failing and I don’t have a solution. I still frequently have a class where I feel there is significant room for improvement, and occasionally teach a class where I feel something went horribly wrong. But these problems are no longer new: I feel more like an experienced doctor who has seen a wide variety of ailments, and is now more capable of identifying the ailment and prescribing a solution. Where before, I might obsess for days about the conduct of a single class, I can now usually spend a relaxed twenty minutes reflecting on the bus and finding a new solution that works.

But this is troubling. Just because I don’t see problems, it does not mean that problems are not present. And if I don’t see them, I can’t solve them. Have I really reached a stage of teaching where I no longer make radical changes and improvements in my teaching, or have I merely become lazy?

On the other hand, maybe my lack of posting has more to do with being exceptionally busy this year. I am taking grad classes in philosophy all year and it is proving adept at occupying all available time. And I am also simply out of the habit of writing. I will make sure I put an entry up here every day, even if it is mundane and boring, in order to get back into the habit of thinking and writing something more worthwhile.