A former student wrote on my Facebook wall recently, and said:<\/p>\n
You were by far the most brilliant, confusing, and memorable professor I had.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My reply to him (a touch tongue-in-cheek, perhaps):<\/p>\n
Confusion is actually a sign of great wisdom, since nothing is really comprehensible, and so if you THINK you understand, you’re almost certainly wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Does this mean I am a successful post-modern prof?<\/p>\n
This raises all kinds of questions:<\/p>\n
If I was brilliant, how did he know, since I was confusing? Maybe I was just wrong, or stupid.<\/p>\n
Ah, but perhaps the real issue was that OTHER people said I was brilliant, but only HE found me confusing.\u00a0 In which case, it would seem I was not a brilliant teacher, and he is taking on faith, based on the testimony of others, that I have some other kind of brilliance.\u00a0 Something besides the light shining from the top of my head.<\/p>\n
The memorable part is interesting, since the implication is that perhaps I succeeded in manipulating the power relationships to get his attention, a fairly post-modern thing to do.<\/p>\n
Was I memorable because I was brilliant?\u00a0 Or memorable because I was confusing?<\/p>\n
Sigh<\/p>\n
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