BLOG POST #2- “Intellectual Bulimia”
I found Professor Baldwin’s discussion of “Intellectual Bulimia” to be quite fascinating. When I took his class last semester, THR 216, I wasn’t quite sure what he wanted—the #1 thing that he always complains about. I was so used to being spoon-fed by teachers, professors, and administrations all my life, that when Professor Baldwin put the burden on me for me to produce my own work, I wasn’t quite sure how.
It took me quite a while to adjust to the fact that Professor Baldwin wants to bring out the originality in his students. He wants each and every one of us to take what we learn and apply it to the real world in any way possible. We create our own futures with our own projects incorporating our own individual ideas and feelings. By pushing us in this way, Professor Baldwin is in fact challenging us more than any other class. The work is only as difficult as we make it. We must struggle to figure things out ourselves and discover what things mean to us individually.
I have come to love this style of teaching. Where at first I was confused and unsure of how to do accomplish what Professor Baldwin wanted because he didn’t tell me directly, I now really appreciate the freedom in making what’s mine. It also allows students to really understand what they are doing in the big picture, unlike all other classes where students suffer from “intellectual bulimia” of being spoon-fed information, only to vomit it back up on the exam. Sure, that process can bring good grades, but in the big picture, it may do shit for a student’s life. They are in and out as if nothing ever happened.
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