The Decline and Fall of the Gilmour Empire

I’ll admit that I’m getting tired of my comp students’ not reading for class.? I knew, signing on to teach a required class in the spring, one that most folks take in the fall, that I’d not likely have the most motivated bunch of students I’d ever had.? But I’m growing weary.

The texts today were fun enough–we did the famous “tabula rasa” passage from Locke along with some of the more inflammatory bits from Tom Paine’s Age of Reason, followed by an excerpt from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of Rome that discusses the transition from the fanatical Patristic church to the more comfortable and conventional Constantinian church.? The raw material was there for some good conversations about knowledge and religion, but since few had read, and since those who had read got tired of carrying the class, we never really took off.? So I ended up doing an impromptu and extemporaneous lecture on Gibbon from what were supposed to be discussion notes, and students were falling asleep by the end.

I’m hoping that Thursday’s class, wherein we take on Hume’s famous billiard-balls argument for empiricist skepticism, will produce some more lively discussion.? But I’ve come to realize that, on some days, this class might be a lively discussion with the two students who read, and once their strength gives out, I might be talking with myself about such things.

Sorry I’m such a bummer today; I’m tired, and I have tons of work still to do this afternoon.