signalnoise

Sometimes my job is *amazing.* Today, I had a student tell me loved playing with data and went back to the lab *after class* to mess around in Stata some more. Seriously, guys, it was awesome. There's a lot of crap in my job, and at this college specifically, but there's something *breath taking* about taking a kid from rural Montana and making him fall in love with data.

Along those lines, today in the "Women and Politics" class I co-teach with my colleague, it was great to push them on what "patriarchy" is, and why we care about reproductive health (b/c of women's unique role in re-populating nation, and how that critical function makes the state *very concerned* about reproduction, and how that concern butts right into issues of liberty). You can see the wheels turning. And hey: they can disagree with me (I mean, they'd be wrong then - but whatevs ). But I like *forcing* them to answer the critique - making them better thinkers

There's one student - our copy whipping boy for the department - who likes to just come and hang out. I can tell he likes *ideas* - today we were talking about Marx's ideas about history, alienation in capitalism etc. I was pointing out that you don't need to be Marxist to realize that - regardless of its advantages - capitalism clearly has problems (we were specifically talking about the alienation of labor). I'm sure this kid is not a Marxist, never will be (I'm a recovering Marxist personally). But he took the argument seriously, on its own merits - he thinks about the world. That's ...... good times. Nothing makes me happier in the world than to see them *processing.* It feels .... meaningful.