Some 200 former students heard about Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflex applied to communication…and this professor confirmed what the Russian theorist taught. Theory says repeated rewards, in this case the end of my lecture, causes a predicted response. Some colleagues simplify and warn repeated propaganda or advertising can brainwash you. In 1977, I had returned to Austin from a year’s teaching at the University of Hawaii. I brought back a bunch of color slides, mostly photographs
Category: Teaching
Fred the Printer
Year 1968, I taught my first Editing and Copy Reading class to would-be journalists. I warned about a fictional bully from the International Typographical Union (ITU). “Beware Fred-the-Printer in the leather apron who locks up the lead type inside the metal page form. “Don’t touch, don’t rearrange the type. You may violate union rules and the newspaper’s contract. The ITU shop foreman might even tell his printers and linotype operators to ‘walk out.’
Skipping the “Final”
If you belong to the old teacher’s society–I taught 30 years–you have heard some excessive excuses. Even more imaginative than “my dog ate the paper”. I was teaching journalism students how to edit when the unfortunate Kent State, Ohio, shooting happened. Although two states away, the administration at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said that “highly disturbed” students could choose to take their grade before final examination, and be excused from the test. A parade of
AIDA
My sweatshirt—a Christmas present from an irreverent daughter—says “I Used to Teach, Now I Have No Class”. Words remind that a former student telephoned me at home one Saturday night. He remembered that I recruited a half-dozen students then led a march between the aisles, clapping my hands together, and humming the march from an opera. “Professor Elam, I’m calling from outside Chapel Hill. I’m standing here with another member of that class. You wanted