Semester post-mortem 1

Today was the last day of my environmental class. A student asked me to explain the prisoners dilemma. I started explaining it at length. Then I started expounding on a case, found by Axelrod, of a real life prisoners dilemma involving artillery units in WWI. Then a student interrupted me, saying "wait, class time is almost up, and before the semester ends, I wanted to ask you what you wanted us to get out of this course."

I realized that I had been talking too long about something not really germain to the course. I realized that I had made this mistake more often than I should be able to get away with in this course. I thought of all the nifty in class stuff I wanted to do this semester, but never got organized enough to do.

I said, "I wanted you to get a better sense of your own goals in life and the role consumption and material wealth plays in it. And I wanted you to get a better sense of the social problems consumer culture causes for us as a group."

I shouldn't have talked at length about the artillery units in WWI. But there will always be a part of my brain that says "This fact you are relating to your students is simply interesting. It is in itself worth knowing. How could anyone be bored here?"I need to shut that part of my brain up.