Somehow, I expected a bit more change. Actually, I probably expected miracles. I was lucky enough to teach a few sections of night class, which meant having people my age, and older, in class. That was very enjoyable because these students actually liked having discussions, and they had opinions they were willing to share with everyone. I didn't have to feel like I was forcing my views on anyone.
Discussion is a chance to try out a view and have live, real-time response to it.
I am sure that my fellow students are indeed interested in and committed to the issues we discuss. So far, I am not sure I can count on that same commitment from my students regarding the essays we read for class. While at the community college, I also started reading the online archived articles from the Journal of Advanced Composition , and that excited me. I hadn't known that there were so many people in English departments, and elsewhere, taking freshman comp. I was delighted to discover that people actually did research in this field, and had the same questions I had, and were trying to provide answers.