Father Guido Was Right

February 28, 2014

By
Rob Weir

I’m having a great semester, but I’m thinking about midcourse adjustments. Experience tells me there will be lulls at some point. I don’t take it personally — each group has different needs, questions, and interests; something that soared last fall might crash in the spring. One of the healthiest things professors can do is shake up the routine at mid-semester to add new dimensions to the class, address things that aren’t going well, and reinforce those that are.

The question is always what to do. There’s a world of difference between mere and effective change. I like to recall Father Guido Sarducci before I tinker. If you don’t recognize the name, Father Guido was the "Saturday Night Live" persona of comedian Don Novello — a chain-smoking, wisecracking, ribald priest the real Catholic Church would defrock in a New York minute. One classic routine was the five-minute university, a faux moneymaking scheme in which Father Guido taught in five minutes all that an average college student remembers five years after graduating. All of economics, for instance, is reduced to the phrase “supply and demand.”



Father Guido might be onto something.