Name: Peter Brooks
Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Profession: First Year Writing professor at UWB
Degree(s) : Ph.D. (ABD), Rhetoric & Composition, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
MFA, Creative Writing, New Mexico State University
M.Ed., Higher Education Administration, Arizona State University
B.A., Radio/TV/Film, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
Fun facts: when it comes to learning new languages he always tries to remember how to say
“where is the library?”, He loves to people watch, one of his favorite spots are coffee shops and
Pike Place market. Loves learning from his students
Gloria: What are the challenges of your profession?
Brooks: I would say there are two big challenges in my profession. One is how higher education costs have increased and that there’s not as much state or federal support for tuition as their used to be. A lot of students work. I am very supportive of students that have to work for themselves, family, education or they just want extra cash. But I think that makes a challenge when it comes to finding a good balance between making sure students get a lot out of class work. When you’re a college student, you’re definitely a multi tasker but I think it’s increased over the years. I worked when I was an undergraduate too but I didn’t work a lot and I had enough scholarships to not worry, but I know that’s our concern: students schedules are busy.
The other concern is that I think our society has done an injustice framing what higher education is all about. I think everyone’s interpretation of higher education is a four-year college and a four year college that is prestigious, well known; or a place with well-known recognition. And I think that’s crap–that’s the most professional way I can put it. Because I really think higher education is more than that. I would include four year institutions, two year schools, tech schools, apprenticeship, and military. Anything that students do that would better themselves. Even working after school, I would challenge them and say go find a group or community where you can learn something in addition to your job. Finding yourself happens at different points in your life not just college.”
Gloria: Who is your inspiration?
Brooks: For teaching my inspiration is a professor at the University of Wisconsin, he actually has a literary background, he has focused most of his research on the poet John Milton, the first class I had with him was a basic literary class called Introduction to Literary Studies and I’ll never forget the class. because I remember My friend told me that I would really like him as a teacher and I instantaneously didn’t like him because I thought ‘wow this guy is going to be difficult’. But as the semester went on I learned a lot more about myself than in any other of my classes. The stuff that he made us do and the stuff that he made us think about was at much deeper levels. He’s my inspiration because he taught me a lot about myself and he cared a lot about his students.
Gloria: Why do you think that kids love extra credit?
Brooks: I don’t know but I would love to do research about it to find out. I don’t know if it’s the concept that it’s unexpected or if it’s the concept that it is an ‘easier’ way to achieve a grade. I think when we are students we expect a certain rhythm from a class. So I think when we hear extra credit that breaks our expectations of what the class is; but at the end of the day I don’t know. Only thing that I do know is that students get really excited for extra credit. For some students they may really like the grades, they really like the challenge. I think it really depends. I have also seen students look at the extra credit and go ‘meh’ and not really care, so I also know that not all students feel the same. I think if I ever get around to doing that research, I’m sure statistically there would be a high number of students that would really like extra credit. Yet, I think that you would still get a fair amount of students that would be like ‘whatever’, ‘I don’t care’ or ‘I’ll just do the whole the work that I have and that’s it’.
Gloria: Is there anything else you want to add about yourself?
Brooks: I got third place in a Pac-Man competition as a kid; [the game] had just come out on the Atari console, and there was a thing at one of the local schools and they had a room where you can go in and pay a quarter to play Pac-Man for 10 minutes. But here’s the catch, as much as I say “yeah I got third place in the Pac-Man competition” I look back on that night and I don’t think I got third place. I saw other people walking around with trophies and I was with my uncle and I said why did those kids get trophies–again I was like six–and he said oh they must’ve awarded the top 3 players per age group. Heh, I don’t even remember how the contest worked out. What I remember is losing my s***and being like what why didn’t I get a trophy. At the time, egotistically, I thought that I should have won a trophy. I got a trophy and it said third place. and there’s only a thing about yay big. But to this day I look back and I wonder: like did I really get third place or did my uncle go and talk to someone and do that thing that you do for kids? And he probably went to talk to someone. Either way, that trophy lasted about a year until I broke from using it as a container for Chicken McNugget dipping sauces.