Category: Latin American Studies

Are students learning the best way?

By Ilan Stavans (Amherst)

Middle age is a strange place. The past is set. It has a taste. But the future is shorter than before. How to navigate it without repeating what we’ve done? How to keep passion alive?

I didn’t set out to be a teacher. My dreams were elsewhere. Yet teaching is what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years. Other than the time I’ve spent in my home, I haven’t been anywhere as frequently as in the classroom, with people increasingly younger than me. I often ask myself: Is it possible to discuss a book I know by heart, like One Hundred Years of Solitude, without sounding trite? Continue reading “Anyone for Summer Camp?”