2001-12-07 ± 9:35 p.m.
when friday's are friday's

it goes too damn fast...

SLOW THE FUCK DOWN WILL YOU!

yesterday was Monday I swear...and did my students learn anything this week? Did I grab onto anything valuable as the hours flew past like coachroaches in pursuit of overlooked triscut crumbs?

I swear that I had at least three epiphanies this week...but you'll have to take my word for it because they all happened in one of two places...either a. in my car with no pencil or scrap of paper within reach or b. whilst I was hurling knowledge at my students in the classroom. I know that what I'm going is a good thing and all...but at what price? I've become absolutely thought-less. Or at least unable to retain any meaningful ideas.

I'm teaching one of my classes about Kwanzaa (the class is all latino save one Pakistani boy who's out for Ramadan) and the students have been broken into 7 groups...thus representing the 7 principles of Kwanzaa...they're supposed to draw pictures depicting their principle and then collectively write a little paragraph about why their principle is important....the principles are things like Unity, Cooperative Economics, Creativity etc. And the majority of the pictures look the same...they're pretty but they look the same...and all the paragraphs sound the same...and yes I know that my teenage students only read and write English on a first or second grade level...but their ideas about these concepts...even when prompted to reply in Spanish were startlingly over-generalized. And I had the urge to shurg and say "oh well no one will notice the difference...at least the pictures are pretty" and you know what? If a bunch of college students sat around a table and talked about these same principles we'd probably hear the same things that my students are almost legibly writing...because we've become that empty in our explorations...in our insight. We (and I say we because it takes some weight off my shoulders but doesn't exclude me from blame) have latched onto some catchy PC-ish, 25 cent word jargon...and all is it is the inflation of statements like "when people work together they have a good economy...when they are unified the community is good."

so if you thought you were smart because you have a college degree and you articulate yourself well in English...lemme tell you something. I have a class full of students who got here 5 months ago who can already tell you why every principle, rule, and celebration is of tantamount significance.

Just gimme a month and they'll even know what a prepositional phrase is!

what's love got to do with it? - 2004-09-29
noquierosoyabogada - 2004-09-21
I do not aspire to be cast in a lawyer joke - 2004-02-10
update - 2003-11-04
girl...you'll be a woman...soon. - 2003-08-12