and its late. But's been a while since I posted so I am gonna shotgun some things out there.
Try to keep up or skip to the bottom, either way, do whatever works for you.
I was mowing my lawn last week in gloves and a hat. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.
It's fall, I can tell because of what the leaves are doing, falling. On some days, there is a brisk little chill in the air. So why can't my freaking grass take a hint and lay off, eh?
I was in Oregon last week because Mr. Logo was interviewing for a job there. He has a job now, its a hold over sort of deal. We won't starve or go into foreclosure but he is definitely not feeling fulfilled. His cheese is NOT going to be located at this job. We got the "2006 What Color Is Your Parachute?" but he decided the actual reading of it demanded too much. I glanced through it and determined it was too hard to figure out what color his parachute is as I have to allow for the red and blue shifts that occur as his mood swings.
I am tutoring some high school boys in writing. I alternate between being encouraged by their occasion flashes of insight and brilliance and despair over the breadth and depth of their ignorance. How does one become 17 years old in this country and have NO idea how John Locke or Thomas Paine figure into history?
Fredrich Neitsche?
Huh?
They are KILLING me!
I made them look up who said, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
I am aware I have an extensive fascination for useless trivia but come on, why the heck don't they know who wrote Moby Dick?? I am forcing them to learn about Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, and of course Shakespeare. If I ask for an applicable literary example of something and they ask if they can cite Harry Potter just one more time.. I shall do such things, I know not what, but they shall be the terrors of the earth!
We have been watching House MD on Netflix. We are on season two and wow, its so strange to hear Bertie Wooster with an American accent, and oh mah goodness what a grumpy bum he is! A peculiarity of language has come to light though. Greg House (Hugh Laurie's character) is repeatedly referred to as "miserable," which gets rather repetition when you watch the shows back to back on DVD rather than over the course of a television network season. But I realized as I thought about it, there is not really a well-matched synonym for miserable. Once you start using other words your shade of meaning shifts, so I guess repetitious is better than straying too far from the very delicate balance they work so hard to maintain between making his character pitiable or exasperating.
I'm getting cold and sleepy now, and I want a book, a bath, a cup of tea and then my bed.
Hope your Thursday is a thoroughly thrilling one.
13 comments:
Those boys are lucky they finally have someone that teaches them the important stuff.
you been a busy gal!!!
i dunno nuthin bout openin no parachutes.
and house? he is the quintessential irascible curmudgeon.
I love you use of alliteration... :)
It makes me smile knowing there are people like you in the world...
I work with a guy who was wearing a Ernesto Che Guevara t-shirt that had the words "REVOLUTION" printed under the infamous photo of the revolutionary figure-head. I asked him, out of curiosity, "So, do you know the name of the fellow that is plastered across your chest?"... "Uhhh, no. Someone told me who he was, but I can't remember"... I must have stared at him with my mouth agape for some time. "Uhhh, ok." I said. "Well, who is he?" he asked. "I am not going to tell you, I said. I think it's rather sad that you don't know who the man is that you're advertising." After many pleas for me to educate him and bring him out of his den of ignorance, I obliged. The one thing I can say, is the he knew that Guevara had been executed. *golf clap* So, asking him if he would know Friedrich Nietzsche or any of his contributions to philosophy was definitely out of the question.
I bet if I wandered over to his office (now 30-minutes later) he wouldn't be able to tell me the name of the guy. Moreover, he would probably call him Eddie Guerrero...
You make me smile, Logo-A-Bogo...
/Vera
Oh, logo. you live a sheltered existence and your children a very prvileged one oustide the underfunded public school system.
For one: most teens are busy being hormonal imps to actually absorb much information and retain it, lest it relates to their social life, their iPod, or the O.C.
For two: curriculum is cut at such an alarming rate that many kids are getting the condensed version of an "education" and hopefully enough of what they need to make it to college.
Roll with the ADD...it's all you can do. I'm there with you, sistah.
OXO
I think that House (the character) is wretched. But of course there are no two words in the English language that mean exactly the same thing, IMHO.
It is sad that the kids you are trying to teach are so far behind. My 16 year old granddaughters quote Shakespeare all the time.
Also I teach Sunday School (3rd & 4th graders) and I am AMAZED at how much those kids know and how smart they are! So not all the kids of the world are under-educated. Which, of course, is all the more reason why your students must catch up. They will have to compete with some smart and well-educated folks.
You may be expecting a bit too much from these kids. At least they read Harry Potter. When I was 17 I had read about 80 gazillion science fiction novels and every bit of documentation for Dungeons and Dragons that I could find, but that's about it.
I've started watching House recently too, mostly because one of my friends told me I reminded them of him. Still trying to figure out if that's good or bad.
I'm actually thinking of going into teaching myself. I work with clueless, unmotivated dufuses (dufi?) all day long anyway, and at least this way I wouldn't have to commute.
When you dish out the punishment for the ignorance of the teen boys , please take pictures because I need something as such to cheer me up right now ! LOL! I hope you have a great thursday too !
Thank you! You reminded me that I left my tea in the kitchen.
I know one of the three guys you mentioned. I know for a fact I had no idea who they were when I was in high school.
Those boys will thank you... trust me. I had a WONDERFUL English Lit teacher when I was 15... he made us think... can you believe it? We had to think... for ourselves even!
Will you tutor me?
Okay time to give you cause to laugh -- when you said you were mowing your lawn in a hat and gloves, I pictured a floppy straw hat and gardening gloves. *snicker*
And I love House! The show and the character.
What do you do if your parachute is tie dyed?
Have fun with the boys. Think their ignorance is bad? Try, the French Revolution occurred in 1930, or, my biggest nightmare, "slavery was moral at the time" (on an exam question about Frederick Douglass!). And there was the girl in Composition who did not know what a budget was.
My favorite recollections from Veryred State U. include the boy who asked if Keats was tryin' to git INto the urn? and the many students who recommended counseling for Gregor Samsa and his family. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST went over well. I also recommend Achebe's THINGS FALL APART.
BTW, Dr. Weirsdo and I both found that vocabulary building was very helpful, because students didn't know words like "sullen," "prudence," or "impertinent."
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