…and I am already feeling guilty for having, once again, bogarted all the best English 101 students. I have students who are artists, musicians, film makers, smart people, interesting people, kind people, and even one who is missing a rib. There are boys with ponytails and boys who are just back from serving in Iraq. There are girls who play rugby (who do they scrum? I’ve always wondered) and girls who fight injustice and poverty. There are fans of Modest Mouse and Neil Young, an undreadlocked Bob Marley devotee, and no one who claimed Buck Cherry’s “Crazy Bitch” as his or her favorite song. There are, all told, forty-four sets of stories who will be sitting in my classroom tomorrow, just waiting for me to ask them to be told.
How lucky am I?
January 16, 2009 at 12:39 am |
I have a feeling teachers like you are few and far between. You are not the only lucky one – they have probably found quite a jewel in you.
I had professors that were, to put it nicely, just plain nasty to be around. Their faces are pretty much a blur. But those that cared about their students and demonstrated it with their encouragement – those I can see in my mind’s eye just as plain as day.
January 16, 2009 at 4:30 am |
so, are you saying that “no child left behind” has turned out another class of students that have learned to think for themselves, are capable of academic work, and are confident individuals?
January 17, 2009 at 8:59 pm |
Putt, oh-my-love, have you lost your mind? It sounds like you’re red-baiting me! Of course that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that No Child Left Behind has turned out a whole generation of slack-jawed test-taking machines… but that none of them are in MY class.
January 18, 2009 at 12:35 am |
check for the wind-up key-holes