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One minute a day keeps the fantods away.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
So today, then.
Pep assembly schedule. Kids get to leave early by class to go to the auditorium. I have 10th graders 8th hour. They're supposed to leave two minutes after the 9th graders. So I say, "Today, you are 9th graders." I was tired; I didn't have the heart to keep them two extra minutes. I nod and raise my eyebrows. "Right?" Most of them get it right away. Then, the others.
One doesn't get it.
A girl--a nice girl, let me insert that, but not a good student--looks at me, quizzed. Her brain is churning. Lightbulb slowly burns. Like a good standup comedian (and that's my metaphor for teaching--it's like doing the same fifty minute set of jokes to the same audience for nine months and getting depressed at the lack of laughter), I wait. I can see this coming a mile away. She's confused, and when confused sometimes kids get snotty.
"We're Sophomores," she says, as if I'm the dumbest of the dumb.
One good minute.
Postscript (1):
I'll do better.
Postscript (2):
I spend my hours: teaching (themes of grief, loneliness and physical self-love in Ordinary People; trying not to snooze through House on Mango Street; doing my own bit of subversion via Super Size Me and selections from No Logo); buying a house (financing 101, saving money for a three hundred dollar TV, worrying about interest rates); spending (limited) time with the wife (going to the DMV, sleeping, watching The Incredibles); reading (Brighton Rock, No Logo, and The Quiet American); listening (The Arcade Fire, still; Gillian Welch; Styrofoam)
Pep assembly schedule. Kids get to leave early by class to go to the auditorium. I have 10th graders 8th hour. They're supposed to leave two minutes after the 9th graders. So I say, "Today, you are 9th graders." I was tired; I didn't have the heart to keep them two extra minutes. I nod and raise my eyebrows. "Right?" Most of them get it right away. Then, the others.
One doesn't get it.
A girl--a nice girl, let me insert that, but not a good student--looks at me, quizzed. Her brain is churning. Lightbulb slowly burns. Like a good standup comedian (and that's my metaphor for teaching--it's like doing the same fifty minute set of jokes to the same audience for nine months and getting depressed at the lack of laughter), I wait. I can see this coming a mile away. She's confused, and when confused sometimes kids get snotty.
"We're Sophomores," she says, as if I'm the dumbest of the dumb.
One good minute.
Postscript (1):
I'll do better.
Postscript (2):
I spend my hours: teaching (themes of grief, loneliness and physical self-love in Ordinary People; trying not to snooze through House on Mango Street; doing my own bit of subversion via Super Size Me and selections from No Logo); buying a house (financing 101, saving money for a three hundred dollar TV, worrying about interest rates); spending (limited) time with the wife (going to the DMV, sleeping, watching The Incredibles); reading (Brighton Rock, No Logo, and The Quiet American); listening (The Arcade Fire, still; Gillian Welch; Styrofoam)
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