I’m almost done with Carry on, Jeeves. I know everyone says this, but it really is a flawless piece of writing. Like some intricate needlework made from a single strand of thread, or a chandelier of spun sugar. A perfect antidote to the pursuit of usefulness.
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Wodehouse wrote during and after World War I, and then II, and I was wondering why you wouldn’t know it.
In fact, he was criticized —and investigated (and exonerated)—for broadcasting chipper radio messages from imprisonment in Nazi Germany.
He said he was simply reflecting the "flippant, cheerful attitude of all British prisoners. It was a point of honour with us not to whine."
Foolish? Noble? Traitorous? I see that strength/weakness in members of previous generations, like Auntie Vi.
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Yesterday—Saturday—was an unseasonably lovely day too. You feel you shouldn’t enjoy these harbingers of a coming apocalypse, but they are so nice in the moment. Like having a beer when you know it’s not a friend of the kidneys.
At the art museum café, I commented to the server that I’d seen a man wearing all springtime pastels – – “He looked like an Easter Peeps”.
He laughed, and he gave me my beer for the happy hour half-off, not applicable on weekends.
It was great to talk to Denise about work—for three hours we sat in the atrium by a three-story window overlooking the park across the street. We’d worked together at the publishers 20-some years ago—she was my favorite person there, and the only one I’m still friends with. She’s been a high-school counselor for 7 years now.
“Why are high schools just as bad as when I was a student almost 50 years ago?” I said. “I’d hoped we’d be modeling education on whale pods or elephant families by now.
She agreed, we’re still teaching in ways that have been proven not to be best practice – lectures, assignments, tests, grades… That learning style suits some personalities, and they are rewarded—my sister did well with it— but for others, like the student I was, it’s like being subjected to industrial farming. It reminds me of force-feeding geese to harvest their livers for foie gras.
Students get five minutes between classes, for instance. Five! barely enough time to walk down the hall, much less go to the bathroom— and forget conversation (conversation?)—and in Denise’s school they get four. And the doors are locked—you can’t even step outside to enjoy the nice weather of the End Times.
Working in these schools is like practicing harm reduction, Denise said—you try to create a little psychological space for the students to thrive, or at least to catch their breath.
I already see that some teachers create havens—the art teacher, for instance.
So … have I already stumbled onto the secret topic I’ll be complaining about here for the next six years? because it doesn’t look like it’s about to change. Denise was telling me about charter schools that do it differently though. I guess that’s why so many parents have been pulling their kids from regular schools? I would!
Any of you who know anything about education, this is old news. Knowing few children, I’ve paid little attention. Though I am hardly surprised – it’s what I would have guessed, working backwards from the civilization around me—about what you’d expect from force-fed geese.
And I’m not complaining about my actual job – – my role is to be a buffer for individual students. My mandate is to create relationships with students. Yes! And since I’ll mostly be working with autistic students with high support needs, I’m to the side of the assembly line, where there’s time and space for that. The psychological equivalent of Bubble Soccer…
Absolutely- teaching and public "rote" school has never worked except for those who are geared that way- no brainer...I took son out of school when he was in forth grade at Montessori which was no better than "rote". Teachers are up against it, no freedom , no common sense, teaching to the test for funding. Thankless job. Son went to a private junior high at his request- he felt he needed the "school" experience...It was alternative to a certain degree- one girl , highly skilled in the arts, could not grasp History/dates/treaties/ wars-bullshit...I suggested that she study history in a different way - through art and fashion- it would have been successful but the teachers just could not take it that far. Squeezing every child into the same one size fits all thinking. As a consequence the child slipped through that crack and has not left home since...( true- so insecure)
ReplyDeleteYou are perfect for this new job- I hope you are never going to be squished under the "expectation" of homogeneous studenting...You are important and so needed!
Your teacher friend sounds like she is forced into prison guard situation. Glad you have her to talk with. We carry on, never grumble...
LINDA SUE: That's it--the girl who could have learned history through art & fashion!
ReplyDeleteTragic the school didn't go that route.
Use what people love to teach them what they don't particularly care about--I learned more math when I had to measure, cut, and fit boards to make books than I did in math class.
Luckily my friend has a lot of latitude as a counselor--it's on-one-one with students--and I think I will too. Fingers crossed.
Youngest son only got interested in history when we pointed out the parallel between "Sharpe" stories and programmes, which are fictionalised history...and the fact that his great grandmother's grandfather was eventually a postman, whose uniform was based on the military jacket and "shako" hat of the regiment in the stories..who were the original Green Jackets in the early 1800s.
ReplyDeleteThat a is super cool history/family connection
DeleteI did fairly well (mostly As, very high 90s on standardized tests) in school and tended to be someone who befriended teachers (unless they couldn't handle dissent or acknowledge when they were wrong), but still loathe(d) it enough strongly and deeply enough to kill off any belief in reincarnation. My parents were both teachers and both couldn't keep at it for those reasons, my mother more than my father (who might have been the kind of student it worked for, unless the system was that much different in the 1920s, which it was, given that they (as 8-10 year old elementary students) could leave school over lunch to wander to the library to see the snakes and mummies). I appreciate you creating those bubbles. And I'm so sad they're still necessary, however many years after I last flipped open a planner first day of school and carefully counted down the number of days left until I was free again.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm remembering that a friend of mine did like school, because it was safety from what happened at home, which is even sadder, like hearing the adults who as children were sent to troubled teen industry places before juvie, which made juvie seem like camp. What if we had a school system that wasn't better only in comparison to literal beatings and other unspeakable abuse? Where we didn't have to lock children in to get them to be there?
What shocked me as a school prisoner was how...complacent my classmates were, how little they seemed to mind all the oppression, despite history classes, despite some level of being taught about taxation without representation, human rights, etc. As if waiting until 18 to be able to use a bathroom when you need to use the bathroom is somehow reasonable and civilized.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
DeleteReincarnation? Indeed I would hate for any future beings to have to re-do high school!
I think students have been acclimated to imprisonment—a kind of learned helplessness.