Wave That Wand And Wonder Comes Out, Alliteratively Speaking.
My students, this new semester, seem like a nice bunch so far. I have the usual few young people fresh out of high school, and the usual many adults who’ve been cruelly let down by a corporation that had promised to take good care of them forever but reneged the minute things got tough even though the CEO’s still get all their money downsized and who are trying to learn new skills so they can make a living for their families since their old skills are no longer viable in this new computerized society.
We’ve only met once so far, but I can tell it’s going to be a good semester.
Tomorrow, they’ll get their first writing assignment. I’ll whine on here about how I’ve got this huge pile of essays to grade but to be perfectly honest, my students have something to say and I love to find out what that is. Their diversity of age and background keeps us all interested almost every moment. I don’t remember a single class at this college wherein I didn’t learn something really important and new; I only hope the students can say the same.
Yes, once in a while I get an essay so truly terrible that my brain starts throb, but most of the time there is viable gold in those piles of raw ore.
Here’s the thing, or one of them, anyway: my students enter this beginning writing class believing that they personally have nothing to say that anybody would be interested in hearing about. My job, besides teaching them how to use the language properly, is to convince them that each and every one of them holds the key to stories and advice and examples and information that no other person in the universe knows except them. If they don’t tell us, we’ll never know. If they don’t tell us, the world will always be lacking a wonder.
The pen in their hands isn’t just a tube filled with ink; it’s a magic wand that will show the world what is inside the head of the person holding that wand. Wave that wand and wonder comes out.
All of the students at Hogwarts were capable of producing a Patronus, but no two were alike. Why should they be? No two students are ever alike. We produce magic and wonder and creativity according to our uniqueness.
There is a Patronus in every student. Let us not encourage our students to produce the same sort of thing as the student next to them. One student’s Patronus is another student’s spell-gone-wrong.
One more thing: if you really don’t know what a Patronus is, shame on you.
Thank You. Thank You All.
I still believe that adults who work with young people should be held to a higher standard than adults who, say, work in factories or offices, etc, where kids aren’t looking to them to be what their own parents chose never to be, but. . . .
I take my slap knowing I deserved it.
Thank you, dear internet friends. This is exactly why I asked you in the first place.
I Need Some Quick and Learned Advice
I need to know if I am a judgmental hardnosed hateful old fogie who doesn’t understand that times have changed, or just a person who wants positive role models for our children. I’m serious; I need to know what you all think.
Scenario: Public school teacher, pregnant, unmarried, living with boyfriend with whom she isn’t getting along all that well and has no intention of ever marrying, standing before classroom of impressionable students being what all teachers are: a role model and an example.
. . . of. . . what?
The thing is, times really haven’t changed; some people have always had trouble keeping it in their pants or keeping it out of their pants, and what people do in the privacy of their own homes is nobody else’s business as long as they’re not hurting or betraying someone else.
But. . . shouldn’t certain professions hold people to a higher standard than others? We are disgusted when ministers have no self-control. A teacher, who is supposed to be a role model and a good example. . . shouldn’t he/she be expected to try a little harder to control himself/herself when it comes to situations that can’t be kept under cover of one’s own household? Is there such a thing as moral standards these days? Am I confusing my own moral standards with somebody else’s moral standards in some kind of awful old-person “nice girls don’t do that” kind of way? Because, when I think of an unmarried largely pregnant woman professing to be some kind of positive example in a classroom, in front of young people who are quick to figure out the difference between what we say, what we do, and what we are, I feel heartsick.
Older students ask questions about our lives. What will they do with the answers this woman gives them? Run out and do likewise? What about her credibility in other subjects? If she tells a student to control herself for any reason, will she be laughed at?
Because I really don’t think pre-teens and teens are going to dig deep into their shallow pool of wisdom to come up with “How inspiring that Miss Smith, even though knocked up and single, acknowledges that people make mistakes, and is going to shoulder her load of responsibility!”
Aren’t older students going to see that their unmarried teacher is obviously letting someone HIT THAT, without any kind of protection? Even if we tell them that it’s none of their business, which it isn’t, students are going to focus on the fact that Miss Smith is throwing her legs up for her boyfriend so why can’t they? MISS SMITH is doing it; doesn’t that make it okay for us to do it, too?
Seriously, I really need to know what you think. I’ve never considered myself to be so conservative that other people’s non-hurting-others business would bother me, but this one really does. It really, really does, and I guess I need to know if it really, really should.
Over on the teacher forum, where I am the resident mean teacher, most of them think a pregnant single teacher is just fine. Maybe it’s just me. I need to know. If I need a reality slap, please do it.
Help. I need somebody. Help. Not just anybody. Help. You know I need someone. HELP!
