Yul Brynner Was Smokin' Hot
Over at MommaK’s, the Perfect Post Awards are up. MommaK and Lucinda work really hard, putting this together, so please click on over and check them out. You’ll find some wonderful blogs to read.
I nominated the elegant and eloquent Anchoress for a January Perfect Post. The Anchoress has long been an idol of mine, both as a writer and as a person. Go read her blog and you’ll understand why.
I still can’t comment on any Typepad blogs. Not a single one. If you are wondering why you haven’t had any comments from me in a long time, and you use Typepad, well, that’s why. It’s quite a puzzlement, as Yul Brynner would say, and quite frustrating as well. I’ve heard many others talking about this same issue, too. Why does Typepad hate us? We’ve been goooood.
Also, I hate it when a bathroom stall doesn’t have a hook for my purse. I refuse to put anything on the floor of a public restroom, and it’s difficult to manage with that huge honkin’ suitcase-size purse I insist on carrying. And what’s with those toilet paper holders that stick out from the wall so far, they hover over the seat? Heck, even a thin person has to sit leaning to one side! I’m sort of medium-fat, and it’s really a pain. A truly fat person? I don’t know what they would do; I guess they’d have to post a guard at the door and use the men’s urinals next door.
Nice, Jane. I hope that visual doesn’t stick around too awfully long.
And now, we’re off to Grecco’s. Don’t you all wish you were meeting us there? I wish you were, too.
But I’ll think about you as I’m diving into my deep-dish Sicilian pizza.
A few more of those and I’ll be using the men’s john at the college. Anyone care to guard the door for me?
OUT! Out of my head this minute, bad visual. OUT.
The Phallic Classroom
Let’s move away from controversy for a moment and focus on. . . . .how I make the most incredible blunders, ALL THE TIME.
Today, for example.
Topic: North Pole. Reason: Tangent (often the source of the most wondrous learning of all).
Blunder: On the board, I drew a picture of the Earth, with a pole at the North. I tried to make it look like one of those illustrations from a medieval map, but instead, it looked exactly like a gigantic penis. I did not notice that it looked exactly like a gigantic penis until I had pointed to it and discussed it for a full five minutes. My hands were all over it.
When the giggling became really loud, something told me to step back and look more closely at the North Pole. I started laughing, and couldn’t stop. We all laughed hysterically, for a another full five minutes, without drawing a breath. When the next page in our book dealt with the Castrati, the theme for the afternoon was set.
Ten minutes later, the director stuck her head into the classroom and asked if anyone knew anything about Unix.
It went downhill from there. Or uphill, depending upon your value system.
Or just down and then up, if your mind is in the gutter like ours. Or maybe just mine.
Anyway, back to the North Pole. . . .
When I tried to erase it with my fingers and the smudges made it look even more like a penis than before, we all laughed even harder. Finally, I found a whiteboard eraser in a drawer and the penis disappeared.
Or did it. When we turned off the lights at the end of the class, the erased global penis glowed like a poster in a black light hippie parlor.
We all slunk out of the building and went home. The end.
P.S. Whoever is in that classroom tomorrow morning is in for a surprise. I’ll be in a different classroom, but I’ll be keeping my ears open for shrieks. Whether the shrieks be of laughter or horror, I know not, but if the professor is any kind of cool at all, the shrieks will be of the mirthful kind.
P.P.S. Also, the term “North Pole” now has a new meaning.
P.P.P.S. Our book telling us that “. . . the Pole may be ‘up,’ but the focus is always down South. . . . .” didn’t help matters, either.
Ah, The Forum Again.
I don’t think I’ve ever had students I’ve enjoyed as much as I’m enjoying this ‘batch.” Five classes, and so far, so good. In fact, so far, so GREAT.
Here’s the thing with many of my students, the younger ones, I mean (under 35): when they were in elementary, and secondary (although not as much) they had teachers who were loving and kind and understanding and never assigned homework and really didn’t force their fragile-egoed little students to do much of anything except sing and draw and scamper and play. Their classrooms were full of hugs and positive assertations and read-alouds about the holiday traditions of everycultureunderthesunexceptours, which is, as I understand it, the primary focus of education in America today. . . . They could put their names on their papers, or not, it really didn’t matter. They could fill out a worksheet, or not. It was being given the CHOICE that was the important thing. Everyone was equally special. Everyone was equally gifted. Everyone was equally deserving of privileges.
Most of them washed out in high school. Most of my students got a GED, in fact, years later. I do have a handful of students with a high school diploma, although I’m wondering what it stands for as they are my lowest achievers.
So far, most of them are turning in their assignments. If this changes, I’ll be sure to let you all know.
Oh, and in case you are curious as to what these students think of those smiling kind-hearted teachers down in lower elementary who never made a sweet little child do things if he didn’t WANT to. . . . . they hate their guts.
“Why didn’t she make me do the math sheets? I’m 32 years old and I don’t even know my multiplication tables. “
“I wish she’d shown me how to label and organize my stuff. I still can’t do it. I got into bad habits in fourth grade and it was just too easy to let them get worse. Nobody made me do it. Nobody MADE ME. Now, I can’t make myself do it.”
“Miss ______ told Mom not to force me to read because it might make me hate it. Hell, if somebody had forced me to read, maybe I could read better than a little kid NOW.”
“This one recess, I’d been so bad in class, the teacher told me to go stand by the flagpole and watch the other kids play. I was so pissed, I took out my pocketknife and cut the rope and the flag fell. When the teacher yelled at me for tearing it up, another teacher reported her for being cruel to me and she was out for two weeks. When she came back, it was like I wasn’t even there. I don’t blame her. She was nice. I was an idiot, a little third-grade punk, and I deserved to miss my recess. I didn’t realize that for fifteen years, but I realize it now. I’m sorry, Miss _________.”
“If somebody had made me responsible for turning in my homework in fourth grade, maybe I’d have better work habits now. I’ve had sixteen jobs and I’m 35 years old, and her letting us all slide through taught me habits I still can’t shake.”
There were few expectations, no consequences, and nobody was better than anybody else. It was all about FEELINGS.
Bullshit Mahoney.
