education as arson

teach to forget
not to fall off the wagon

teach to abandon the bandwagon
better, douse it
torch those things that say
you are only this, in the inferno
contemplate the combustibility of thought
the matchstick fragility of complete explanations.
The capital C correct answer is a pipe bomb dream
unity, crisp manila and full of nails

teach revelation, from the ivory tower
the world can be explained to death
the risk is explaining death to the world.

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Call it, Frend-0

If I weren't writing for mixed audience (yes, there are two of you), I'd say the trailer for No Country for Old Men gives me an irrepressible fanboy boner. Usually when I anticipate a film greatly it’s for sentimental, visceral or other bad reasons. But in this case I’m salivating for what seems to be something near the zenith of the Coen Brothers’ considerable craft making skills. Read the A.O. Scott review. Call it, Frend-o! Call it! Aaagggh!

Speaking of being entertained by smart people. This clip where Jerry Seinfeld takes apart Larry King is pretty funny, and while we're on the subject, Jon Stewart did much the same thing, but more emphatically, on CNN's Crossfire some time ago.

P.S. I’m coming up this weekend.
P.P.S. My teacher liked my unit lesson plan and she wants it to be presented at the Central Okanagan Teachers’ Association meeting (this is like a pro-d thing).
P.P.P.S. Mikara is soundly thrashing me at the hockey pool even though she chose her players based on how handsome they are. Still, I like almost all of my picks except for the concussed Bertuzzi, so I think things will turn around.

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Today was my first day as a teacher in BC. My practicum doesn’t actually start until February, but we had a week of observation/introduction at our schools. We weren’t required to teach, but my sponsor teacher is really cool, so he let me take over 2 of his English 12 classes. Well, I didn’t totally take them over, but I taught for 50 minutes in each of those 1:20 minute blocks. It went really well! I was a little bit nervous at first, but I knew it would be fine since I had planned out the lesson well. The students laughed at my jokes, and my sponsor teacher said that students enjoy that sort of “dry, self-deprecating” humour. He also said I had a good presence in the classroom, which I took to mean that I didn’t mumble at all. All in all it was a lot of fun. I introduced a short story they’ll be working with, “An Occurrence at Owl’s Creek Bridge.” That entailed giving some background about the American Civil War, the author’s (Ambrose Bierce) life, and some activities relating to the story’s main theme, reality vs. illusion. Naturally, I took the chance to draw a big chalk picture of the General Lee with its Confederate flag roof. It was fun. I was happy to get my feet wet and to get ahead of those in my cohort who haven’t started teaching yet.

My sponsor teacher is really awesome. We are well suited because he’s really into thing like The Simpsons, Arrested Development, The Office, and Judd Apatow movies. He’s really popular and successful with the students, but some of the staff are rubbed the wrong way by him because he has some unconventional techniques. He has a really great rapport with the students, though. That’s important. One thing he does is called “Feel Good Fridays.” This involves the students being randomly assigned another student. They then have to write something nice about that student in a few sentences. Some of them are kind of silly, like: “If I was Japan, and you were America, I’d definitely bomb your Pearl Harbor.” And some are kind of bland, but I’m sure some have been good, anonymous confidence builders for some kids. It’s a good ice breaker and a good tool for class unification. OK, well, that was a summery little summary. Now I’ll just find a picture and put it up so that blogger can delete it for no reason in 2 days.

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