Aphoristic Wisdom

This semester I'm teaching American Literature. While I'm not going through the canon chronologically because I opted for a thematic approach, I nevertheless threw Benjamin Franklin in the first week, because the excerpt from his autobiography in our textbook fits nicely with the theme of this unit: Identity (the other two themes will be Rebellion and Survival).

We also read some aphorisms from "Poor Richard's Almanac," and before I had students write their own, more modern bits of "Street Wisdom" and "School Wisdom," I asked them to pick three aphorisms from "Poor Richard's" and translate them into something more modern-sounding.

One girl chose to work with "He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas."

Her translation: "Practice safe sex."

She got an A.

Dan Ryan Dread

Massive lane reductions for construction on the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-94) start in March. I take the DR to and from work every day. Half hour in the morning, 45 minutes to an hour coming back.

Halving the lanes (from six to three in each direction) suggests a doubling of travel time. I could avoid the expressway altogether and take Halsted all the way from my place to school, but the times I've done that in the past, the trip took an hour or more.

I'm gonna hate March. And April. And May. And half of June.

Teaching Interest

I have often said--vehemently, in private and in public--that I'm basically teaching grade-school skills, and that I don't WANT to teach grade school, that I am not TRAINED to teach grade school. Add to that the toxic environment I teach in every day, and I end up making myself sick with stress and discontent.

But then I think about the maybe half-dozen kids I have really been able to reach, the ones who want to learn so badly that they will fight (sometimes literally) to learn what I have to teach them.

When I think of these students, I realize that I do love TEACHING. It's the baby-sitting I can't stand. And that I'd teach underwater basket-weaving if a student wanted to learn it badly enough.

In college, most students quickly learn that the subject is less important than the professor. In other words, if the professor is good, you'll love the class, regardless of the subject.

In high school, the kids don't have a choice in what teachers they get, and the teachers don't have a choice in the students they get.

I'm not really teaching English. I'm teaching--or trying to teach--the ability to get interested in learning. Maybe my professors at Michigan State University said a thing or two about that. I'd have to check my notes, because I was most interested in learning how to teach English. The majority of my classes were structured around teaching English, anyway. I know for damn sure I never took a class called "How to teach enthusiasm for learning." There was that ONE classroom management class, which didn't really prepare me for Chicago AT ALL. (Most of my own personal enthusiasm for learning came from my parents and my loving and caring home environment, and I certainly can't directly affect that for any of my students).

And anyway, if the profs at MSU did say anything about that, I probably let it go right by me, because (in my "I've taught English for five years at the college level already what do I need this for?" hubris) I was focused on English. And I learned a lot of great strategies and techniques for teaching English, strategies that work wonderfully when the students are even half-attentive and half-interested. And I've got some students who want to learn so badly they will risk starting a fight in telling some loud-mouthed jackass to shut up and be quiet. So for them, my stuff works.

The real hat trick, of course, is teaching kids how to want to learn. And I'll be damned if anyone has ever come up with a consistent and reliable way to do that. I used to think it had to do with the way I present my subject. Now, I'm not sure at all anymore.