[AGL] X-box? Soap box Derby!!!!!!!!!11

[Wayne Johnson]

You know, it is funny but I had some students who actually asked my permission to miss a day before the Holidays.........have had students come to class running a fever...   All at Marymount.  MU is a LOT different than No. Va. Comm. College which was too much like high school and really like herding cats.  

The "contract" is...as I tell my students each semester....I teach...they learn.  Learning is their job, teaching is mine.  

One of my other rubrics is.......they are in college....to Learn HOW to Learn.  It ain't just the dumb "testable facts" anymore, it is the process of becoming a professional person...or a damn good auto-didact, if you prefer.  I set the bar for my classes very high this year and the kids have done great!  One of the best teachng semesters in my life. 

American "public" education is going to hell in a handbasket.....and it is NOT the fault of the kids it is the fault of the goddam (stupidly conservative and politically corrupt) Educational System and the "we don't have time become envolved with the PTA because I have my (own) life to lead (read: shtup the "personal trainer" or MUST ATTEND MEETING in Des Moines. stop. Sorry to miss your (only) performance. stop. Let me know if you need anything from Toronto. stop.  Feed the goldfish stop.  Wash your underwear when Nanny says to.  stop.  stop. stop.

or

"get back to sloppin' them hogs, you little bastard or I'll make you eat that goddam history book".

My point: we are, as a Nation, pretty much betraying our kids.  From cradle to grave, many of their lives will read like sub-plots to a John LeCarre novel.  In another generation, they will have no families, no education, no jobs, no career, nothing but what?............Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Laura Bush?  They will be working for Japanese/Russian/Indian/Indonesian/Korean bosses or some twit from Yale or some rich doink from Hahvahd whose daddy's money got him/her degree....a la George W. Bush and Company.  Just how many "service" jobs will there be?  Will Japan suddenly stop letting out of work Americans into the country because they are taking jobs away from the Anu?

wgJ
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Frances Morey 
  To: survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the 60s 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 5:39 PM
  Subject: Re: [AGL] X-box? Soap box


  "...lot of students bored silly by classroom instruction...," Jon wrote.

  That is such a sad posture for someone whose career has been spent teaching. If the students are bored it's because their teacher has neglected to create a schedule of learning that challenges their individual young minds. If learning isn't fun, the teacher has been reduced to an attendance taking roboton. Someone once noted that if a young person has one admirable teacher out of eight, their attitudes towards learning may be salvaged.

  There is a presumption of kids being bored, and a presumptuousness, because the kids have trained themselves to act like they know-it-all and have nothing left to learn.
  They are only in the classroom to ogle the opposite sex (or the same sex) and see how little effort they can put-in to pass from one grade to the next, like little spoiled (negle cted?) kid-brats. They are there because the law says that they must be, and the teachers are there to take home a paycheck, being reduced to prison guards.

  Video games are a great babysitter. With enough time devoted to playing them they often become an obsession, eating up scads of precious time to the detriment of all other aspects of the adolescence's development. Such people will become parents who wish as little involvement with children as possible, such people probably learned it from their own parents who might have treated them as though they were a nuisance and a burden. Lots of prof's kids suffered from this.

  Nothing personal, Jon. This is just my educational philosophy. It is the teacher's job to make it exciting, so the students don't turn out to be intelligent design creationists, for Christ's sakes, or automaton know-nothings who w ouldn't question authority if it bit them on the butt.

  Happy Thanksgiving, y'all,
  Frances



  Wayne Johnson <cadaobh at shentel.net> wrote:
    Naturally, Jon manages to miss the point even while he makes his point.

    Of course, "education" is boring, no "Spam, Blat" No bigggg boobs, nothing 
    to Kill" Can't expect American kids to keep on their determined 
    Entertainment first, Education last approach to life if they are required 
    "think" instead of "react". Action now, rhetoric...critical 
    thinking...language usage...later...if at all. Learn everything about the 
    world by seeing it on a 6x6 box as determined by Japanese programmers. So 
    much easier than "listening". Who needs dialectic or literacy or theory of 
    numbers or phenomenology when one can spend ho urs fantasizing murder and 
    rape? Why bother with dissection when one can simulate NASCAR? Why bother 
    with learning "complicated" things like physics, chemistry or 
    ....gasp...biology, when one can just play with a "black box" or believe in 
    one?

    "Ooooh, Mommy. That mean old scientist makes my brain hurt!"
    "Don't worry, Muffy, we will be safely back in Kansas tomorrow."

    But then such subtleties bypass some people who must constantly tell 
    themselves (and others) that "they" are the "most hip" while others cocoon 
    themselves in what some might call "elitist literary snobbery". Interesting 
    concatentation. Gee, if only the two could be mixed.

    "Fight the Texas War of Revolution! On the Mexican Side! At home! With 
    Game Person X"
    "Thrill to the atrocities of the Rape of Nanking!" Who? Nan King? Oh, 
    cool, dude."
    "Learn how Real Christians fight Apostasy, play "Inquisition!"
    "Play the New Tunnel Rat!"
    "Win points on Enol a Gay over the Medici."
    "Vanquish the Green Knight with Madonna!"
    "Pokemon vs Shakespeare".

    the mind boggles....or "bobbles" for some.

    wgJ


    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: "Jon Ford" 
    To: 
    Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 11:51 AM
    Subject: Re: [AGL] X-box?


    >
    > Mike, your quip is right on the money! Unlike Harry Potter films and 
    > high school classes, the new media are interactive, leaving a lot of 
    > students bored silly by classroom instruction. A book on video games 
    > people should read, which gives us some insights into learning and gaming 
    > is James Gee's
    > "What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy" (Palgrave 
    > MacMillan).
    >
    > >
    > Talk about decorticating the brain.>
    >
    > Mike
    >
    > ----- Original Message ---- - From: "Wayne Johnson" 
    > To: "survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the 60s" 
    > 
    > Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:33 AM
    > Subject: Re: [AGL] X-box?
    >
    >
    > Honor and I talked with a local teacher whilst standing in line the other 
    > night for Harry Potter. Part of this (sad) conversation was the 
    > revelation that his (high school level) kids....can not take notes, can 
    > not follow an "oral" argument and can only take notes if they are 
    > "bulletized" a la Power Point. He assigns this horrid situation to a 
    > (young) lifetime of ......game playing.
    >
    >
    > 



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