laura.fo

Harper's this month had a wonderful spread on education.

Frank Gannon found the students in his "English 99″ class (the no-credit prerequisite to English 101) divided into three categories: bored-looking girls, jocks, and Bosnian refugees. He let them write about whatever they wished — a mistake, by the way, that I made at the beginning of first grade with K. and won't make again. Writing about whatever, I've come to believe, is a gift you give to experienced writers, and even then only when they need to work out something in their heads unencumbered by "my summer vacation" themes. New and nervous writers need springboards.

But he let them choose their own topics, and 100% of the responses broke down into the following themes:

Bored-looking girls: LIFE IS HARD, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING, and I AM TIRED
Jocks: I HAVE FUN, I NEED FREEDOM, and WHAT I CAN DO GOOD
Refugees: LIFE

You know, I'd never have thought I AM TIRED would be such an omnipresent theme, but once that tidbit lodged in my brain I started wandering around other journals and realized that probably half the entries from women are I AM TIRED posts. What's up with that? Are all women chronically sleep-deprived, or do they just have an inordinate need to talk about it all the time? Or does it go back to that expectation that women are "so busy" all the time, ergo a tired woman = a good woman? You're a busy woman! That's why you deserve to pamper yourself with our hand cream/apple conditioner/moisturizing soap/cleansing bath bubbles! Busy, busy women buy, buy, buy!

(I am a woman whose lifestyle can be supported on a 97 cent bottle of shampoo.)

This was funny, too, in its own morbid way:

Sometimes the refugees write things that, if written by one of the other groups, would get me to write "nice detail" in the margin. Many times the only thing I could ever think of to write was "good." Sometimes I would look at the word after I wrote it and cross it out because it seemed like a stupid thing to write. So I would just circle things and correct sentences.
Adnan lived next door has hand blown in war.
I corrected it.
Adnan, who lived next door, had his hand blown off in the war.

What do you say to that?

I also love this quote, from Garret Keizer's "Why We Hate Teachers":

So to the svelte mom in the Volvo, Ms. Hart is an air-headed twit without a creative bone in her body, who probably had to write crib notes all over her chubby little hand just to get through Hohum State College with a C. To the burly dad in the rusty pickup truck, Ms. Hart is a book-addled flake without a practical bone in her body but with plenty of good teeth in her head thanks to a dental plan that comes out of said dad's property taxes.

That sums up my reasons for avoiding teaching for the past ten years, although I've been attracted to education issues for as long as I can remember. I just couldn't stand to be both patronized and resented.

But lately "professional integrity" has taken a back seat to raw, all-consuming interest.