Friday Miscellany

Tonight, the lovely Buchusa Bluttersplangle and I had a short night out without the kids. We went to Chili’s and Media Play. That’s a big night for us. I noticed that Media Play has a large section of used CDs and DVDs. They are called “Previously New”. I have seen “Previously Owned”, “Pre-Owned”, “Vintage”, “Newly Used”, “Antique”, “Like New” and the classically honest “Used”, but “Previously New” is new to me. What will be next? “New when Made”? “Post-New”?

I have been in class all week (which explains the paucity of my posts and may give a hint to how effective I will be in keeping this up when I go back to school). The class is an AP institute called “How to Teach AP US History”, which I shall not be teaching. I was informed during the first day of class that I would be teaching all English next year. The class was held at beautiful and richly endowed Woodward Academy in lovely College Park (really, it is lovely). Most of my classmates were public school teachers from the south side of Metro Atlanta. They were also predominately male. Many were coaches. Some observations and some things I learned:

We read some sample essays written by actual students. One was truly excellent and included advanced vocabulary. The teacher behind me, a male coach, mumbled very lowly under his breath so that I think only I heard him, “ ‘egalitarian’…jeez, this kid’s a nerd.” (see "Marry a Nerd, She Said" July 5)

The Collage Bored (I shall spell this way to avoid legal troubles) has a committee called the “sensitivity” committee so that, to paraphrase my instructor, “Romanian born, bisexual, peanut farmers with overbites won’t be offended by any of the questions.” They excluded a question about Archie Bunker as it would discriminate against students without cable T.V. (since the only place to see the show is on Nick at Nite).

The Woodward computer lab is excellent (all their classrooms are equipped with smartboards, too). On the computer that I was using, someone had renamed the shortcut to Microsoft Explorer as “Microsoft Exploiter”. I have now made the needed updates on my computer.

A different male coach read a thesis statement a group of three teachers had written. It was a fragment. Our instructor kindly said, “That’s good except that it’s a fragment.” The group re-wrote it. It was still a fragment.

Indians, I mean Native Americans, I mean American Indians. That’s right, the new P.C. term for Indians is “American Indians”. Apparently, “native” conjures up the image of primitive tribesmen in people’s heads. Actually, I think this is better term as it will distinguish them from Indian-Americans and the term “native” was never exactly correct (in fact, scientists continue to find evidence that Indian-Americans may not have been the first humans in the Americas). One radical group of American Indians is holding out for the term “First Americans”. I find it very interesting and encouraging that all of these terms include “American” as a significant part of their identity.

As you probably know, referring to America as a melting pot is politically incorrect. The preferred term is a “salad bowl”. You see, the thinking goes that we are all mixed up together, but we still keep our original shape and size (our cultural identity). I prefer to think of America as a hearty stew. In a good stew, the ingredients break down a bit, adding their flavor to the broth and the other ingredients, but the broth (which I see as the idea of America) holds everything together and continues to break down the ingredients the longer they stay submerged.

Overall, I left with the impression that I am very lucky to teach in a private school. Also, I will carefully screen my children's teachers when they get to high school (if they go to a public one). I don't want my child's history teacher to be a coach who happens to teach.

Peace