Whoopsy Part 1

It's been a busy week for me, and when time comes at a premium and I get tired, my social graces sag. Here's one of the things I've muttered this week within earshot of all the wrong people. I'll give you the brief context, then the verbal faux pas.

The bus stop for Dante is just down the road from our apartment and across the street. Dante has to walk four houses down, cross the street and stand on the other side to catch the bus. Normally, I walk down to the street, stand in front of the apartment and watch him walk down, cross the street, board the bus and sail away. Parents with younger kids go with their children and stand there until they're safely seated. The parent group is made up of the "have-nots" and the "have-a-littles." Or, frankly, the lazy-ass welfare moms and the working moms (and one dad). I work with welfare women. Don't give me hate mail about respecting welfare moms (and don't give me dissertations about the welfare system, MD). I know the difference between women going through hard times and women who were raised to bilk the system. It's pretty obvious that these are the sit on your ass, collect a check and bitch about life kind of women.

One of these women in particular has a five year old kindergartner. The kids have all been in the habit of standing with their friends in a sort of a line until the bus gets there. This woman has been hellbent to see her child get on the bus FIRST at all costs. Any semblance of "cutting line" is met with a tirade from her. As if it matters. They all get to school at the same time. What damn difference does it make?? She especially doesn't care for Dante and his two buddies, as they are boys, and she sees boys as inherently and genetically problematic, as I've deciphered from some of her more coherent mutterings. So when she perceived one or two of the boys as "cutting line", she said, "Next time one of you boys cuts line, I'm gonna cut you."

Momma was down there standing with Dante the next day. I think this idiot knew she'd stepped in her own shit by the sheer amount of other parents standing there with me the next day, sipping coffee, smiling politely at each other and alternatively trying to set her on fire with their eyes alone. It's a skill you learn as a new parent: how to appear diplomatic when you're three seconds away from a visit from the cops. It's particularly galling, as all the kids are sweethearted--as kids generally tend to be by nature--and have helped her own kid onto the bus plenty of times when the little girl was staggering trying to get onto the first step (she's pretty small). They've pushed the bus doors wider for her, caught her when she tripped, and generally given her space to figure out how to access the bus.

Crazy Welfare Mom decided to continue her incoherent ramblings about standing your ground, keeping your place, and standing up for your rights, all the while screaming at her kid to quit whining and dry up, and on and on and on. After one particularly ludicrous tirade about standing up for your "spot", it just slipped out:

"Great training for the cheese line."

I thought I had just thought it to myself. Apparently, I verbalized it. She turned red. The working people chuckled. The welfare moms' jaws collectively dropped. It was a shitty thing to say.

I don't feel a damn bit bad about it.

-- Virgil

It's A Hit!

For those of you who have met Dante, you would probably agree that he can be, well, dramatic at times. Since I haven't gotten any information whatsoever about sports this year, I decided to enroll him in a drama class for kids this fall. It only runs through the middle of November. At first, he was on the fence about going. He was mainly concerned that there wouldn't be any other boys there. I showed him the pictures on the brochure of all the kids--just as many boys as there were girls. We showed up for the first time last night. We sat on the couches with the other parents & kids, watching the others begin to file in. He leans in and says, "I think I'm sort of scared." I told him he'd be just fine. He was happy to see that there were more boys than girls there. He went off to class, and we had a beer in the little bar and pool hall just a few steps away.

When we came back for the end of class, he ran out of the room with the others.

I asked: So, did you like it?
He says: I want to do this next year. And the year after that. AND FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! And he runs out twirling and showing jazz hands, if any of you know what that means.


I think the boy likes it!

-- Virgil

So, what now?

Edit: Apparently, the easiest, low impact way to check for dyslexia is an eye exam. You can ask your optometrist to screen for dyslexia. It's as simple as checking out a different chart with your eye exam. So we'll be doing that soon. In the meantime, Dante has just started a phonics intensive reading group, so we'll see how that goes.

Just got back from a parent/teacher meeting for Dante. It was the usual list of things that make Dante who he is--very social, talks nonstop, has organizational trouble. And that he switches letters around sometimes. And that he sometimes writes his numbers completely backward. 531 becomes 135. Behind the teacher on a section of the chalkboard were the post-it notes the kids had filled out with their predictions on the outcome of the football game this Saturday. The teacher has them all write down their predictions, and then the next Monday, the whole class checks to see who came closest. They love this activity. My son had "WVU: 2P E. Carolina: 13". He had WVU for 29 points. But his 9s sometimes come out like P's.

He's always flipped his letters--especially p, q, b, and d and sometimes g. I made a visual drawing when he was young of the word "bed" to help him figure out which way the b and the d go. I made it look like a real bed made out of the letters, and he doesn't flip them around that much anymore, but it still happens. He reads ok sometimes--hell, he won a medal for best third grade reader last year--but he doesn't seem to be very fluent with reading--mostly seems to be a phonics problem. He got the medal for going through books and testing on comprehension. So he knows what's going on. But if it were a read-aloud contest, he'd be wa-ay behind. It's so weird, because we have books in the house, and he reads of his own free will every single day--mostly Calvin & Hobbes. He can do phonics worksheets, but has an absolute bitch of a time with spelling words. If you give his words out loud to him, he claps his hands over his eyes, like the rest of the room is screwing with his visual picture of the word in his head. He has a really hard time spelling it out loud, but he does better when he writes it down.

Speaking of his writing, he often crams his letters and words alltogetherlikethiswithnexttonospacebetweenthem. His letters can be all different sizes. He doesn't always stay on the line--it looks like a struggle for him. I thought it was because he was a) a boy b) in a hurry and c) didn't give a crap about writing. Now I wonder if it's something else. It's true that he rushes things. He has a hard time sitting in one place for long, as anyone who has met him can attest to. Hell, he has a hard time staying motionless for more than five seconds.

When he was little, I wondered if he was dyslexic. Now I wonder if he's both mildly dyslexic and dysgraphic.

I know he's not ADHD, because he can concentrate on projects for a long time, if he's interested. But if they involve words, they're always creatively spelled. Sometimes he doesn't even spell the same word the same way in the next sentence. The teacher, whom I really like, hesitantly suggested that we get him tested. I think I will. He wants to switch Dante into some other reading group and do some other things with him first, which I was happy he didn't just jump into the labelling frenzy that most grade school teachers like to do. But just the same, this is something I've been noticing, and I think I'll check into getting him tested. It's not like he screws up every other word. But sometimes he does. It would certainly explain why he seems to forget his papers, school bag, planner, something all the time. Now, I'm not panicking and misattributing regular boy stuff to a disorder--I don't think. All the other little boys he knows lose things. He loses things a lot more regularly than other little boys. He also continually switches his lunch number. When he goes through the lunch line, his number is (for sake of argument) 1234. Every day he'll say 1324, or 2134. He switches one of the numbers. The lunch lady is getting huffy with him and threatening to not give him his lunch if he can't remember his number. Mommy is about to take her head off. Why in the hell do adults threaten kids' basic sense of security to get them to do little things? I'll never understand that.

Dyslexia is inherited in 80% of cases. Who the hell has it on either side of his family? Nobody has ever talked about anyone else having the same kinds of problems. But it would certainly explain why his dad had so much trouble in school, even through college. I think my dad had it. They never diagnosed that kind of thing when he was in school in the fifties, though. My sister and I are fine. Dads have a 20% chance of passing it on to daughters. Dads have a 40% chance of passing it on to sons. Moms have a 35% chance of passing it to a son, only 7% if the mother isn't dyslexic herself. Maybe he was 47% more likely to get it??

At any rate, I don't know what to do now. Which is ironically sad, considering that in my line of work, I sometimes encounter dyslexic adults.

I have no idea what to do at this moment.

-- Virgil

We Just Made A Terrible Life Choice...

One of my tutors, a fellow grad student in a different department, emailed me this youtube link. Leave it to the Simpsons to explain our plight so very well...





SO TRUE!

-- Virgil

Here They Come Just In Time...

The Power Puff Girls used to be big on our tv viewing list, and I still remember their little jingle: "Fighting crime/Trying to save the world/Here they come - just in time/The Power Puff Girls."

As it happened, my classes were going over an article they had read about how kids today just aren't "joiners", and the benefits of what is called "social capital." Social capital includes all sorts of networking--everything from having a mentor who puts in a good word for you with a job prospect to your grandma's bowling league. We were talking about how we thought kids really are engaged, they just do it in different ways than their parents and grandparents did, so on, and so forth. For the second section I teach, which is closer to the student center, my students came in all worked up over some demonstrations literally across the street.

Apparently, some rag tag group of holy-haters decided to do an impromptu demonstration at the school. They had giant signs of aborted fetuses and signs about how you could go straight if you were gay, and a megaphone with probably their best and brightest young fellow giving everybody hellfire and damnation. What set people on edge even more, was the fact that one family (it looked like there were about 3 sets of adults) had brought their kids. Seven year old boys holding signs in a potentially dangerous crowd, under the banner of homeschooling, set a lot of people off. Two of the teenage girls were crying, either because they didn't want to be there or because the hostility of the crowd frightened them. What dumbass parents. Anyhoo.

My students were incredibly restless, and I have to admit I was too. It was hard to talk about the concept of "joining" when you actually could join right outside the door. All kinds of sirens were going on. There were loud cheers from time to time. It was all very exciting. They asked me to make it a field trip--to which I responded that they would all promptly depart for lunch. We did, however, get to talk about negative social capital, and the kind of bonding that comes over making yourself exclusive, like so many fringe religious movements do. It is far less important that you convert someone than it is that you build solidarity as a group. You're supposed to be the minority, and you're supposed to be ridiculed. That's what makes all the ridiculous sacrifice "worthwhile"--the social capital you get from those in your group. Of course, when your group abandons you, well, you get the fall out like former Jehovah's Witnesses experience.

We cut out 15 minutes early. They were just too keyed up, and so was I. I had at least half of them continuously ask me, "Mrs. Virgil, are you going over there??" They know a little something of my background. Just that I'm activist-oriented, really. They jump to conclusions too easily for me to tell them anymore. So with all this talk of joining groups and "doing the right thing," I felt damn near obligated to go. I didn't want to be a "do as I say, not as I do" kind of teacher. I wanted to do it anyway, though. When I got there, the crowd was pretty big. I surveyed everything, and then stepped to the front and asked one of the girls if she'd like me to take over the sheet she'd been holding to block one of the disgusting signs for hours. I also took one of her signs and held it up. She was very grateful. And then a few other people stepped forward, and a few more after that.

I learned from my last protest experience, that the symbol of somebody stepping forward "from the crowd" is a very powerful one. People want to do something, but are too scared to make the first move. Once somebody breaks the ice, lots of people will follow. I was very impressed with the students. They weren't violent. They jeered the people, but didn't attempt to tear up their stuff. But I was especially impressed with our fem group. This protest was planned, but not advertised outside of their own web site. So, the gals really didn't have time to prepare. When they first got news of it, they immediately dropped everything, and grabbed sheets to cover the signs, posters of their own, etc. It was quite the effort, with no preparation before hand. Our president was right up on the steps with the holy-haters--unafraid and a calm, steady rock--with her own sign, which she used to block much of what they were trying to do. Here's a snapshot of Britt in an altercation with one of them: Don't touch, you dumb bastard!


I'll try to find a better link, because I believe that link will change in 24 hours. I was about 2 feet from the guy's right thigh, as that was the third time he grabbed for her stuff, and I thought he was going to hit her. I was headed his way yelling "Don't touch her, you dumb shit," with one foot up on the wall they were standing on when the cops came running through the flower beds. Happily, there isn't an embarassing picture of me standing with the guy, being escorted away.

I was also impressed with the range of students who showed up for this. Some claiming to be Christian, some shouting they were atheists (like that helps a fundy change), gay and straight, every sort of major, every sort of personality. There was one dude there who was wearing a red shirt with a hammer & sickle on it. Not sure why some kids go in for that sort of thing. Fundies will tend to lump everyone together when they see symbols like that. "Oh, look, they're commie atheists!!" Sigh. To each his own. But there was quite the range of students.

I know that prevailing wisdom, some of it circulating on our listservs when those in charge realized what was going on, says not to engage groups like that. That the more effective way of shutting them down is to ignore them. I disagree with that, and I always have. Ignoring the religious right got us an incompetent president and the worst times we've seen in years on many fronts. The "silent majority" is NOT the way to go. People need visual symbols of what is possible, visual confirmation that those people do not represent the way to do things. That's what it means to step out of the crowd and say "How can I help." Students were bringing other fems in the protest bottles of water and such. It's about how you can individually contribute. Walking on by tells the crowd you just don't care. Stepping forward says you care enough to make it known. Go girls!!



-- Virgil

Edit: Here is a better link from the school newspaper. No danger of this one going away. Woman standing up for her rights to a natty old white man who has no uterus anyway.

Virgil's Student Haiku

Two students have dropped
Satisfied, teacher waves goodbye
Try again next year

Overheard in Class...

We recently did peer review for their first paper, due this coming Tuesday. Peer review, for those who haven't had the displeasure of sitting through it, is where you workshop your paper amongst your peers. In order to keep people from basically writing "this sux!!1!" and drawing stick figures or our school name all over other people's papers, I always give them "jobs" to do during peer review. I actively work them all class period; they actually end up getting something out if it, but it was initially designed to get them to figure out how to give constructive feedback instead of dicking around. I label each job: Person 1, Person 2, Person 3. I list the duties under each "person". The goal is to get in groups of about four people, and pass your paper to your immediate left. So the first paper you see, you'll do the job of person 1. When you're all finished, you'll pass it once again, and the second paper you read you'll do the job of person 2, and so forth.

During peer review for my first group, I overheard one girl say to another girl whose paper she'd just finished: "Whoops. I think I just did #1 and #2 on your paper."

Scatological jokes. They get me every time. I couldn't help but think, "That's OK. Her paper's probably crap anyway. Piss on it."

-- Virgil

Let Me Clear My Throat

If I may, and, well, I may, because it's my damn blog...

I started out typing this in the comment section of the previous post, and I realized that it was quickly becoming WAY too long for a comment. There is quite a bit of debate within academia about the "business model" of the university, with administrators being "pro" and professors usually being "anti", generally speaking of course. Here is my own two cents on the matter.

I think the push to turn universities into businesses is a terrible idea. Students are already so overly consumer minded that they believe they pay for grades, when what they really pay for is my time. The trade off is their cash for my expertise. They almost to the man think that their cash is a trade off for an A. A business model, especially one based on the American capitalist system, assumes that businesses (universities) will have to compete for customers (students), and that free competition will somehow create better businesses.

Here's the problem with that. Student customers are, well, uneducated. Otherwise they wouldn't be coming to school, obviously, they'd already know everything. Or, they'd go to a trade school and learn only those things which they had to know to perform the job. A college education assumes you're getting a "well-rounded" education, and students aren't always the best judge of what makes good civic and intelligent citizens. They often don't know what they want to learn until they try it (which is why so many of them end up switching majors two or three times), and they often don't appreciate difficult professors until they're finished with the class. Often they'll end up saying things like "I really hated Professor X, but three years later I realize the value in why he made me do such and such." Universities already use a form of "customer satisfaction" surveys in the evaluations that students have to fill out at the end of each course. What students often put in these surveys doesn't match what the teacher is actually doing in the classroom. In other words, if students really disliked Professor X, were thrilled to get out of his class, and ripped him a new one on his evaluations, the logical conclusion is that Professor X is bad for university business, and he should be fired. Turns out these same kids, though, three years later decide that Professor X's strategy was what really taught them about critical thinking, or lab work, or whatever. Unfortunately, Prof X has already been out of a job for three years, because the business model says "The customer is always right." Most of the time in education, they are not.

Witness the fact that many universities are cutting out their Classics programs and sometimes their entire philosophy departments. Why? Because the number of students taking the classes doesn't justify the cost of keeping the department going. After all, who needs philosophy? And what linguist in his right mind would bother taking Latin? It is a dead language, after all, isn't it? Universities could so easily reroute the fate of these courses and have them packed out simply by requiring philosophy, for example, as part of your liberal arts core. But they often don't require it, and almost always that decision is made because the student customer isn't interested in it and because the administration is made up of businessmen rather than academics, or a decent mix of both. And so many students miss out on something vital to their "well-rounded" education just because they don't like the look of Logic 101. The customer is always right.

Education is not particularly suited to a capitalistic business model, because the process of learning is not about transactions. Quite frankly, it's not my job to wipe their asses, and that's what the consumer model of education is all about. I'm not carrying shit to their car, metaphorically speaking. Students don't learn by having me do all of the heavy lifting. Learning isn't a transaction, like so many other capitalistic metaphors are about. It's an evolution.

As such, I really don't care if they're "satisfied", because so much in education requires you to dig down within yourself to be satisfied with your learning. It is true that there are bad teachers, and I'm not insinuating that students are completely ignorant and cannot tell the difference whatsoever. I do, after all, teach Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is aimed at educational practices. But so many students use such incredibly ludicrous standards to judge a professor (believe me, I've read plenty of evaluations, although mine are almost always good)--they are rarely in a position to understand why teachers make certain pedagogical decisions. They often judge the teacher's personality rather than the presentation of the material, and that is what is so dangerous about putting the "end user" solely in charge of the direction of the university.

And quite honestly, the results of them having been "in charge" of universities are very, very apparent. Philosophy departments gutted and gone are but one example. The best example? Students kept complaining about how "hard" the analogy part of the SATs were. So the SATs got rid of it, and the colleges didn't even make a fuss. That's just like..........well....it's similar to........well, geez, not having learned how to make a proper analogy, I really can't finish the sentence, can I??

The reason universities stink today is because we've lowered our standards, not because it's easier for people to afford them. Sure, there are some people who are totally blowing through their government loan or their scholarship money, and it would probably be better spent on somebody else. But students wouldn't feel so entitled to a college degree if their parents and their society didn't cuddle them from the time they were babies to think they deserved everything for absolutely no good reason. They don't know how to work any more. I've seen it slip from the time I've been an undergraduate, and people, that's not really been all that long ago.

If we keep lowering our standards, our kids will keep sinking to meet them.

-- Virgil

*And MD, no, I'm not pissed at you. I'm just declaring my position.

Semesterly Smackdown!

While a few of the kids in my class are growing on me, most of them are growing like an out of control foot fungus. Where's the Tough Actin' Tinactin?? Here are some of those emails I wish I could write:

To the dullard in the back row: If I find you catching flies with your mouth again, I am personally going to pop a paper wad into the yawning vacuum!

To Ms. M: You make me uneasy. Maybe it was the fact that you came up and shook my hand and said "Thank you" on the first day of class. Weird. Maybe it's the fact that your head nods yes and your mouth smiles after everything I say when your eyes so very clearly yell, "I don't get it!" I am strongly suspicious that you will become that student at the end of the semester who argues so passionately and so unconvincingly as to why your B+ is really an A.

To the row of future fast food managers: Aggressive apathy does not equal participation. Nor will resentful glares at both me and the material help you understand either thing. It will, however, make you a wonderful middle manager when you decide in about a year that college just isn't "your thing." Dudes.

To A: I find it a sad omen of things to come that when I lobbed you the softball of writing an introductory assignment using your own opinion, you promptly went and plagiarized an entire web page. This does not bode well. However, dropping the news to you in a cheery and enthusiastic voice in order to watch the color drain from your face when you were oh-so busted was quite delightful.

Repeat Offenders: I don't know why some other instructor failed you the first time (or two) around. But I can certainly posit why I probably will. When you can't manage to come to class when class has barely even begun, giggle at your fellow losers, chew on your pencil instead of applying it to page, talk in a loud mock whisper as though I can't hear, and/or sleep in class....well, you get the picture. You obviously have already framed some of them from previous semesters. Get ready to add one more photo to your Album of Failure.


Geez. Is it winter break yet?

-- Virgil